COMMISSION ON THE POWERS AND ELECTORAL ARRANGEMENTS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY FOR WALES

MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS

of the

EVIDENCE OF:

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES COMMISSION
DISABILITY RIGHTS COMMISSION

held at

THE HILTON HOTEL, NEWPORT

on

23 MAY 2003

In Attendance

Lord Richard, Chair, Richard Commission
Huw Thomas, Richard Commission
Tom Jones, Richard Commission
Paul Valerio, Richard Commission
Vivienne Sugar, Richard Commission
Dr Laura McAllister, Richard Commission
Peter Price, Richard Commission
Sir Michael Wheeler Booth, Richard Commission
Ted Rowlands, Richard Commission
Kate Bennett, Equal Opportunities Commission
William Bee, Disability Rights Commission
Lord Richard

Thank you very much for coming and we look forward greatly to hearing what you have to say. The procedure we usually adopt is to ask you to identify yourselves for the sake of the transcript and then, perhaps, open up the discussion for us and then we can pursue issues as they arise.

Kate Bennett

I am Kate Bennett. I am Director of the Equal Opportunities Commission in Wales.

William Bee

I am Will Bee and I am the Director for Wales for the Disability Rights Commission.

Kate Bennett

I think we decided that I am going to go first on the basis that I hope you have seen the written submission that I supplied, and I just wanted to make a couple of references to that and add one or two additional points. I think Will has got a little bit more to say than I have.

The position, which you are obviously aware of, is that the majority of the equality legislation is not devolved – the Sex Discrimination Act, the Race Relations Act and amendment Act and so on; disability rights are not devolved. The new legislation that will be coming in force in December to give additional protection to people – gay and bisexual people, on grounds of religion and in relation to age, which will come into force in 2006 - that is also not devolved. I am not aware of any suggestion really from anybody that it would be a good idea to devolve that legislation; that it is a sensible thing to do to have a standard set of minimum rights across the whole of Britain.

However, we also have in Wales some additional equality legislation, primarily Section 120 of the Government of Wales Act. This is a section which requires the National Assembly to pay due regard to equality of opportunity in carrying out its functions in determining its policies. During the course of last year – last July, I think it was – we published an analysis of this Section 120 of the Government of Wales Act. Have I given it to you?

Lord Richard

I have got it.

Kate Bennett

Numerous supplies of this can be provided and it is also available on the Equal Opportunities Commission website. What this research concludes is that Section 120 of the Government of Wales Act, which requires the Assembly to mainstream equality in all its functions and policies, has had a very significant impact in Wales. A distinctive equality agenda is emerging which is more progressive and more far-reaching than the equality agenda in England and Scotland.

Lord Richard

Can you spell that out? I know it is not hard, but where do you see the divergence?

Kate Bennett

We consider that the Assembly is taking more seriously the requirements to promote equality. In fact, the British Government does not have a requirement to promote equality. The Race Relations (Amendment) Act has obviously introduced some new legislation which requires public bodies to promote equality in terms of race, but the National Assembly has a duty to pay due regard to equality of opportunities for all people, though it does not distinguish between race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gypsy travellers, poverty, it has a generalised duty to promote equality, which goes substantially beyond either the existing three strands that exist in the British equality legislation or, indeed, the six strands that the European legislation is requiring British legislation to come into force in the next little while.

Particular areas have been identified as distinctive action, and distinctive action has been defined by the report as things that were not happening in Wales before the establishment of the Assembly and things that are not happening in England or Scotland. So, for example, in terms of public appointment, the National Assembly has taken a different approach to making public appointments. In the past, independent assessors were involved in assisting the making of public appointments and those were people that had been – as Prof Rees would say – tapped on the shoulder and asked if they would like to be an independent assessor. Following some recommendations about mainstreaming equality into the public appointments process, the arrangements were concluded and they advertised in the UK media for new public appointments for people to be independent assessors on public appointment processes. One of my colleagues and one of Will’s colleagues spent 20 days each, I think, in December and January, in being involved in those appointments. So there was a specific equality requirement for anybody that wanted to be an independent assessor and there was a specific equality perspective involved in every single appointment. My understanding is that that has resulted in extremely substantial change in the individuals who hold posts as independent assessors.

In terms of one of the areas that I am particularly concerned about, equal pay, the National Assembly has taken a very different view to the British Government in terms of equal pay. That is something we have pressed them to do and said, "Actually, in order to fulfil your responsibility of paying due regard to equality of opportunity you have an obligation to consider the pay of your own staff, the pay arrangements for those bodies that are funded by the Assembly across the whole of Wales". So the Assembly has carried out pay reviews, it has put a substantial amount of money into correcting the pay anomalies that emerged in its own pay system. It then has gone on to the 20 or so public bodies, required them to do the same, given them financial assistance to address the pay gaps that they have identified. And in its contracts compliance process it has built in a voluntary code of practice for suppliers, which requires them to report on how they take equality into account, both in terms of the service delivery but also in terms of their employment practices.

The Assembly has commissioned a report called "Lifting Every Voice", which looks at the way civil service recruitment is carried out. That has made a whole series of recommendations, which have established a different recruitment process for civil servants employed by the National Assembly at Grade 7 and below. These have been implemented and there have been serious concerns raised by the Cabinet Office in London who feel that this means there is now a different appointments process for the National Assembly to the rest of the British civil service.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

What kinds of differences are there?

