Disability Equality Scheme

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Please contact us on 01925 644741 or by email at publications@englishpartnerships.co.uk

Text phone: 01908 353710

1. Introduction

English Partnerships is the government’s national regeneration agency and our aim is to achieve high-quality, well-designed, sustainable places for people to live, work and enjoy.

Disabled people and those with long-term illness have specific requirements and our Equality and Diversity Strategy is there to make sure that all individuals who come into contact with English Partnerships are treated fairly and equally. We are therefore committed to:

Creating a positive impact on the communities where we work;
Ensuring disabled people and those with long-term illness or specific requirements who work for us are valued and supported;
Promoting equality of opportunity in all our business and employment activities.

English Partnerships’ Director of Organisational Development is responsible for implementing our Disability Equality Scheme, which was first approved for publication by our Non-Executive Board on 22 November 2006. This latest revision is dated 23 November 2007.

English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation are working with the Department for Communities and Local Government to establish the proposed new national Housing and Communities Agency; and our key business activities will be transferred to this new agency when it is established.

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2. Approach

Equality and Diversity Strategy

Our latest Equality and Diversity Strategy and 10-Point Action Plan was approved by the Board of English Partnerships in February 2007. The aims and objectives of the Equality and Diversity Strategy are detailed below.

Within the Equality and Diversity Strategy and Action Plan, we separately address specific equality legislation or regulations. In October 2006 the arrangements we made to address the requirements of the Disability Equality Duty were reviewed and strengthened as a result of comments raised during our involvement and consultation strategy.

Our Action Plan is regularly reviewed. We have considered comments during the involvement and consultation strategy process for publishing the Action Plan in full within the body of this Disability Equality Scheme, however, for practical reasons only a summary of key themes will be published within Section 5.

Specific actions and milestones are detailed within a separately published Equality and Diversity Strategy Action Plan Appendix, which will be easier for us to update on a regular basis.

The dual aims of our Equality and Diversity Strategy are:

To demonstrate delivery of equality and diversity in all aspects of English Partnerships’ business and to become an employer of choice through a culture that promotes and thrives on diversity.

Our aims are achievable through the delivery of

Becoming an employer of choice for existing and new employees from all sections of the population – this means that people with specific requirements and from different backgrounds want to come and work for us; and will want to stay working with us.
Encouraging a highly motivated and productive workforce that promotes and thrives on diversity – our business is about making communities and we need a workforce that reflects the diversity of the communities in which we work.
Ensuring policies and programmes are developed and delivered to meet the needs of all sections of the communities served – this means making sure we provide a way to encourage any member of the community to let us know how they feel about our work, in their neighbourhood or beyond.
Cultivating a strong reputation for action on diversity issues among all stakeholders, partners and suppliers – this means leading the way to ensure we are all treating individuals fairly and equally.

Involvement and consultation strategy

English Partnerships has followed the advice of the former Disability Rights Commission (now the Equality and Human Rights Commission) and the Office for Disability Issues in developing our Disability Equality Scheme. One of our action points is to develop and maintain an effective involvement strategy with disabled individuals.

Our involvement and consultation strategy may change when our key business activities are transferred to the proposed new Housing and Communities Agency.

Employee involvement

A working group of 19 volunteers (approximately 3.5% of our workforce) with direct experience of long-term illness or disability issues assists us by reviewing documents, policies, procedures and this Disability Equality Scheme.

A good example of employee involvement is when we considered the appropriateness of using phrases or labels such as disabled person or disabled people. These terms are widely adopted, yet disliked and challenged by many.

English Partnerships carefully considered comments from our employees with impairments or those suffering from long-term illness. Our employees were uncomfortable with the label “disabled people” as this did not mirror how they described themselves.

The preferred phrase that resulted from employee consultation was “employees with specific requirements” and English Partnerships will now start to use these words in our employment policies and strategies. We will use the term “people with specific requirements” throughout the remainder of this Disability Equality Scheme and we will start to use this phrase externally, but only where this is appropriate to do so and unlikely to cause offence.

Our employee involvement group will continue to assist us review this Disability Equality Scheme and assess our progress on a regular basis.

External involvement - strategic level

English Partnerships works closely with a number of organisations that have expertise in disability issues within the built environment. These include SURFACE Inclusive Design Research Centre at the University of Salford and other independent consultants.

We asked SURFACE to provide constructive criticism on our approach to complying with the Disability Equality Duty and to coordinate an independent group of ten individuals who understood the nature of our work and were prepared to examine and comment upon our initial Disability Equality Scheme.

