Minutes:
What arrangements are currently in place to ensure that the Council consults fully with disabled residents (including those with mental, physical and hidden disabilities) when considering the equality impact of policy changes and planning applications etc?
Councillor Brake stated that the Council took its responsibilities to service users seriously and made every effort to engage with people in an open, accessible manner, offering support where appropriate to enable an effective response to the consultation.
The Council’s Diversity Impact Assessment process encouraged officers to think carefully about whether a change in policy or service would disproportionately affect people with what was known as protected characteristics like disability. The assessments encouraged officers to explore the potential impact with people that may have the protected characteristics both individually and holistically by reviewing evidence from consultations, surveys and statistical information. The Council had good examples of Diversity Impact Assessments being undertaken fully to inform its decision-making.
The key approach taken to consultation in relation to changes in policy and services was to engage with those people who are directly affected by the change and seek out their representative groups such as user led organisations like the Mental Health Service User Engagement Project and the Medway User Led Organisation (MULO) as well as groups hosted/managed by the carers centre or Council for Voluntary Service Medway (CVS).
When there was a significant change in policy or service delivery the Council would ensure that opportunities to engage were provided in a variety of ways such as specific meetings with particular service users, public meetings, surveys, questionnaires, use of the internet and with support from independent organisations like WRVS or Sunlight.
The Council took this approach when looking at changes to housing related support and engaged with both service users and service providers. The purpose of this was to better understand the experience of those using the services and how the service could be improved, whilst being made more efficient. This engagement was important in ensuring that the new service models were flexible and responsive to the needs of service users.
The Council was supported by the WRVS on the annual Adult Social Care Survey and they provided independent volunteers to support people in residential care homes to complete the survey. The survey was also provided in an easy read format to support people with a learning disability to complete the survey.
The Council would continue to consult and engage with service users including disabled service users to ensure that changes in policy and service took into account the views of residents of Medway. A Diversity Impact Assessment was carried out on all significant service changes, and policy proposals, to ensure the impact on the community had been taken into consideration before the policy was implemented.
In terms of planning, Councillor Brake stated that the Council had worked for some years with the Medway Access Group. They were given a copy of the weekly list of planning applications and could access these online to be able to provide feedback on any applications as appropriate and needed. The comments from the Medway Access Group were taken into consideration when processing the applications, particularly where the public would use or access the building or proposed development.
Sue Groves MBE asked in recognising the success of the Medway Ethnic Minority Forum, would the Council be willing to support the formation of a Medway Disabled Residents Forum?
Councillor Brake noted there were many issues relating to engagement with groups involving people with disabilities being tabled at this meeting and stated that he would be very much supportive of exploring every avenue that may be open to engage and to ensure people’s views were heard.