Kate Bennett

For example, there is much wider advertising; specific jobs as opposed to generic jobs are advertised; there is equality training for every single person involved in the recruitment process; there is the potential for a trade union observer on all panels. I think it would be fair to say that this process has not fully embedded and not everybody is content that it is carried out in exactly that way on each occasion, but certainly there is a will to be recruiting in a different way.

There are also completely different kinds of measures, which have a very important equality perspective – for example, the student grants process, as well as being distinctive (that there are student grants in Wales and not in England), particular attention has been made to support for child care, for assistance for travel; so particular things that are of benefit to women and poorer students. In terms of free bus passes for older people, the majority of beneficiaries of that are older women because there is a very large over-60 population in Wales, and again older women because of their disadvantage in earlier years are amongst the poorest of the population.

So there are quite a lot of generic measures that would not necessarily be seen as equality measures which are beneficial in that way. I think many of the steps that the Assembly has taken, guided by Section 120, have had a very positive impact and a very good impact in terms of equality but they have been broad brush so far: they are non-prescriptive, non-specific as the publication will tell you. So there is a possible danger that some groups – and I think this is something that Will may speak about – who require a specific input as opposed to a general action and may not feel that they have been so beneficially treated by the Section 120. Nevertheless, the evidence in that short version of the report – there is a much longer one available – shows that there is a distinctive equality emerging which is having a differential impact on people in Wales.

One thing that it does show, which is interesting as well, is that although this is happening it is not something that has been talked about by people across Wales. It is quite interesting that that is one area that the Scots – because I am sure you are interested in what is happening in Scotland as well – although they do not have this legislation and although the comparative research is showing that the equality action and agenda that is emerging in Scotland is not as radical as that in Wales, what Scots are excelling at is having a much higher profile, a much better public engagement with the equality measures that the Scottish Parliament have developed.

Lord Richard

You quote in this publication:

"Recent analysis has concluded that ‘the political climate for equalities has undoubtedly improved and new structural spaces have opened up, the questions is …. About the extent to which there is continuity and to what degree different priorities and agenda can be discerned’."

What do they mean by "structural spaces"?

Kate Bennett

This is another one of the initiatives that have been taken. What they mean there is that the Assembly has established consultative mechanisms with groups that have not been listened to before in terms of consultation.

Lord Richard

Such as?

Kate Bennett

Such as Stonewall Cymru that you met yesterday, which was previously called the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Forum Cymru. It gives an opportunity for voices to be heard such as the All Wales Ethnic Minority Association that you have heard from, Disability Wales - these are bodies that are funded from the National Assembly - which actually did exist prior to devolution, but nevertheless these are ways for the Assembly to try and hear more clearly from people that have not been heard before.

Lord Richard

This is deliberate policy by the Assembly, is it?

Kate Bennett

It is deliberate policy by the Assembly. What the research shows – because this is what is so interesting for us – is what is driving this. What the research concludes is that there are a number of drivers – there are more women in the Assembly, there is obviously a different political-economic social context in Wales – but what they find is the main driver is the legislation under Section 120. Everything always comes back to that.

The number of times I have been at meetings and Rhodri Morgan or someone has been there and said, "I am thrilled to be here at this inaugural conference of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Forum. However, I am not here because I am thrilled to be here, I am here because I am obliged to be here because we are paying due regard to equal opportunities". So it is something that is taken extremely seriously by the politicians and by the Counsel General, who has advised that indeed not only is the Assembly able to have its voluntary code of practice for contractors to try and encourage them to take equality measures in their employment and service delivery practices but an argument that they ought to do that.

The other thing about the legislation: I know that there are some rumours circulating that perhaps the Assembly does not have these powers and it is exceeding their powers. I think it is extremely damaging that these rumours are circulating because we have not heard them at all until the last few days. There is no suggestion from any of the top legal people in the Assembly that we have spoken to recently, or other academics, that the Assembly does not have these powers. Certainly our research obviously went into this.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

Can I ask, on your presentation about the paper which so far only the Chairman has been privileged to even pass his hands over? The question is a specific one. Does it have any estimate of the cost of these measures, because it is a relevant factor, is it not? Supposing, for example, you take steps to promote greater equality in recruitment of staff below grade 7, it has a cost?

Kate Bennett

It is an extremely complex matter actually, because what I would say is that actually it may not have a long-term cost, but there is obviously an initial cost at the point of recruitment.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

Is there anything in that document…?

Kate Bennett

No. Nobody has done this costing, but I think the point is that if you recruit better and treat people better, pay them in a different way, you may get better services delivered.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

Absolutely.

Kate Bennett

And it will save money. If you enable women to have child care so that they can get to work, so they can pay taxes, pay their National Insurance, provide better for themselves in old age----

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

On the other hand, if you advertise in England as well as Wales for jobs, you have to pay, say, The Financial Times or whoever it is for advertising and that is a case. I am not trying to put it in a loaded way at all, I do not know the answer.

Kate Bennett

I would love to know the answer as well. I am hoping that these measures would be cost-effective in facilitating disabled people to be able to work so that they can earn money and not have to claim benefits. Another measure that the Assembly is looking at is free swimming; that promotes good health and perhaps you get less boys setting fire to the hillside. You can have this vision, but I think it would be extremely interesting to be able to cost it.

