DPTAC response to:
Department for Transport's Strategy and Action Plan 'Working in Partnership with the Voluntary Sector'
Introduction
General comments
The Population
A strategic approach
Specific Response to the Consultation
Aims and Objectives
Recognising the role of the voluntary sector in policy development
Social Inclusion
Legislative Review
Focal Point in the Department
Action Plan
Community Transport
Local Transport Plans
Reference to DPTAC
Introduction
1. The Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) is grateful for the chance to comment on the Department for Transport's Strategy and Action Plan 'Working in Partnership with the Voluntary Sector'.
2. DPTAC was established under the Transport Act 1985 to advise the Government on the transport needs of disabled people. Our role was recently extended, on a non-statutory basis, to advise the Government on the built environment needs of disabled people.
3. DPTAC uses four overarching principles to base its advice to Government, other organisations and disabled people on. These are that:
- Accessibility for disabled people is a condition of any investment;
- Accessibility for disabled people must be a mainstream activity;
- Users should be involved in determining accessibility;
- Achieving accessibility for disabled people is the responsibility of the provider.
4. These principles are the basis of DPTAC's response to consultations. In this response we set out some general issues before making comments specific to this consultation.
General comments
The Population
5. DPTAC's principle concern is to ensure accessibility for disabled people. We mean by this inclusive transport systems and built environments that are easy to reach, use and understand by all, in safety and comfort.
6. Disabled people account for a significant proportion of the population. People with physical and sensory disabilities make up one in five of the UK population, or 11.7 million adults in the UK. One in five of these is of working age. In addition, one in seven people at any one time may experience significant mental health problems. Levels of disability increase with age: 8% of those aged 16-17 years have a current long-term disability, compared with 33% of those aged 50 to 65. Disabled people have a spending power of around £40 billion each year.
7. Disabled people are not an homogenous group with identical needs. The needs of people with mental health problems or learning disabilities are distinct from those of wheelchair users for example. Even within disabilities needs vary; for example a profoundly deaf person will not benefit from an induction loop.
8. Of disabled people overall, in broad terms:
- 70% have difficulty walking and/or climbing steps;
- 41% have a hearing loss;
- 24% have a vision loss.
9. Disabled people live throughout the community. One in four households has a disabled resident. The need for access for disabled people is not limited to specific areas or buildings but present throughout the wider transport and the built environment systems.
10. In broad terms, over the next 30 years:
- The proportion of the population over 65 will increase by 40%;
- The number of people aged over 65 will double;
- The proportion over 80 will increase by 100% and the number will treble.
11. Over the same period that will bring about these changes in the population profile, the overall population will increase by less than 7%.
12. The nation risks adverse economic as well as social impacts from this growth in numbers of disabled and older people if we fail to recognise and address the need for more inclusive environments. Mobility and transport are vital to achieving and sustaining self-sufficiency and independence into old age.
A strategic approach
13. There is enormous scope and opportunity to improve accessibility for disabled people but it will require a strong commitment at all levels.
14. Accessibility for disabled people is often only considered in terms in terms of detailed design. DPTAC believes this is no longer sufficient and that strategic decisions, investment and policies must be underpinned by consideration of accessibility for disabled people, with evidence of how diversity has been considered in decision making.
15. DPTAC welcomes the Government's commitment to accessibility being a condition of public money being spent in Transport 2010.
16. Private and public investors of any transport or built environment project need to know whether investment plans meet the need of disabled people. They will also need evidence that people at all levels of responsibility understand how to provide accessibility for disabled people effectively to prevent a waste of resources.
Specific Response to the Consultation
Aims and Objectives
17. DPTAC believes that the Strategy would benefit from a stronger aim and set of objectives. We suggest that they should be as follows.
Aim
- To develop and sustain an effective partnership between the Department for Transport and the voluntary sector to ensure the effective delivery of a transport system that is inclusive, effective and responsive.
Objectives
- Engage the voluntary sector in policy development and evaluation;
- Build capacity and remove barriers to the effective participation in transport of the voluntary sector, including transport user groups;
- Resource and evaluate work by the voluntary sector that achieves the first two objectives;
- Promote voluntary sector participation by the staff of the Department of Transport, its associated bodies and agencies, and the transport industries.
Recognising the role of the voluntary sector in policy development
18. The Department for Transport's Mobility and Inclusion Unit plans to reflect the cross cutting needs of its stakeholders by establishing seven forums. At present there are DPTAC, the MAVIS Consultative Committee, and the Women's Transport Network. There will be new groups on the Compact, older people, young people and minority ethnic and faith communities. The success of these groups will rely on volunteers and volunteer organisations. DPTAC recommends that the Department's strategy explicitly acknowledges the key role that these organisations and individuals have in policy development.