Each individual had personal experience of the needs of people with specific requirements and we obtained approximately 40 comments, which helped us shape the style and content of the document we have today. This external involvement group will continue to assist us review our policies and programmes where appropriate.

We also have an existing relationship with the Equality and Human Rights Commission through our work with the former Disability Rights Commission on Inclusive Design and as a result we have incorporated a number of their best-practice suggestions into our Disability Equality Scheme.

External involvement – individual and operational level

English Partnerships considered undertaking a series of local meetings so that individuals could help shape our Disability Equality Scheme, however, we noted that this approach when adopted by other national organisations had not always been successful due to a poor local response.

We discussed involvement strategies with SURFACE and we concluded that publishing our Disability Equality Scheme and promoting this within the communities where we work during project consultations may encourage people with specific requirements to comment. These comments would be fed into future versions of our Disability Equality Scheme.

To date we have received positive comments and further contact from readers regarding improving this Disability Equality Scheme is welcomed. Please contact us by any of the methods listed in the Contact and Information Appendix.

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3. Achievements to date

Employment policies and business premises

We acknowledge many individuals are reluctant to mention their impairment or illness at interview or whilst working, for fear that this may prejudice employment opportunities. We therefore promote a number of initiatives to encourage the employment of people with specific requirements and we also want to develop positive images and role models.

English Partnerships operates a guaranteed interview scheme when it advertises employment opportunities. A guaranteed interview is available for any candidate who has declared a disability or a long-term illness and who meets the essential criteria for the position advertised.

We always consider the specific requirements of each candidate during our recruitment and training process and we will adapt existing procedures wherever necessary (such as offering candidates additional time at assessment centres to complete tests or an alternative way to take the test).

We work hard to provide a safe and comfortable working environment. Alongside existing workplace safety assessments we arrange independent occupational health assessments for employees with specific requirements and we offer appropriate support, such as purchasing specialist equipment or putting in place flexible working arrangements.

Many of our offices are modern buildings with good facilities for visitors and our employees with specific requirements. Access audits have been completed and at our older offices we have completed a series of improvements to assist accessibility and comfort.

Induction loops were added to meeting rooms at key sites in 2006 and the lifts replaced at our Corporate Headquarters with a new design that provides practical assistance for employees and visitors with specific requirements.

All employees at English Partnerships are required to attend diversity and equality awareness training and this has resulted in a far greater understanding of disability and equality issues. This helps those with specific requirements feel more comfortable and welcomed into our working environment.

We have an effective grievance procedure to record the nature and outcome of complaints from our employees and we provide free access to independent and confidential counselling services.

Employees are encouraged to engage in dialogue with senior management on a variety of employment issues by participating in our Joint Staff Council, where Staffside Members champion equality and diversity issues. In addition, employees with specific requirements are encouraged to join our Disability Equality Scheme’s internal involvement group to review policy, procedures, publications and the effectiveness of our existing employment and business premises initiatives.

We support the approach of the Employers’ Forum on Disability in becoming a disability confident organisation:

Most disabled people become disabled during their working lives and any truly diverse workforce will naturally include disabled people.
Disabled people, their friends, families and colleagues are important stakeholders. There are approximately 8.7 million disabled people in the UK.
It is often physical and attitudinal barriers that disadvantage the person more than their physical or mental disability. The old way of looking at disability, which often results in discrimination because assumptions are made regarding what disabled people can and cannot do, is no long acceptable.
Unlocking potential. Organisations skilled in making adjustment will be more responsive to the potential contribution of every employee.

Programmes and business activities

We have made significant positive progress in demonstrating equality and diversity principles through the delivery of our programmes and business activities. In particular, we have a strong track record of applying a highly inclusive approach to collaborative working with local communities during the delivery of projects and programmes to ensure that they are sensitive to the needs of all sections of the community. This includes a formal community consultation exercise for all our major development programmes; however, we know that we can do better.

Community consultation, Lawley Our community consultation good practice is evolving and our experience to date has demonstrated that the way we involve the community has to relate clearly to the characteristics of that community. There is a need in some cases for such consultation to be a fluid process which will depend upon factors such as:

the type of project,
the stage at which projects are at,
the capacity of that community to engage,
the diversity of the community or communities, and
the existence or absence of clear community leaders or individuals willing to meet with us.

In developing our Equality and Diversity Strategy and Action Plan a primary aim was to further embed equality and diversity principles through our delivery programme and business operations. For example, we have introduced equality impact assessments as an integral part of planning all projects; and the Action Plan contains proposals to extend the process of formal project evaluation to all our major projects and programmes. Section 4 of this Disability Equality Scheme provides more information on this subject.