Lord Richard

The picture you are presenting is of a legislature which has got the power under Section 120 and is exercising power.

Kate Bennett

That is right, and that is probably why my presentation, my initial submission, did not really focus on this because that was not the area. Shall I move on to the next area?

Lord Richard

Yes, please do.

Kate Bennett

The main thing on which I submitted the paperwork related to the Single Equality Body that the Government is consulting on at the moment. I do not know to what extent you have had a chance to look at it, but what I sent you was a whole series of submissions from people which relate to how the Single Equality Body might operate in Wales. There is one quite interesting thing, which I did not actually cover in here, which is that a very large number of organisations that have responded to the Government Consultation on the Single Equality Body have said that in order for the Single Equality Body, which will oversee all the six strands that the Government is legislating on to have equality measures, should be underpinned by a single Equality Act. What is being said is that if you have different legislation in relation to gender, disability, race, sexual orientation, that there will be hierarchy of equality, so actual the benefit of having a single body draw these together will be lost.

I particularly wanted to point out that both the Welsh Assembly Government in its response to the British Government has said it is essential that there should be a single Equality Act and strongly believe it is needed. The National Assembly Equality of Opportunities Committee have said that a single Equality Act is a prerequisite for the success of the Single Equality Body.

What we obviously do not know at this stage is whether the Government is going to legislate in that way, to have a single Equality Act. This view that a single Equality Act is needed is a very widespread view; certainly it is one that we would both hold and many other organisations that have been consulted on.

However, the signs are not at all encouraging from the British Government that a single Equality Act is likely to be forthcoming. The Parliamentary Group of MPs in the sex equality field have said that they feel so strongly that there should be a single Equality Act that if it is not possible to do it on the Government timetable that the Government timetable should be changed so we get the Act first. So this is the very widespread view.

The additional point that I wanted to make today is this. If the Government does not heed what is being said, then so be it - they are ignoring the views of a large number of organisations. But I think the issue that will be of interest to you is if the Welsh Assembly Government is saying that this is something which is essential ……

Lord Richard

Take it in stages. The Welsh Assembly Government have not got the power, have they? Do the Scots do this?

Kate Bennett

No, because equality is not devolved in Scotland.

Ted Rowlands

If I can just ask a question, because I am not quite up to speed. If you have a single Equality Act, does that mean that the same penalties, offences and discrimination would apply to disability and equal opportunities?

Kate Bennett

Broadly, yes.

Ted Rowlands

They would actually all be exactly the same? At the moment they are very different, are they not?

Kate Bennett

They are very different, and so we feel that there is a hierarchy - there certainly is a hierarchy because public authorities are required to promote racial equality; they are not required to promote equality in relation to any other strand. The definition for indirect sex discrimination is different to the others. In terms of the new strands the rights are only going to relate to employment and not to service delivery. So there are many, many differences. It is a very confusing picture at the moment.

Lord Richard

Go back to your point before I diverted you by the Scottish cul-de-sac.

Kate Bennett

My point is a very simple one really. The Welsh Assembly Government is saying that in order for this to be effective we need this legislation. My fear is that we may not get the legislation, and I just think that is an interesting factor for you to consider.

Lord Richard

What would the Assembly do?

Kate Bennett

It will not be able to do anything, other than taking any positive equality initiative that goes beyond the law in terms of its own workforce, in terms of what it funds, which is obviously very substantial in Wales - the NHS, local government, the Assembly Sponsored Public Bodies - which in turn have a very big impact on the private sector. If you think of somewhere like Powys: by the time you have taken out the public sector employment that is funded by the National Assembly, that is very substantial and has a knock-on impact on the labour market and the expectations of the people, but in terms of legislation the Assembly cannot do anything.

I feel as if I have been talking for a very long time. I just wanted to summarise the points that all the bodies in Wales have said need to be taken into account in establishing a Single Equality Body, which is what we anticipate the British Government will do. It has been said that single equality bodies should have formal links with the Welsh Assembly Government and the National Assembly, which it does not have at the moment. It is being said that the Single Equality Body in Wales should have the requirement and obligation to advise the Assembly and to be an external monitor of Section 120 (which we have just been speaking about) as well as section 48 of the Government of Wales Act, which requires it to pay due regard to equality in the way that it carries out it business.

It has been said that resources and autonomy should be available to the Single Equality Body in Wales to respond to the distinctive agenda and priorities in Wales.

Dr Laura McAllister

Can you elaborate on that, because resources and autonomy can be available in a number of ways. Which issues have been discussed?

Kate Bennett

The Equal Opportunities Commission is the body that has had an arm in Wales for the longest out of the three Commissions. I am the current Director in Wales and we are an integral part of the British Equal Opportunities Commission; we operate to the corporate plan, and that corporate plan is then agreed with our Secretary of State (Patricia Hewitt of the DTI at the current time). The extent to which there are any deviations from the corporate plan which has been agreed with the Secretary of State is quite limited and the amount of resources that are available for us to operate in Wales are very limited. So if the Assembly said, as it did, "Could you please spend 20 days helping us on public appointments?", we managed to do that really out of our own resources (and I think the same will apply to you at DRC), but we are not really equipped to do that. So that was a demand being put on us by the Assembly in order for it to fulfil its objectives, which is not a demand being put on the EOC in England.