19. In addition, a much wider range of voluntary groups take part in consultations run by the Department and its agencies. All too often these groups are not told what has changed as a result of their responses. DPTAC recommends that in future the Department commits itself and its agencies to publishing a summary at the end of each consultation.
20. This summary should set out, in broad terms, which comments have led to changes in the proposals, and the reasons why other proposed changes have not been accepted. It should be sent to all those who take part in the consultation. DPTAC believes that this feedback process will encourage voluntary bodies to take a fuller part in future consultations. We also believe that the Department for Transport should require local authorities to follow a similar process in consulting voluntary groups on their own transport proposals.
Social Inclusion
21. DPTAC welcomes the references in the strategy to how the Department for Transport promotes social inclusion by enhancing the role of community transport. Additionally, we wish the Department to commit itself to promoting social inclusion and participation by empowering, resourcing and using volunteers from the retired community, including the professional transport community.
22. Many of these retirees will be either disabled or have a deep knowledge, grounded in many years experience, of the problems encountered by disabled people. They and other volunteers have much to offer the Department, its agencies, and local authorities. DPTAC recommends that the Department should promote their use, recognition and, where appropriate, payment.
Legislative Review
23. DPTAC commends the inclusion in the Action Plan of a review of existing legislation with a view to identifying barriers to effective voluntary sector involvement in the transport sector, and, where appropriate, to seek legislative solutions.
24. However DPTAC is concerned that the voluntary sector does not itself appear to have a role in this review. We recommend that this review should be a regular agenda item for the Department for Transport Compact Working Group, and that the Group considers setting up a Sub Group to look at this specific issue.
Focal Point in the Department
25. DPTAC welcomes the appointment of Ann Frye as official level departmental champion for the Compact. However the Department needs to ensure that responsibility for the Compact does not become compartmentalised in the Mobility and Inclusion Unit. DPTAC recommends that policy divisions responsible for the full range of transport modalities are represented at an appropriately high level on the Compact Working Group.
Action Plan
26. DPTAC is concerned that the published Action Plan covers only the period 2003-04, three-quarters of this period will have elapsed before the Action Plan is published in its final form. We recommend that the final Action Plan attached to the eventual Strategy covers the following two financial years.
Community Transport
27. DPTAC welcomes the attention that has been given to the role of the Community Transport Association, and of promoting community transport more widely. However we believe that the Strategy should express more clearly the rationale for community transport, and the importance of community led initiatives to promote access by all members of the community, including elderly and disabled people.
28. The strategy should also refer explicitly to the full range of community and demand responsive transport facilities that can make use of volunteers and voluntary groups, such as shopmobility and community care sharing schemes.
29. DPTAC is particularly pleased to note the Government's stance in improving Rural Community Transport and the sums it is spending to create transport in rural areas.
30. However, grants are given for a specified period. When this time is over, the organisation running a project often cannot receive core funding to keep the project going, or finds it difficult to secure such funds. As a result, after an agreed period of grant, it may be very difficult or sometimes impossible to keep the existing service running, so it is discontinued and the people it is meant to benefit lose out once again.
31. New services are always supported by a lot of publicity for the community to use the service. However research shows that it takes time for people to become used to using it. If they come to rely on a service and it is taken away, then they become despondent. If a further new service is then provided they may be suspicious and unwilling to become reliant on the new service, in case that too is taken away. Because of this people tend to make their own arrangements and ignore the call to use such service provision.
32. Rural transport services rarely operate at full capacity. The high unit costs of these distributed services may mean that rural transport services are unlikely to ever be profit-making. They will therefore always remain reliant on grants or subsidies. DPTAC therefore recommends, that grants should allow an element of subsidy to enable the service to keep running after the agreed period of full funding.
Local Transport Plans
33. DPTAC recommends that the Department for Transport makes specific reference in this strategy to promoting the role of voluntary organisations, including those representing elderly and disabled people, in the development, execution and evaluation of Local Transport Plans by local authorities. We further recommend that the Department sets in hand systems to assure itself that this is taking place and that it is effective.
Reference to DPTAC
34. The consultation document contains substantial annexes, amounting to one fifth of the total text, giving details of the Department, its agencies and Non Departmental Public Bodies. One of these bodies is DPTAC. We suggest that DPTAC is also mentioned in the main body of the document, as many of its members represent voluntary bodies and it can be properly considered as a key player in the Department for Transport's work with the voluntary sector. Text relating to DPTAC should be referred to in the singular number (e.g. "It also advises...").
Neil Betteridge,Chairman
Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee
1/14 Great Minster House
76 Marsham Street London SW1P 4 DR
Tel: 020 7944 8012
Email: dptac@dft.gsi.gov.uk
7 January 2004
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