3 THE PURPOSE AND PROCESSES OF ENGAGEMENT
3.1 How and why public authorities should be engaging with community groups, including disability organisations, was set out in The National Standards for Community Engagement, published by Communities Scotland in 2005. This defined community engagement as:
"Developing and sustaining a working relationship between one or more public body and one or more community group, to help them both to understand and act on the needs or issues that the community experiences".
3.2 This section looks at why and how disability organisations engage and the level of influence they feel they have on public authorities.
Why do disability organisations engage with public authorities?
3.3 All organisations taking part in the qualitative research were asked to describe their type and level of engagement with public authorities. Disability organisations gave the following reasons for their engagement with public authorities.
3.4 National disability organisations said they engage with public authorities to:
- help public authorities with their disability equality duties
- be 'in at the start' of policy-making
- develop and promote specific initiatives or projects, e.g. carer-led inspections
- respond to consultations
- provide training
3.5 Service provider organisations said that they engage with public authorities to:
- influence local service delivery
- make sure their voice is heard
- influence changes in policy
- respond to consultations
- raise awareness
3.6 Panels/forums said that they engage with public authorities to:
- undertake access audits
- influence, advise or comment on policy and practice (e.g. via advisory groups)
- respond to consultations
3.7 Volunteer-led disability organisations said that they engage with public authorities to:
- provide training
- take up ad hoc issues on behalf of disabled people
- respond to consultations
- network and share information
3.8 Disability organisations have a range of reasons for engaging with public authorities. Common to all types of organisation is the aim of influencing policy development and/or implementation.
How do disability organisations engage and what influence do they have?
3.9 Influence exerted by disability organisations varies by the individual public body, issue and type of public body engaged with.
3.10 National disability organisations are more likely than local disability organisations to engage with public authorities at a national level and are involved in bodies such as cross party groups, strategic level groups on particular issues/topics and national forums. Some have regular meetings with civil servants and local and national politicians.
3.11 National disability organisations were more likely than other types of disability organisations to say they are consulted on national policy. Some national organisations had been established specifically to influence and campaign and some large national organisations have posts specifically for research, policy and parliamentary affairs:
"I'm the policy and parliamentary affairs manager so my job is in relation to trying to influence, primarily, government." (National organisation)
3.12 Others, however, were more focused on service provision and prioritise their engagement according to the topic:
"We'd be regularly invited to respond to a consultation by the government…we have to decide whether this is a priority for our organisation, given the lack of resources, or the few resources we have." (National organisation)
3.13 Some national organisations are operating at a purely national level. However those with local branches or associations engage with local or regional public authorities through these:
"It would be impossible for us to involve ourselves in all 32 local authorities...so what we do is put them in contact with their local [client group] organisation... and they can nominate people to get involved in their forums." (National organisation)
3.14 Others, however, do not have this structure and may try to influence at a local level by uniting with other organisations with similar aims:
"At the moment, with other [client group] organisations, we are working on how to influence local government in terms of ensuring that our client group are included in single outcome agreements" (National organisation)
3.15 National disability organisations were more likely to feel that they were having an influence than local organisations but they said it varied:
"We have high influence with the Care Commission and SWIA and mid level with local authorities and health boards" (National organisation)
3.16 A few local service providers are on national groups, either representing their own organisation or a wider forum (for example Community Care Providers Scotland). Other service providers are mainly on local authority or NHS strategic groups, partnership groups, fora and/or joint planning groups. Some service providers are engaged with public authorities via direct lines of communication with key people. Many service providers said they get invited to respond to consultations.
3.17 Only a few service providers said they had a good level of influence overall. Many said they had good contacts with their funding body and a small number described their contacts as infrequent or ad hoc. For most it varied according to the public body or the topic. However, some felt they had very little influence at all:
"It's better with other local authorities than with the city authority" (Service provider)
"We have some good ways of influencing e.g. the strategy group. But there's been a lack of engagement about our contract." (Service provider)
3.18 Panels/forums generally have most of their engagement with their local authority. Others have close links with their local authority and also did wide-ranging joint work with the NHS, the police and fire services and other public authorities such as the Benefits Agency, local college and transport authorities. Most panels/forums said that they are invited to respond to consultations, some of which are at national level. Locally, most panels/forums generally felt they had limited influence:
"Our contacts are willing and friendly but you have to nag" (Panel/forum member)
3.19 Volunteer-led organisations tend to engage via local groups, networks or fora, although two organisations were not engaged with any local groups. Some volunteer-led organisations described more face-to-face contact with services at frontline level. Few volunteer-led organisations said that they had responded to either national or local consultations. Volunteer-led organisations also reported variable levels of influence. Those that were not funded by their local public authorities felt that they had less influence because of that:
"We feel we would have more influence if we had funding and a contract" (Volunteer-led organisation)
"We have contact with physios and nurses who are working with children that we actually work with, but that's not at a strategic level, that's at a practical level" (Volunteer led organisation)
3.20 Some described increased influence via their links with local councillors:
"His inside knowledge as a councillor is vital to the running of the organisation" (volunteer-led organisation)
Public authority consultations
3.21 A number of comments were made during the research about formal consultation processes. A small number are given in Box 1. The main issues raised by the disability organisations were the lack of time to respond, the scale of request (e.g. size of documents sent to read) and the number of requests made to them by public authorities. Many reported that the size of their organisation, its core workload and priorities meant that requests to consult in this way had to be rushed or ignored in some cases.
Box 1: Comments on consultations |
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"The paperwork that comes down is outrageous. I confess to not reading half of it sometimes because its just too much…the government hands out stuff and you have to respond virtually instantaneously and it is just pointless ….you often contribute to consultations, you never hear anything back, you never see any difference and eventually you think, why do I bother?" (Volunteer led organisation) "I have to say though there can be just a torrent of consultations that you're asked to take part in and you could really spend your full time wading through and giving comment. And I think you have to prioritise." (Service provider organisation) |
Awareness of National Standards
3.22 Of the 60 organisations interviewed for this project only seven were definitely aware of the National Standards for Community Engagement. Two of these were national organisations. Among those not aware of the National Standards, when asked about them, a number demonstrated confusion as to what the Standards are, referring instead to, for example, local compacts, equalities duty and the work of the Care Commission.
3.23 This is a very low level of awareness of the National Standards for Community Engagement by disability organisations. Many organisations described poor experiences that were meant to have been addressed by the introduction of the standards of engagement:
"And you still see the occasional examples of public meetings being held in inaccessible premises and that is just lack of forethought. Officers are arranging venues without thinking is the access level, is there a disabled toilet, is there close proximity parking to the building etcetera etcetera and I am afraid it still happens that public meetings are held in the most inappropriate places" (Volunteer-led organisation)
3.24 Disability organisations still experience and witness policies, practices and attitudes within public authorities that impact on the level of engagement and influence that they could achieve.