Tom Jones

Should not the corporate plan have reflected the national and regional necessity for the UK? In that sense it would have put into the plan whatever Wales needed.

Kate Bennett

That is exactly what we are saying should happen, and it is our intention to do that at the moment. But all our organisations are extremely stretched for cash and resources and at the end of the day my Chief Executive agrees with Patricia Hewitt what we are going to do. So if Patricia Hewitt says "I do not see why they should be doing (whatever it may be)". That is just an example that has come up recently; that maybe there would not have been an amount of difficulty with it, but it does mean that we have had to take resources away from what we had previously expected to do because it came up at short notice. So we had to pull people off another project, which is one that had been planned through the course of the year.

If there was a completely different agenda, for example in relation to gender - and I will stick with gender - the National Assembly wanted to do work around family planning, the particular issue of teenage pregnancies in Wales (which is very high); they were anxious about domestic violence - these are areas which are absolutely not in our plan at the moment. But that would be a much bigger deviation. Those things have not come up, but we are at an early stage and, of course, we have the same political parties, essentially, in charge in Westminster as we do in Cardiff Bay. There could obviously be a much greater conflict in the event that there was a substantially different political perspective in agreeing with the statutory equality bodies what their overall plan should be from the political imperative in Cardiff Bay.

Lord Richard

And they could do the single equality investments without there being a Bill?

Kate Bennett

No, and they are consulting on this Bill.

Lord Richard

There is no draft Bill?

Kate Bennett

No.

Dr Laura McAllister

Just to go back to my point, given the current situation, which has lent itself to potential tensions in terms of policy direction and so on, what are you asking for in addition to the current situation in a Single Equalities Board in Wales? What additional things would make it more autonomous and less prone to that kind of situation of being dragged into two directions?

Kate Bennett

The Government has not yet consulted about level of detail - it will be doing so in the Summer and the Autumn. So the kind of things is the bullet point 3 set out in my submission here. They talk about a formal link with the Assembly: at the moment we sit on the Equality of Opportunity Committee as Statutory Advisers, and we do that because we have been invited to do it and because we want to do it and because we think it is useful and because our parent bodies are happy for us to do it. We would like to see those kind of links more formalised. We are not obliged to do that and they are not obliged to listen. It seems to me that that is a gap; that that obligation to do that, that formal link, is not there.

We have a Wales Commissioner, and the DRC and the CRE also have at least one Commissioner for Wales; the Secretaries of State in London make those appointments. The National Assembly has no sensible mechanism, no adequate mechanism, for feeding into that process. There is a specific proposition that the Commissioner is one or more for Wales and the Single Equality Body should be a joint appointment by the National Assembly and the relevant Secretary of State.

Tom Jones

I am glad you have said one or more because in discussions yesterday that concerned a single equality, the six strands together, and only one person for the area of Wales. There is always a danger that the Assembly or yourselves are satisfied that having the power to involve the employment on the one hand - what would be the range of skills required in the main and, of course, also fulfilling the chair - plus the research capacity to back up that single named commissioner - you go to the Assembly.

Kate Bennett

I think that is right, but I think it depends on what model of commissioner they go for. One proposition at the moment is they might go for a very small number of full-time commissioners, six or seven. If they went for six or seven commissioners only for the whole of Britain, I think it would be unrealistic to expect more than one for Wales - although one idea is that there should be a chair and two vice-chairs, with the vice-chairs drawn from Scotland and Wales. If there were a much larger number of commissioners, then you are absolutely right - we should be looking at more people.

Lord Richard

Can I go back to your relationship with the Equality of Opportunity Committee? You are the Statutory Advisers. Who decides what you advise on?

Kate Bennett

We advise on anything that the Committee discusses.

Lord Richard

Would you get Committee agendas?

Kate Bennett

We get Committee agendas, we go to meetings.

Lord Richard

And you have got the right to say "We want to talk to you about this?"

Kate Bennett

Yes.

Lord Richard

So it is not a question of relying on the Committee asking for your views?

Kate Bennett

If the Chair said "Kate, we do not want to hear from you on this" - I do not have a statutory right to speak in that way.

Vivienne Sugar

What about the relationship with Ministers?

Kate Bennett

Edwina Hart will have equality under the Social Justice portfolio. Of course, we are anticipating that Edwina is going to be pleased to hear from us. She was before, when she was the Chair of the Committee. But if she has changed her mind or if it was somebody who did not want to speak to us, then I suppose they are not required to.

Vivienne Sugar

Is the equalities forum still going?

Kate Bennett

Yes, there will be an Equality Committee.

Dr Laura McAllister

Who enforces Section 120?

Kate Bennett

Nobody. This is one specific proposal, but the Single Equality Body arm in Wales should do that. The other major issue, of course, is the Welsh language, which is an equality strand - a seventh equality strand. Whether it is actually a good idea to identify specific strands because there are also issues with gypsy travellers----

Lord Richard

That would not be brought into the Single Equality Body, the Welsh language?

Kate Bennett

It could if it was an equality consideration. If you are a young child or an elderly person with a health problem in particular, there is an area that if you cannot access speech therapy in the medium of Welsh then there is a serious equality issue there.