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Working with others to promote equality and diversity

English Partnerships works with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Housing Corporation, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), the Regional Development Agencies (the RDAs) and the London Development Agency (the LDA) to promote equality initiatives relating to the built environment and the specific requirements of end-users.

As a major landowner (and as a facilitator for the purchase and re-use of surplus public sector land) English Partnerships is at the forefront of promoting high environmental and design standards for housing built upon our development sites. We seek to promote homes that are flexible and adaptable, which in turn helps to provide an inclusive environment.

We announced in November 2007 new minimum space standards for homes built upon future land sales and this will enhance the flexibility of this accommodation.

House builders now purchasing land from us are already required to undertake Design and Access Statements (to take into account the principles of Inclusive Design) and to adopt Lifetime Homes as a minimum standard (which is enforced by a legal agreement).

Inclusive Design is a way of designing products and environments so that they are usable and appealing to everyone regardless of age, ability or circumstance by working with users to remove barriers in the social, technical, political and economic processes underpinning building and design.

Since 2004 English Partnerships has published good practice guidance on Inclusive Design in association with SURFACE and this work was comprehensively updated in 2007. This guidance is endorsed by the former Disability Rights Commission and has been subsequently used as a template by various organisations that wish to accommodate the principles of Inclusive Design.

Free guidance is available on the Inclusive Design page or in other formats by applying to us at the contact address located within the Contact and Information Appendix.

Thoughtful design can help extend the length of time a person can comfortably spend in their home especially when there are specific requirements that need to be accommodated to improve ease of circulation between rooms or the functionality of fittings. Lifetime Homes identifies 16 features that can be designed into a home to make it more adaptable to changing life circumstances and enable people to modify their home environment appropriately.

Our current preference is to nationally promote Lifetime Homes as our minimum acceptable standard, however, we acknowledge that there are alternative standards and we will review these with appropriate groups and people with specific requirements in due course.

On a site-specific basis, our regional offices have the discretion to agree enhanced standards where these are deemed appropriate. One such is example is at Tattenhoe Park in Milton Keynes where 30% of the dwellings will be designed by developer partners as ‘flexible or extendable homes’. The lessons learned from the construction and end-use of these homes will assist us review future home design standards.

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Flexible homes

Tattenhoe Park is the last grid square in the west of Milton Keynes to be developed and will provide over 1,300 new homes, many of which will be designed for maximum flexibility, making them adaptable to the changing needs of residents.

Flexible or extendable homes are not focused on any one sector of the community, but aim to offer a home that would be attractive to a diverse range of occupiers, including those with specific requirements.

Flexible wall system, view 1

Flexible wall system, view 2

These homes will be built by our developer partners with future extension or adaptation in mind and could include features such as open plan layouts or rooms with partition walls that can be easily removed or re-positioned.

The homes will sit alongside other standard housing types on the 59 ha site and will account for at least 30% of the total number of homes.

The Urban Design Compendium (UDC1) was first published in 2000 and was prepared for English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation by the leading architectural and planning design firm Llewelyn-Davies Yeang.

The UDC1 examines the factors that make neighbourhoods stimulating and active places in which residents feel comfortable and safe. This compendium has been well received and has been licensed for use overseas.

This year English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation worked with Roger Evans Associates to add a second part to the compendium (UDC2).

The UDC2 provides guidance on the processes which support delivery of successful sustainable development; and it contains a range of case studies which provide examples of how specific barriers have been overcome in delivering good urban design. For further information visit the Urban Design Compendium website.

UDC2

Urban Design Compendium 2 The UDC2 was subject to review as part of the Disability Equality Scheme procedures. It is important to note that the UDC2 is not intended to focus on any specific aspect of accessibility (such as Part M of the Building Regulations), but to provide a wide set of guiding principles that support successful sustainable development for all occupiers.

Not all comments from the internal and external review process were appropriate for inclusion as general guidance; however, this review process ensured that the printed and electronic versions of the text promoted English Partnerships’ guidance on inclusive design to reinforce the importance of this message.

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4. Assessing impact

English Partnerships adopts the guidance promoted within the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Statutory Code of Practice relating to the duty to promote disability equality and to give due regard to proportionality and relevance when considering the impact of our actions on employees, the community and people with specific requirements.

