Disabled people as co-producers of BCC's new Single Equalities strategy?

BDN has been running a series of consultation meetings on behalf of the Birmingham City Council.  Participants were asked to share their views on the services provided by Birmingham City Council. BCC wants to consult disabled people before writing its new Sinble Equalities Strategy.

At a consultation meeting on March 19th there was a general consensus from disable participants that consultation is not the most effective means by which to involve disable people in this process.  The argument was made that disabled people want to be co-producers of BCC's new strategy and we recommended that the priority of the first year should be finding ways to make this happen. 

What do you think about this as a priority?

If you agree with it, can you suggest ways in which BDN might help to make this happen?

If you agree with it, can you suggest ways in which BDN might help to make this happen?

Below is a proposal in an initial exploratory form aimed at stimulating further discussion, which came out of the meeting on the 19th March and has been written by the event facilitator Bob Williams-Findlay. In this proposal Bob raises the point that this should not be a one-off consultation with Birmingham City Council but that their duty should include the ongoing involvement of disabled people and organsiations run by disabled people.

Introduction

This paper outlines a proposal to be made to the Deaf and disabled communities in Birmingham. The proposal stems from a discussion among a small group of disabled people involved in a consultation event run by the Birmingham Disability Network on behalf of Birmingham City Council and concerned the development of its new Single Equality Scheme.

Having choice and control over one's life, accessing employment and services, or having the opportunity to influence how the City is run requires an end to the type of inequalities experienced by Deaf and disabled people and the removal of disabling barriers which prevent their participation. During the course of the discussion it was argued that Deaf and disabled people, despite the Disability Discrimination Act and other legislation, still felt excluded from or marginal within mainstream social and decision making activities. The old slogan Nothing about us, without us raised by the Disabled People's Movement remains as valid today as it did when both the Birmingham Disability Rights Group and the Birmingham Coalition of Disabled People existed.

For Deaf and disabled people to influence decision making or ensure the right measures are taken to dismantle barriers, they need to be able to exercise a voice - not forced to rely on public bodies or service providers to speak or act upon their behalf. Involvement and empowerment would enable disabled people to sit down and work with public bodies or service providers to build an inclusive Birmingham.

Deaf and disabled people face individual barriers, but it is the design and management of structural and organisational nature of the City that tends to create the major disabling barriers and to tackle these Deaf and disabled people need to work together collectively in order to help find solutions.

Moving forward

Collective working will not happen over night. The Birmingham Deaf community has a history of mutual support and sense of "community"; whereas the communities of disabled people are divided by traditional impairment focused services and charities, the negative impact of how disabled people are viewed within society leads to some people not identifying with being 'disabled'; and, of course, there have also been infighting taking place among some sections of the disabled community. Unless these issues are addressed it is difficult to see how disabled people in Birmingham can have a voice and an influence within the City.

Disabled people coming together in small groups to be 'consulted' by public bodies or service providers offer little reward because often they cover the same ground again and again or try to reinvent to wheel! The prospect of a new Equality Act, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the need to influence the Council's Single Equality Scheme offers disabled people an opportunity to break with the past and to make a fresh start.

The proposal is to encourage Birmingham City Council as part of its Scheme and Birmingham Disability Network as service providers, to support disabled people in organising a year long "disability dialogue". The aim of the "disability dialogue" would be to employ a variety of different formats to enable disabled people in the City to explore issues important and relevant to them. In order to avoid reinventing the wheel ourselves part of the proposal includes revisiting the Blueprint for Birmingham and consider how relevant the issues are a decade on.