Whistling in the darkness of inequality

In our superfast communications age - although people yet to be born will laugh [just like those Smash eejits] at what we now think of as superfast - where such as Google can remind you what you had for breakfast this time last year, how many pairs of shoes you bought in the sales last week, and might even have completed and submitted the census form on your behalf - we can't get a hold of data which tells us if government action on delivering disability equality is really making a difference to disabled people.

You would imagine that government would want to be rushing the statistics out on a quarterly basis to show how the world - well, our small corner of the world - is really a better place for disabled people under their leadership - and that it will get even better this time next year.  

You would imagine it would be easy, after all these years of good practice, legal obligations, the moral case, the business case, for us to routinely know and for us to be able to easily find out without the tedious fan dance of a Freedom of Information request, for instance, how many disabled people are in the Scottish Cabinet.  You would imagine.

Scottish Cabinet at accessible Bute House

You might also imagine that, by this time, we would know what disabled people think about, say, audiology services provided in their health board area.  For some disabled people with hearing impairments, the quality and accessibility of these services could be crucial to their daily lives.  It would also be good to know if their experience of these services has changed for the better over, say, the last 5 years, or has it got worse?  We don’t know.  The information is not being gathered.  I know.  I am a disabled person with a profound hearing impairment. 

And don’t bother asking Nicola Sturgeon if she knows.  She doesn’t.  Her officials will tell you that she/they do not hold this information centrally.

Nicola Sturgeon

Some of you reading this blog will know that the employment rate for disabled people is dire, shameful, and deeply embarrassing for government.  It is also a dehumanising experience for the many disabled people who are out of work.  Just 50% of disabled people are in work, compared to 80% of non-disabled people being in work.  The Shaw Trust can give you a shed load more on what that means for people.

You would imagine then, given this level of structural and institutional discrimination, the years of good practice, legal obligations, the moral case, the business case, the myriad of 3-year £multi-million funded projects, the constant tweaking of the benefit support systems, that we should by now routinely know, or it should at least be easy for us to find out, for instance, just how many disabled people are employed in all 32 local authorities and 22 health boards in Scotland.  That could help us work out who is doing well and so help other public bodies do better.  You would imagine.

That alone would not be enough.  We would need to know how the numbers and percentages have changed over the last 5 or 10 years.  We would need to know how many disabled people are in senior positions [say earning over £30,000?] in local government and in the health service, and how all of that has changed in the last 5 or 10 years.  This kind of data would help us know what was working, what wasn't working, and what we needed to change.  It would provide government with integrity when it engages, yet again, with disabled people over plans to change and improve what life will be like tomorrow, always tomorrow.

Don’t bother asking Nicola Sturgeon if she knows.  She doesn’t.

In case you are wondering if I am randomly picking on Nicola, I am not.  She is the Cabinet Minister in Scotland with responsibility for equality.

But she doesn’t know if the work of her government, the work of local government, the work of the health service, is actually delivering real, measurable, person-centred improvements in the life experiences of Scotland's disabled people.  Without this kind of data, we don’t know if things are changing for the better for disabled people.  Without this data, things could be getting made worse for disabled people.  We don’t know.

There are many indicators we can use to gauge just how serious government is in tackling equality.  One of them is – or should be - easy access to good quality, reliable, person-centred data.  It is not there.

Another would be to drop into government’s web site and browse what they say they have been doing on equality.

Try it.  Get a feel for the urgency with which government is tackling inequality and discrimination.  Or, as it says itself:

This part of the Scottish Government website aims to give an overview of work being undertaken by the Government to promote equality and inclusion for disabled people, and also provides information about how the Government is meeting its duties under legislation.

Scroll down to the bottom of that page.  Read the date when government had anything new to say about what they had been doing on disability equality or what successes had been achieved for disabled people.  September 2009.

If you believe government is doing a good job on delivering disability equality for Scotland’s disabled people, do please let Nicola know.  It is only right we should encourage government.

If on the other hand you believe disabled people have been betrayed by government and that the sloth-like pace of change, amply illustrated in the government’s own web site, is unacceptable, do please let Nicola know.

She and her Cabinet colleagues are there to serve the people of Scotland and to meet the legal duties they have to deliver equality in all that they do.  There is no evidence that they are meeting those duties.  Government is whistling in the dark.