We have a gateway approach to our decision-making process. This enables a series of internal peer reviews to take place at each stage in the development and implementation of each policy and project to determine the appropriateness of our actions and the resultant impact on us and others.

A number of the strands of our Equality and Diversity Strategy and Action Plan are aimed specifically at improving our assessment of the impact of our programme interventions on local communities and, in particular, better assessment of the impact of our work on all equality groups and individuals, including those with specific requirements.

Through the Action Plan we have introduced four stages to assessing impact during the lifecycle of our business activities, especially our projects within communities:

Stage 1 - at the inception of each project, a Local Community Profile is compiled that summarises the composition of the local community that will be impacted by the project and highlights the representation of key minority and disadvantaged groups. This profiling assumes a representation of people with specific requirements in each local community due to the lack of reliable statistical information.

English Partnerships acknowledges that profiling is often a high-level view for indicative purposes only and is not an exact science. All such profiling needs ground-level input from local partners, with clear protocols to ensure that people with specific requirements are consulted and become involved. We will refine these protocols in the communities where we work.
Stage 2 - all projects provide for consultation with their respective local community and our best practice guidance for project managers will advocate that community engagement should be fully inclusive and achieve full participation. By reference to the Local Community Profile (Stage 1), we seek to ensure that all sections of the local community, including those with specific requirements, are fully represented in any community consultation.

Inclusive engagement is not always as successful as it should be. ”Hard to reach” is a two-sided phrase: it is used against us when individuals find it difficult to make contact and engage with English Partnerships; and by us when we find it hard to identify and consult with community individuals who have specific requirements. We will therefore continue to work closely with our national and local delivery partners to find new ways of engaging with all sections of the community.

Stage 3 - in assessing the impacts of our work on people with specific requirements and, in particular, agreeing the further action required to avoid or minimise adverse impacts, each decision we make will need to give due regard to the proportionality and relevance of that impact.

Therefore all projects, policies and publications are subject to an Equality Impact Assessment. This helps to assess the impact of our business activities on people with specific requirements, highlighting any adverse impacts and proposing actions to address these through modifications or other measures.

SURFACE and equality advisers MDA have helped to shape our approach to Equality Impact Assessments. Our employees have been trained to undertake the assessments and, where appropriate, we are seeking further assistance from the involvement groups or people in the communities where we work.
Stage 4 - all major projects and programmes are the subject of formal evaluation to ensure that the objectives have been achieved and to assess the impact of each project in meeting the needs of all sections of the local community.

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5. The 10-Point Action Plan

Our Equality and Diversity Strategy outcomes will be achieved by modifying the way that we conduct our business. This will ensure that equality and diversity principles are firmly embedded in all that we do. It is expected that our Equality and Diversity Strategy will take some years to achieve the desired outcomes and the current Action Plan focuses on the priorities up to April 2009.

Our Action Plan is summarised as follows:

Staff Awareness & Understanding:

Continue the programme of education and training for all our employees promoting the value of diversity and our Equality and Diversity Strategy, policies and practices.

Recruitment & Employment:

Further enhance our recruitment policies and employment practices to help us become an employer of choice.

Values & Competencies:

Implement a plan to promote our core organizational values including embedded diversity principles.

Equality Impact Assessments:

Embed the principles of equality impact assessments in setting objectives and designing all our policies and projects to ensure that they meet the needs of all sections of the communities impacted.

Community Consultation:

Develop and implement a practical toolkit to ensure that all community engagement is fully inclusive and effectively engages with all ‘hard-to-reach’ groups.

Long-Term Management:

To work with development partners, community organisations and other partners to develop ways to empower all sections of the local population in the management and long-term stewardship of their community.

Benefits Delivery:

Extend formal evaluation of our projects and to implement a framework of area-based outcome indicators to measure progress with all policies, programmes and projects in delivering lasting benefits for all sections of the local community.

Good Practice:

Extend capture and sharing of English Partnerships' good practice case studies through systematic review of EQIAs undertaken on English Partnerships' policies and projects.

Communications:

Implement an integrated communications strategy to support delivery of the E&D strategy.

Partner & Supplier Working:

Implement a set of protocols and requirements for all suppliers and partners that work with or are procured by English Partnerships to ensure that all adhere to and demonstrate diversity principles.

It should be re-emphasised at this point that there is a distinct and unique Disability Equality Duty. This will require separate and distinct strands and sub-actions within our published Action Plan to address issues that apply to people with specific requirements.