Dr Laura McAllister

There is an overlap.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

Just going back to Section 120, it has in subsection (2):

"After each financial year the Assembly shall publish a report containing -

(a) a statement of the arrangements made in pursuance of subsection (1) which had effect during that financial year, and

(b) an assessment of how effective those arrangements were in promoting equality of opportunity."

I agree that this is self-assessment, but it is assessment; it is much more than you have in other bodies?

Kate Bennett

That is true.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

And you say in your evidence at the moment there is no monitoring mechanism from this duty to promote equality?

Kate Bennett

It should have said "no external".

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

Yes. I am not trying to catch you out. Do they do it?

Kate Bennett

Yes.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

Do you comment in your paper on the way they do it?

Kate Bennett

We have not commented on this paper, no, we comment on the occasion we see----

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

I imagine the report about the way the whole thing is going.....

Kate Bennett

I think you might be the person that needs to read the detailed version of it!

Lord Richard

How big is it?

Kate Bennett

130 pages or something.

Lord Richard

Oh yes, give it to him!

Mr Bee is waiting very patiently; I think we ought to hear from him.

William Bee

Thank you very much.

The Disability Rights Commission did not make a written submission to the Commission because, as Kate explained, equality legislation remains a reserve power even in Scotland. All the debate around the Single Equality Body has made it clear there is no expectation that in the reasonably foreseeable future it will become a devolved issue. The DDA remains the main focus of our activities.

Clearly in Wales there is Section 120, which we have already discussed, and I think there is a perception amongst disability organisations that disability as an issue has not had as much focus under that power as other equality issues. I will try not to embark upon a hierarchy of misery, so much as to say that the initiatives we can identify are relatively few.

One area that I think we would regard as a touchstone to come is the new Assembly building, where the Assembly has committed to making it fully accessible. We have some concerns, I have to say, that having taken a perfectly flat site the architect’s initial reaction is to create a hill there. That immediately makes it more complex from an access point of view. All these problems are solvable but we need to see a commitment in the actual final plans and the construction that ensure that it is, in every sense of the word, accessible and is a model of good practice. That will be, I think, the touchstone for disabled people in how the Assembly has taken forward its responsibilities as regard to disability under Section 120.

I think for a great many disabled people the critical services they look to come from local authorities and the health services - education, social services, public buildings, the delivery of leisure services and health services themselves. Indicators - reports published - do not tend to show favourably the delivery of those services in Wales compared with those in England. Most recently we were looking last year at the Audit Commission report published in April 2000 reviewing the delivery of services for disabled people against a number of key indicators. I have to question sometimes the validity of some of the indicators. It is difficult, in a service that is 100% designed for disabled people, to really measure quality in a purely numerical sense. Just to take employment in the workforce, for example, an average of 1.4% of local authority staff in Wales have a declared disability. The international workforce survey indicates that over 10% of the UK workforce has disabilities. Even if you take account of the fact that as many as 50% of those are not in work, you would still be expecting to see figures in excess of 5%. No Welsh authority gets anywhere near that. The best is 3.29% in Carmarthenshire; the worst is Blaenau Gwent with 0.15% of its workforce. I think that actually does not reflect the true state of play. What it may reflect is a reluctance on the part of disabled people in that workforce to declare that they have a disability, because they fear they may not be fairly treated. There have been instances - we know from cases we have dealt with - of people who have asked for a reasonable adjustment in order to remain in work because of the onset of a disability that has been denied to them and the employer has moved towards dismissal.

Vivienne Sugar

Local Authorities used to be able to apply for exemption on the grounds that people were not represented and so on. Is that still there?

William Bee

That provision was under the old green card registered disabled system, which was abolished when the Disability Discrimination Act was introduced. There is no longer, equally, the quota, which is to require bodies, private and public, to employ 3% disabled people on their workforce - and I do not think anybody ever got anywhere near that and that whole piece of legislation became discredited.

Vivienne Sugar

When we see the Welsh local government situation, are there any other questions we ought to be present on?

William Bee

I can pass on a Highlights report on some of our analysis of these figures. Interesting, for example, special educational needs statement assessment and the processing of them: the target should be to process them 18 weeks. A number of authorities did achieve that: Denbighshire confessed to only 12% and in Blaenau Gwent 13% are processed within 18 weeks. It is a serious denial of service because if you are missing out on 18 weeks of education waiting to be assessed that is a gap you have got to fill and 18 weeks is a minimum. Clearly, there are authorities which are taking far longer to deal with these issues.

There is assessment around the accessibility of buildings, but that is based on whether they can comply with Part M of the Building Regulations, and they tend to only apply to newer buildings, so some local authorities which have older building stock may find themselves appearing badly within those statistics even though they have made efforts to make them accessible.

One of the measures that I think is particularly open to discrediting is that of pedestrian crossings and how many of them have got tactile paving. We know anecdotally of an authority which, in order to meet that indicator, has diverted funds from ordinary pavement maintenance to installing more tactile paving - but if you trip over on the paving stones to get to the crossing, you are no better off. We are looking to work with the Welsh Local Government Association within the Wales Improvement Plan to try and improve the quality of indicators with regard to disabilities. I have to say these figures relate to the year 2000/2001 and clearly the National Assembly had only been in existence for a couple of years. It would be hard to hold them to account for problems there. What consistently we have seen in performance is poor performance in Wales compared to England. We would be looking to the National Assembly to drive standards up in the coming four years of the next session of the Assembly. I think failure to do so would call into question many disabled people’s assessment of the benefits or merits of devolution, but I think it is too early as yet to call that one in either direction.

