DPTAC Communication Strategy

Aim

1. We are the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC). Our Communication Strategy sets out a plan for effective communication with our target audiences, to deliver our aim. We aim to ensure that disabled people can travel where everyone else goes with the same quality of travel experience, at no greater cost, and encountering no additional barriers. We want to ensure that significant changes occur to transport before 2020.

2. We wish to lead the debate, influence the government and other stakeholders, and the climate in which policy and investment decisions that affect disabled people are made. We also wish to see disabled people become more aware of changes to transport, and themselves contribute to policy development and evaluation, in line with the new disability equality duty on public bodies.

3. This strategy sets out how we will use communication methods to take forward our work. It covers our own influencing and informing activities, and the means by which we will take into account the views and perspectives of others in developing our work.

Background

4. Ministers set up DPTAC in 1986 to provide independent advice to government on the transport needs of all disabled people. DPTAC's purpose is to advise the government on how to remove the widespread problems, inequalities and disadvantages that Great Britain's 10 million disabled people face in using transport.

5. As far as our first objective allows, we will provide guidance and advice to public and private sector organisations that provide, plan for, manage and regulate transport facilities, information, infrastructure, networks and services on how best to meet the varying needs for public and private transport of all disabled people, taking account of gender, race, faith, sexuality, age and other relevant factors.

6. To the extent that our resources and higher priorities allow, we will also work to ensure that the public and private sector organisations which provide, plan for and regulate transport facilities, information, networks and services inform disabled people of the developments that they make in accessible transport.

Target audiences

7. The four main targets of our communications are (i) central government; (ii) the transport industries and regulatory systems, including local government; (iii) disabled people and the organisations which represent them; and (iv) internally our own membership.

Government

8. Our primary purpose is to advise government, (mainly Ministers and officials in the Department for Transport and its agencies and the devolved administrations). This happens through formal consultations on changes to the law and to regulation, increasingly through informal consultation on developing policies, and meetings between our members and Ministers and officials. In these ways, we develop the government's awareness of how inclusive transport systems and issues relate to the government's own objectives. We will also make use of opportunities not available to many other disability organisations such as appearing before Select Committees.

Transport industries

9. We also aspire to influence those who provide transport, the institutions (including local government) that regulate it, and the staff who operate systems and services. Over one million people work in the transport sector. Every one of them will affect access for disabled people, through everything from their driving behaviour on buses to strategic investment decisions.

10. Such influence involves inward communication, involving industry in our sector specific working groups. This ensures that our advice is realistic, timely and actionable. We also need to disseminate the results of its work outward to the sectors, including companies, regulators, and trade unions. Our website and specific publications will be a resource for everyone working towards providing inclusive transport.

Disabled people and their organisations

11. We need to let people know about our work, and engage them in developing advice. However, we cannot hope to communicate with more than a few disabled people or disability organisations directly within our current resources without compromising our key function of advice to government. We will make use of data and perspectives gathered by other bodies such as disability organisations and the Department for Transport during the development of its Disability Equality Scheme. We will continue to develop links with umbrella organisations of and for disabled people. These groups can help disseminate information further through their own channels.

12. In addition, as resources permit, we will carry out our own consultations and particularly use the website www.dptac.gov.uk to seek views on relevant issues and information needs. We will consider how best to improve our site as a resource for disabled people, without duplicating the work of others such as the Commission for Equality and Human Rights. Because not everyone has access to the internet, we will continue to make publications freely available in a range of formats. We aspire to resume the use of methods, such as regional meetings with access groups, to encourage disabled people to feed in their concerns and priorities, when resources again permit this. Meanwhile we will continue too make use of material produced buy other disability related organisations.

13. We will not advise on or take up individual cases or complaints. These are outside our role, and are the function of others, whose details we publish on our website. However, we will ensure that we are aware of the issues of importance to disabled people and where transport makes things difficult.

Internally within DPTAC

14. We will continue to ensure that communications with our members is accessible, clear and timely. We will review the potential that e-communities offer for effective and efficient communication between members in the light of our experience. We will continue to contribute to those communication costs incurred by members which arise from their DPTAC responsibilities.

Means of communication

15. Our main means of disseminating and gathering information to develop the quality of our work are set out below, and Annex A shows how these relate to our target audiences.

Articles and presentations

16. We will provide articles, directory entries, speeches and presentations on our work where this is appropriate, and those seeking them give sufficient notice, and where member and Secretariat availability and resources allow. We only actively seek such opportunities where we have a specific message targeted to a particular audience. We will develop and maintain a generic presentation for members to use for such purposes, and develop timely briefing on key issues.

Annual Report

17. We are required to report annually to the Secretary of State for Transport. We take this opportunity to summarise the range of our work in an Annual Report intended for all three of our external communications targets.

Consultation responses

18. One of the most important ways that we communicate with government id by responding to consultation. In future, we will publish these on our website where they are comprehensible as freestanding documents and unless there are over-riding reasons for confidentiality. Wherever possible we will give permission to those consulting to publish its responses. Increasingly, in keeping with our Strategy, we are successfully influencing policy development at earlier stages of consideration. It is not usually possible to place this work in the public domain as it takes placed before the government makes announcements of policy. However, we will disseminate what details we can about the scope and effectiveness of the influence we exert.

Freedom of information

19. We have developed a publication schedule as required under the law, and we will respond in a full and timely manner to freedom of information requests. At the time of writing, two have been made (one per year).