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6. Monitoring and reporting

Equality & Diversity Strategy

Progress with delivery of the Action Plan, including specific initiatives to address the themes of this Disability Equality Scheme, will be monitored continuously and reported quarterly to our Executive Management Board. Progress will be monitored against each of the milestones to ensure that we continue to make progress in embedding equality and diversity principles in all our business activities.

We record the profile of our staff and regularly brief the English Partnerships’ Chairman, our Board and our executive directors on the implementation of our Equality and Diversity Strategy and our Action Plan. These profiles include information on the number of employees with specific requirements and this is published within the Equality and Diversity Action Plan Appendix and periodically updated.

In addition, the Equality and Diversity Strategy defines a number of key performance measures and indicators. Targets and delivery progress using these performance indicators will continue to be reported annually to our Executive Management Board and the main Board of English Partnerships.

Employment policy

We undertake and record workplace assessments for all employees as part of our health and safety policy; and where appropriate we work with individuals and occupational health advisers to record and monitor specific workplace adjustment requirements.

We will record and monitor the effectiveness of our guaranteed interview scheme. The nature and outcome of complaints from our employees are also recorded and we receive statistical data relating to the take-up of confidential counselling services.

Programmes and business activities

To measure progress with embedding equality and diversity principles in the delivery of our programmes and other business activities we propose to apply the following approach:

At the inception of every project, a Local Community Profile will be produced and we will record the key findings.
The findings of each Equality Impact Assessment will be recorded and, in particular, we will highlight how the assessment findings have informed and influenced the development and delivery of each policy and project.
All major projects and programmes are the subject of formal evaluation and we will continue to maintain a record of the findings of each evaluation including an objective assessment of how well the needs of all sections of the local community, including those with specific requirements, have been met.

We will introduce procedures to monitor compliance with this approach and to assess whether these measures are achieving the desired objectives of firmly embedding equality and diversity principles in our key decision making processes.

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7. Continuous improvement

The key to successful implementation of this Disability Equality Scheme is to ensure that we strive for continuous improvement by conducting regular reviews and implementing revisions and improvements. We have committed to review annually our Equality and Diversity Strategy and Action Plan.

The purpose of this annual review is to ensure that we continue to progress the Equality and Diversity Strategy’s objectives and maintain a clear plan of action focused on the key priorities.

A key outcome of the annual review is a revised Action Plan that highlights the 2-year agenda of priority initiatives that will provide the focus in further embedding equality and diversity principles in all aspects of our business activities.

As this Disability Equality Scheme is an integral part of our Equality and Diversity Strategy, we will review the Action Plan to ensure that we continue to focus on initiatives that address issues relating to people with specific requirements. In particular, we propose to apply the learning from the annual review exercise to reshape and redirect the activities required to improve this Disability Equality Scheme and our Equality and Diversity Strategy.

A key source of learning is the information gathered on the impact of our policies, practices and business activities on the needs of people with specific requirements in the community (see Section 4 ) and the key findings from our processes of regular monitoring and reporting (see Section 6).

English Partnerships is aware of the good work fostered by the Consultation Institute and many other national and local delivery groups. We are preparing best practice guidance for our employees and delivery partners on how to encourage more people with specific requirements to attend and participate in consultation exercises.

We would like to encourage other public sector organisations that undertake similar community consultation exercises in our Regions to share with us their good practice experience. Please contact us in the first instance by e-mail or any of the other contact methods detailed in Contact and Information Appendix.

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8. Annual reporting

The key achievements and any revised actions relating to this Disability Equality Scheme and the Equality and Diversity Strategy will be published annually and made available on our website and in other formats upon request. Our Annual Report will confirm our commitment to equality and diversity and direct interested parties to our website or other publications formats to increase general awareness of this important subject.

Contact and Information Appendix

Disability Equality Scheme and general correspondence or comments

Access our website contact page with your enquiry.

Text phone:
01908 353710

E-mail:
mail@englishpartnerships.co.uk

Letter:
Information Access Officer
English Partnerships
Central Business Exchange II
414-428 Midsummer Boulevard
Central Milton Keynes
Buckinghamshire
MK9 2EA

Telephone from within the UK
Telephone: 01908 353680
Fax: 01908 353647

Telephone from outside the UK omitting the (0) where appropriate:
Telephone: + 44 (0)1908 353680
Fax: + 44 (0)1908 353647

Specific links and other contact information

Links to specific web pages belonging to English Partnerships

Equal Opportunities Policy

Inclusive Design

Quality Standards (including Lifetime Homes)

Useful links to other organisations and information

Your rights and the regulations

Disability discrimination – your rights

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995

Last updated: 21 November 2007

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