Source · Select Committees · Transport Committee
Recommendation 11
11
Accepted
Change processes to build accessibility into departmental decision-making and internal checks.
Recommendation
The Department must set out in response to this report how it will change its processes in order to build accessibility into decision-making processes both internally and at agencies overseen by the Department, and how it will ensure that internal checks and balances for accessibility are effective. Relying on consultations to highlight problems after policies and interventions have already been designed is not acceptable. (Recommendation, Paragraph 75)
Government Response Summary
The government agrees to integrate accessibility into decision-making, stating it will review business case guidance and associated processes to better reflect impacts on people with disabilities. It has also expanded its People and Equalities Centre of Excellence (PECoE) team to drive internal culture change.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The Department agrees that effective governance and transparency are fundamental aspects of accountable government, and that consultation and engagement is meaningful. The Department’s objective is to put people and communities at the heart of everything we do, and we have already taken practical steps to drive internal culture change and increase the focus on accessibility in project and proposal development. To make sure that happens when key decisions are made within and beyond the Department, we will also review our business case guidance and associated processes at key decision points to identify what more can be done to reflect impacts on people, including in terms of accessibility. The Department takes its responsibilities under the Public Sector Equalities Duty (PSED) extremely seriously, as evidenced by the fact it has expanded its dedicated team, the People and Equalities Centre of Excellence (PECoE), bringing pre-existing equalities, ‘people-centred thinking’, and policy expertise together with a strong analytical base. The PECoE champions people and equalities and provides advice, guidance and training to Departmental officials, as well as working across the Department to promote and embed people-centred thinking into our work. This includes promoting awareness across the Department of the Social Model of Disability, which is the perspective that people are disabled by the barriers that exist in the world, rather than their individual bodies or minds. People living with impairment or illness are not inherently ‘disabled’ – this is something that is created in addition through exclusion. In a truly accessible world where all barriers are removed, people would still experience the effects of their impairments (such as fatigue, muscle weakness, or blindness) – but living with these would not result in their exclusion from society, as society would be built to enable everyone to live full, vibrant, meaningful, autonomous lives.