Scottish Government

5 ENGAGEMENT BY PUBLIC AUTHORITIES

Introduction

5.1 Many disability organisations acknowledged that legislation such as the Disability Discrimination Act had gone a long way towards promoting engagement.

5.2 There were various factors identified by disability organisations which can appear to enhance or detract from engagement by public authorities. These factors can be categorised into three main groups of characteristics:

• People and attitudes
• Engagement policy and practice
• Structure and legislation

People in public authorities

5.3 Having strong leadership, a commitment to engagement and people with the right skills and knowledge is crucial for public authorities to engage effectively with disability organisations.

5.4 Many disability organisations explained their levels of influence in relation to their ability to build relationships with the 'right people' who were aware of the issues and had decision-making powers. Conversely, when there was a high turnover of staff or bureaucratic structures which made it difficult to identify the 'right' person, this created a barrier to engagement:

"It's the buy-in from the public body and its leadership as well. I think one of the barriers to participation is leadership ... and lack of awareness... people just don't get it, you know? …so quite often the barriers are a lack of communication, lack of top-level buy in" (National organisation)

"When these new people came into post [at the public body], they were listening to us and they were taking an interest in what it was we were trying to do. We found that the relationship changed almost overnight." (National organisation)

Where there is a lack of skills or awareness, it is important that the public body puts this right through training, for example disability equality training. 'Learning lessons' is another principle of effective engagement.

5.5 The attitudes of people in public authorities to disability and disability organisations can be a barrier to engagement, or it can facilitate engagement:

"It's obviously down to the personnel who work in these organisations and the way they go about their job. But the absolute main barrier is people's attitudes. If people come here with a negative attitude, it's going to be a hard job to persuade them differently…nobody has got either the will or the ability to think outside the box" (National organisation)

"To have participation, you have to be consulting as widely as possible, to be transparent and you have to show a lot of good will for things to happen and change, be committed to making things change" (National organisation)

Engagement policy and practice

5.6 Disability organisations gave many examples of poor engagement practices including short timescales for meetings and large amounts of paperwork sent out at the last minute; poor access for disabled people (for example, lack of respite care, communication or other support to take part, not paying expenses); and overloading organisations with consultations which are full of jargon and not action focused:

"I think access to communication is key. If there isn't access to communication then it's a waste of time my going. I can only access forums if they provide interpreters. The meeting papers need to come to me in advance, not on the day…and those people chairing the meeting need to make sure that people are not speaking on top of one another…but most importantly, people need to learn to put their hands up when asking questions…I've often just blown my top in meetings ..they forget that deaf people are not able to access the meeting unless there is turn taking…it's a struggle sometimes to get in." (National organisation)

"There's a huge, huge amount of talking about stuff without actually ever doing anything, and I think that, in terms of the people we work with, that does them a huge disservice - they don't need to be talked about, what they need is for things to improve" (Service provider)

5.7 However, one disability organisation gave an example of an engagement process that had been properly managed, which was attributed to the skills of the public body representative:

"The patient involvement officer at our local health board has got it totally sussed. Go to her for a master class. She gives you enough notice of meetings, she tells you what she wants you to do, she sends you paperwork, she ran the meeting on time, she had proper comfort breaks…by the end of it she had a flipchart of our suggestions and we all voted on them...the meeting had a summary at the end which we all understood and could agree to…she wrote back to us with the finished article and said this has been approved by the board. That's how you're supposed to do it." (Volunteer-led organisation)

5.8 One representative of a national disability organisation explained how, if the initial commitment to engage was genuine, other good engagement practice flows from this:

"A key factor is how genuine they are in their desire to engage. You know, is it something that they feel they have to do, in which case they can go anywhere…is it something that's going to make them look good, or are they genuinely interested in what people have got to say? And I do think that communicates itself when that's the case because, there will be a flow of information, things will be explained properly, papers will appear…. some of the more effective ones are where…you have a team there who will talk to you and set aside a whole afternoon for this, actually structure the meeting appropriately." (National organisation)

5.9 Disability organisations described how the process of engagement, and influence, was not always related directly enough to the outcomes. One disability organisation said:

"There's a difference between influence and impact…I think with public authorities we can influence them but the power still doesn't lie really with voluntary sector organisations…They could agree with us and want it, but unless the money's there, nothing can happen with it". (Service provider)

5.10 Disability organisations recognised that public authorities need to commit resources to ensure proper engagement. These include resources in terms of skilled personnel as well as the time and money to involve people, for example, providing accessible venues, communication and other support, expenses and transport.

5.11 As well as providing resources for proper engagement, public authorities should also provide the resources to deliver outcomes. Where change doesn't happen, it can create a loss of faith on the part of disability organisations about whether the public body is genuinely committed to the full engagement process. This issue reflects the principle of community engagement being outcome oriented, i.e. 'leading to meaningful and tangible outcomes - and not as an end-in-itself'. One disability organisation gave an example of a consultation process which was not outcome oriented:

"Well, they are closing down x hospital and moving all the patients to y. Our carers certainly felt that the decision was already made before the consultation event, because at the event they had answers for everything. So I think a lot of them think this is a tick box event, this is just for them to say, 'yeah, we've consulted', when actually all they've done is explained, you know, things that are already happening, it's done and dusted so what's the point?" (Service provider)

Public body structures

5.12 Disability organisations listed a number of factors relating to the organisational structures of public authorities. They cover a range of issues and are listed in Box 10. The scale, scope and complexity of the organisational structures of public authorities can impact on the capacity of disability organisations to engage.

5.13 Some disability organisations discussed how broad policy changes can hamper efforts to engage, for example, the increased emphasis on risk assessment mitigating against policies on increasing community-based support; changes in the relationship between national and local government brought about by Single Outcome Agreements ( SOAs); and the introduction of locality or neighbourhood planning.

5.14 A panel/forum had found that the change to neighbourhood planning in their area had made it harder to engage:

"We've gone into this set-up now where there's three neighbourhoods…it makes it harder for us because you don't really know where to go…it has not been a good situation for us because where we could feed into the council there, we now have to feed into the council all over the place". (Service provider)