With regard to a Single Equality Body, I would really support all that Kate has said. We have worked very closely, the three Commissions here in Wales, and I think we would, perhaps, encourage colleagues in England to mirror the practice which might ease some of the urgency behind the drive towards the Single Equality Body. The recommendations that we are making follow from joint work.

Dr Laura McAllister

Were the disability groups not a little less kind on the SEB in terms of the timetable being introduced?

William Bee

I was referring specifically to the issues with regard to devolution - the practice of working effectively with the National Assembly, the Welsh Assembly Government, and the engagement and the appointment of a commissioner. As a question of principle, I think (as Kate alluded to early on in her presentation), there are concerns that there are some very specific equality issues in disability discrimination that a Single Equality Body may not deal effectively with.. For some disabled people, discrimination is measured in the angle of a ramp, or in the luminosity or reflective quality of signage if they have a visual impairment. There is concern that disabled people may not find that addressed effectively within a purely functional Single Equality Body because a policy officer may be able to talk in principle about what constitutes discrimination; they may not have that detailed and specialist knowledge - which is why we are calling for a structure for a Single Equality Body which retains functional specialisms.

Lord Richard

It seems to me most of your complaints and arguments are with local authorities and not with the Assembly Government?

William Bee

Just as the UK Government is held responsible for the delivery of public services, we would be saying that the Assembly Government in time - and I think four years is too short a period and, anyway, figures are not available even throughout that period - that we would see the Assembly moving to set effective targets. There are very specific issues in Wales with some of the very small local authorities; there have been statements in the press (and it has not got beyond that) that some local authorities, particularly in the education field, if they get a child with very expensive special educational needs, will find their entire education budget distorted by the cost of meeting the needs of that particular child.

A survey done by SENSE, the national charity for people who are deaf-blind, found very poor quality provision because local authorities did not have sufficient people within their catchment area who were deaf-blind. So what you got was someone who was deaf-blind was allocated either to a social worker for the deaf or a social worker for the blind who had a bit of spare capacity. The issues amongst people who are deaf-blind are very distinct, but their numbers did not justify the creation of a specialist post.

A framework to promote collaborative working between local authorities in those situations would seem to be the sort of mechanism that we would be looking for. Jane Davidson has taken powers in the education field to encourage that sort of collaborative working and, I believe, if necessary require it. It may be necessary in the provision of Social Services to look to similar sorts of powers. One would always want local authorities to collaborate willingly but they do not necessarily always do so.

Lord Richard

Tell us a bit about your relationship with the Assembly. We have heard from the EOC how theirs works; how does yours work?

William Bee

In a very similar way. We, too, are a Statutory Adviser on the Equality of Opportunities Committee and work in the same flexible and informal way (I would say). I would say access to Ministers is extremely good.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

Can I interrupt? You say a Statutory Adviser to the Committee. There is the duty under Section 120 for the Assembly to pursue a general objective, but in what other sense do you mean you are a Statutory Adviser?

William Bee

That is the description we are given by the Chair of the Equal Opportunities Committee.

Vivienne Sugar

It is probably to distinguish you from a political adviser?

William Bee

Yes. We are a statutory body set up by an Act of Parliament.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

It is your origins rather than a duty.

William Bee

Yes. That contrasts with, say, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Forum which does not have a statutory basis and therefore would be described as a voluntary adviser.

Lord Richard

They would do the same sort of job in respect of their people as you do for your people?

William Bee

They are moving in that direction.

Lord Richard

Do they go to Committee meetings?

William Bee

They do now go to Committee meetings.

Kate Bennett

As observers, not as advisers.

Lord Richard

So you go to Committees the same as the EOC?

William Bee

Yes. We receive the papers, we sit at the table, we speak - well, we have never been denied the right to speak - and we have actively been encouraged to contribute to the debate.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

If you do speak, you will go on being heard, will you not?

William Bee

I do not anticipate any change; I do not see any reason for a change in that.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

Can you say something about section 48 of the Act? In your observations, do you think the Assembly has made appropriate arrangements to ensure that its business is conducted with due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people?

William Bee

I would not point to any indication that they have not done so as yet.

Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth

That is rather negative.

William Bee

Yes. I suppose the reason I am being slightly cautious is that one of the issues we are dealing with in regard to the new building is that in order to get a rake on the seating in the debating chamber that will meet the broadcasters’ needs to be able to show people, it appears as though there may need to be lifts installed so that someone with a mobility impairment can move around the debating chamber. Implicit within that would be that any front bencher in particular who had a mobility impairment needed to make special arrangements to take their seat. That does not sit comfortably with a duty to pay due regard to equality throughout the conduct of their business. This is a design issue, which we are grappling with at the moment and we hope we can find a solution to.

Huw Thomas

I ought to start by declaring an interest as a Trustee of the RNID and someone who did not declare their disability until a very late stage.