E-Community

20. We will review the use of our e-community for members, in order to assess how well it helps us to communicate with one another effectively, quickly and efficiently between face-to-face meetings.

Meeting others

21. We will meet representatives of other organisations where this helps to fulfil our objectives. This will include overseas visitors where resources permit and where their focus and purpose reflect DPTAC's own objectives and scope.

Events, launches and seminars

22. From time to time we sponsor or help organise events dealing with research, policy and other issues, where these are likely to be effective and offer value for money. We will use such events as ways of raising its own profile and communicating key messages. For example, we will attend the 2007 Mobility Roadshow.

Endorsements

23. We have developed a policy on endorsements that sets our criteria initiatives must meet if DPTAC is to consider supporting them. These are set out at Annex B.

Mass media enquiries

24. We are likely to continue to be invited to provide a comment on relevant issues by a range of media, and will make every effort ensure members are available to comment on behalf of the Committee where sufficient notice is given. However many media inquiries are likely to need to be turned around to a shorter timescale than a volunteer led organisation like DPTAC can accommodate. We will also proactively use mass media such as magazines, newspapers, websites, television and radio, by requesting interviews and submitting copy as appropriate.

Meetings

25. As well as developing policy, our main meetings are an important means of communicating with key organisations represented by observers, and with the wider community through minutes, which are published on our website. To make meetings manageable, we have no plans to open meetings to a wider range of observers.

26. We have experimented successfully with holding a Main Committee meeting outside London, coupled with meeting local disabled people. However, reductions in our staff resource mean that we have not carried forward this work, focussing rather on our core objective.

Press notices

27. The Department for Transport Press Office issues our press releases also published on www.dptac.gov.uk and www.info4local.gov.uk, a site that provides information from central government to local government. We will seek similar opportunities to widen awareness of our work in promoting an inclusive transport.

Publications

28. We issue a range of publications on specific issues, which are freely available in a range of formats on www.dptac.gov.uk, DfT Free Literature or from the secretariat. These will continue to be a major way of disseminating the results of work in specific areas that we undertake. We are in the process of a systematic review of our publications, in the light of information that is available elsewhere, and the extent to which the content needs to be updated.

Position statements

29. We have developed a series of position papers. These are proactively statements of policy on topics such as road pricing, taxis, concessionary fares and shopmobility. These ensure that we have an up to date policy potion on emerging policy areas.

Website: www.dptac.gov.uk

30. We launched www.dptac.gov.uk in July 2001. It is a well-used site, and we will develop it further as a resource about our achievements and plans. It will continue to help us to communicate with disabled people and those in the transport industries.

31. The site includes background information on each mode of transport, recent publications, consultation responses and press releases.

32. Our Door to Door website is a resource for disabled people. While we cannot deal with complaints when things go wrong, we can help to prepare disabled people for their own travel.

Summary

33. We wish to be open about our activities and to include a range of perspectives in developing advice.

34. This strategy outlines an approach that reflects our desire to use publicity proactively and selectively to achieve our strategic objectives. It focuses on the use of virtual and physical publications, as well as developing links with government officials and representatives of industry and disabled people.

Annex A: TABLE SHOWING WHICH COMMUNICATION METHODS ARE MOST APPROPRIATE TO WHICH STRATEGY OBJECTIVES

X = low impact XX =- medium impact XXX = high impact

Annex B: Endorsement of publications and events by DPTAC

Because of DPTAC's profile in transport and disability, from time to time we are asked to support publications or events, often at short notice. People seek permission to use the DPTAC name and logo on the publication, for a statement of support, if we will speak at an event, or to place the document, or links to it, on the DPTAC website.

However, by selectively endorsing appropriate events and publications, we can help to raise the profile of initiatives that help to achieve DPTAC's objectives on disability and transport. Our support will be effective to the extent that we are fairly selective about when and how we offer it. We should therefore not endorse all the material that we simply approve of.

At the same time, DPTAC needs to avoid giving the impression that certain organisations and individuals have an inside track to DPTAC endorsement because they know or are associated with our Members.

Endorsement will be based on events and publications (including websites) that meet all of the following criteria:

• They take forward at least one of DPTAC's five strategic priorities.
• DPTAC has contributed to creating and developing them.
• They are to some extent innovative or original.
• DPTAC was notified of them in time for DPTAC to reach a considered decision.
• The document is to be made available in a full range of accessible formats if it is aimed at disabled people.

The Secretariat will apply the criteria to requests made, referring to Working Group Chairs and the Chairman of DPTAC as appropriate if it is recommended to offer endorsement.

Website links

Where bodies wish to make a link from their website to the DPTAC website, permission be given (unless the site has the potential to damage DPTAC's reputation) and our logo made available on request for use purely to identify the link. (In fact, DPTAC has no power to prevent anyone making links to its site.) Requests for DPTAC to make links to another site would be determined using the criteria at paragraph 7 above.

Products and services

DPTAC will not support the development, manufacture and promotion of private sector products and services for disabled people, on the grounds that DPTAC should not endorse one of a number of competing products or services.

Use of copyright material

DPTAC allows the free reproduction copyright material, with acknowledgement, of DPTAC publications so long as this is not for profit. This helps get our message across. This includes our design material (e.g. the symbols on the website), also free of charge.

June 2007

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