I would be interested to know how you see in terms of within your own remit, if there was not Section 120 would it be easier to deal with the situation in Wales, is it easier to achieve things like working between health and education in Wales as opposed to England simply by virtue of the fact that the Assembly is responsible, or does it require extra work in terms of using the Section 120 powers to try and drive policies?

William Bee

I think there are some distinctive advantages to working in Wales. There is established by the Equalities Committee an equalities round table, which brings together the Chief Executive of a range of public bodies in Wales - ELWa, ACCAC, the Welsh Local Government Association, ourselves (if we attend). To get the Chief Execs of all those equivalent public bodies together in England would be almost inconceivable. This creates a forum to discuss and take forward equality issues in a way that I think is showing signs of being useful, and there are some useful initiatives emerging.

So I think there are opportunities which the Assembly can exploit and is starting to do so, but I return to the actual question of delivery - just getting people together to discuss issues is stage one. What disabled people on the ground will measure is the quality of services they receive where they are dependent upon Social Services or needing special educational provision, and it is the driving down that we want to see, and that is a challenge that I think every government faces.

Huw Thomas

We heard from Kate, but I have to say that from outside it looks very much as though equality on the agenda has been driven on the equal opportunities side. DRC is a more recent Commission. Have you found Section 120 to be equally as useful in driving the DRC agenda?

William Bee

I would say not yet. We were created only in April 2000, we are a year younger than the Assembly itself and, like the Assembly, I think we grappled for quite some time with the consequences of being set up at breakneck speed and the need to address internal issues and get ourselves to function effectively.

The earliest initiative we have taken with the National Assembly was a range of events last year to promote new duties under the Disability Discrimination Act that come into effect in October 2004 and to make businesses aware of them. This attracted over 450 people to a series of events across Wales. Nothing comparable has been undertaken by the relevant Department, the Department for Work and Pensions, in England. I suspect it would not be possible for them to deliver it because of the sheer size and population they would be addressing. They will be doing a poster campaign, which will cost rather more than the work that was done with the National Assembly, and that will not be for a few months yet. So that is one example where we have been able to work effectively and they have picked up our agenda.

That is very specific to the Disability Rights Commission and our remit within the Disability Discrimination Act. There is nothing else as yet that we are looking to take forward at present. For example, the work which Kate identified on public appointments: one of the gaps in the DDA is that it does not cover the holders of public office. So you have no statutory right to Palantype for your appointment in this post. We do know stories of councillors who have a visual impairment who have been unable to get papers delivered in large print or in Braille because the bodies which they have been elected to have refused to do so. That is a real gap in the legislation and therefore means that work around public appointments is more difficult to take forward because there is a weakness in the armour.

We would not want to encourage disabled people to put themselves forward in order to find themselves humiliated by not getting the adjustments they require to operate effectively in the roles to which they were appointed.

Tom Jones

Coming back to this question of scrutiny and links between the National Assembly and the Westminster Government, I still cannot get clear in my mind the accountability issue and some of the scrutiny issues. For example, if the single body was established with an office in Wales and some level of autonomy (whatever that is) and the Equalities Committee wished to actually scrutinise the working of the Commission in Wales, it could not really do that in full because of the financial accountability, out of which comes the allocation of resources, which would still be a non-devolved headquarters. I am looking at it from the other point of view. If the Select Committee in Parliament was looking at the Commission, would the MPs in Parliament be sufficiently interested to look at the work of the Commission in Wales and would they say "This is something for the Assembly to take an interest in"? Do you see the clarity and have you got any thoughts on that?

William Bee

I see entirely the lack of clarity; I am not sure I have any immediate answers. As Kate was saying, within the issue of developing our work plan, where the National Assembly has clearly enunciated that it wants to work on an issue with us, I have never had difficulty getting it into the work plan where we would ourselves want to do so. Difficulties arise where initiatives come up part way through the year. Life is like that. Would it not be wonderful if we could operate on 12-month business plans and nothing ever changed? Then we may find that we have a lack of resources.

There are also occasions where the National Assembly at the moment might want to work on an issue where we do not feel we can effectively resource working with them in Wales with the level of resource that we have got. The DRC has not prioritised housing as an issue - we had to make some fairly tough decisions as to where we want to work. So if the National Assembly said "We want to work with you on housing", we would have no central policy resource we could draw on; we would be developing it from scratch within our staff team in Wales. That team is not large enough to go into it in the depth that we would need to work effectively.

Tom Jones

Sometimes we have seen examples. In that dilemma, the Assembly steps in with a bit of funding.

William Bee

Yes.

Tom Jones

Fine, but obviously then adding to the confusion about the Assembly scrutinising its involvement with that. Who does it then call into account?

William Bee

Yes, and that would certainly be interesting. Our Chief Executive, as accounting officer, would be accountable to Westminster. Whether he devolved responsibility to me with regard to funding from the National Assembly, I am not sure. We have received funding just recently to contribute towards the monitoring of the last Assembly elections - a useful contribution and partnership work we did with other voluntary organisations, including Disability Wales, who I think you saw yesterday. That secured a very high level of response, such that I had hoped to bring the interim results to this meeting, but with over 350 questionnaires to analyse it has not been possible to do so.

Tom Jones

So you have got a cheque from the Assembly which you are responsible for and you spend it entirely in Wales?

William Bee

Yes.

Ted Rowlands

This dilemma of whether you are going to have new UK bodies created like the Single Equality Body (and yet its work impacts upon within Wales) impacts upon National Assembly policies, but where there is no transfer of executive responsibility whether in fact oddly the concept that was way back mooted in 1964 at the beginning of all this devolution of the Welsh Office, that there would be a concept of oversight where there is not a transfer of executive powers but nevertheless the Assembly could be given oversight responsibility on the behaviour of a national UK body in its relationships to its activities in Wales. The concept of oversight was hugely debated when the whole first step of executive devolution was taking place in 1963/64 and I wondered whether in fact the considerable oversight might not have a rule to play?

William Bee

It sounds attractive to me, reacting immediately to it. I think however to make local autonomy work, a Single Equality Body will be working within the framework of an agreed corporate plan. To comment solely on a performance in Wales would mean that there would be no input into the structuring of the corporate plan and, therefore, all you could really monitor would be the quality of our work in delivering that. If the corporate plan was not truly appropriate to the equality agenda in Wales, it would be very difficult to challenge that process, based on assessment purely of Wales. So that reverse process has certain attractions to it.

I do not think that you could ever get true clarity and accountability into these structures within the structure of devolution as it is currently arranged - but that is for you, perhaps, to resolve.

Ted Rowlands

Except, perhaps, I wonder how much that was going to be because if you are saying you are making the condition of agreeing to a Single Equality Body a single Equality Act, I have been sitting here while you have been talking and while Kate has been talking and my mind boggles at the idea of a piece of legislation that is going to somehow bring all the race discrimination legislation and what-have-you into one cohesive thing. I must say it is a very formidable idea and the political decisions that have to be taken - at which level are you going to strike? Are you going to lower some areas, or lift everyone up to what is the maximum point of one end of the structure? Is everything going to be lifted to that level? I can see why a government is shy on the concept of a single equality Bill.

William Bee

I think we may even quietly sympathise with the headache. The concern we would have would be that the staff of a Single Equality Body taking an inquiry from someone who feels they have been discriminated against might be saying "Yes, I know you are disabled and you have been discriminated against, but it is not covered by the Act - but do you happen to be black?" because then we might be able to get them on the race angle of it. That would create huge tensions within the body itself; require of the staff concerned to master countless pieces of legislation instead of just one, and would lead, I am sure, to frustration amongst individual people who are experiencing discrimination when they are compared with their peers who may fall within the ambit of another piece of legislation.

Dr Laura McAllister

Can I ask you about the second part of our terms of reference, the electoral arrangements and so on, because it is obviously an issue of equal concern to us? I just wondered whether you had any comments about the representation in the National Assembly in terms of the groups you represent more broadly. In some sense, one could argue that by having parity of the sexes the issue is not broadening at the moment, but others would argue that is not going to be consistent throughout the time of the Assembly, and on the disability front there are no registered disabled AMs. I just wondered, given the relationship that you have with the Assembly and the Ministers, do you regard that as being adequate in terms of representation or going to the academic library this idea that an elected body has to be the microcosm of the political side of the agenda, in which case do we need to have disabled people in the Assembly and ethnic minorities and so on and, if so, how are we going to do it?

William Bee

We identified in the last Assembly three AMs who had a disability. I am not conscious that any of them overtly stress that they have an impairment, and that is one of the particular factors which applies with regard to disability. Where gender is concerned, putting aside the few transsexuals, you are a woman or a man and you are identified as such, and your experiences may well inform how you operate as an AM. Disability is often invisible and whether you even consider it as a disability may be a matter of personal attitude. Someone who is becoming frailer with age may just think, "I am getting a bit old". Interestingly, a study done by the Department of Work and Pensions recently indicated that of people who in the course of their survey they identified as meeting the definition of disabled within the DDA, only about 52% of them described themselves as disabled.

Those people, the ones who have identified themselves, may have an agenda and a perception and a view of the world that sees discrimination in the way in which they are treated. I suspect that those people who have not identified themselves as disabled probably therefore will not see discrimination in a failure to meet their particular needs. So someone with failing eyesight, who has reached the point where they would fall within the scope of the DDA, just says "Oh, it’s small print and I can’t read it any more" - not "I have a right to ask for, as a reasonable adjustment, a copy of this in a larger print".

Therefore, the extent to which disabled people take forward as an agenda as a disabled person may well depend upon how they react to disability. I certainly know there are disabled people - David Blunkett, for example, who sees his vision impairment as more of an inconvenience than a disability, is not necessarily taking forward a case for disability in driving through change in his role as Home Secretary, other than being a very obvious role model for other disabled people.

So I cannot see the quota-type structure working within any Body, whether it be elected or otherwise, any further. I think it is important that organisations monitor the makeup of their elected members and their staff in order to see whether they may be indirectly discriminating, and it is important that they do that monitoring in a way in which people feel they can say "yes, I fit that definition. I may not necessarily go and join a disability association, I do not see myself as part of a political movement but, yes, I do fit that definition and I do need some degree of recognition of it by my employer or the body of which I am a member".

Lord Richard

Thank you very much. Can I thank both of you for coming this morning? We have had a very interesting session, from which I have learnt a great deal.