Fears fulfilled by equality body

The Government’s single equality watchdog has, says Andy Rickell, sadly lived up to some of the concerns expressed about its formation

When I was Chief Executive of the British Council of Disabled People, (BCODP), the national voice of the disabled people’s movement, I was appointed as the representative for the disability lobby on the Government taskforce for setting up what is now the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

This was a bit of a coup, as normally I would have expected the Government to appoint someone from the big seven charities. I think a particular reason I was selected was because BCODP’s response to Government had reflected activists’ worries that a single equalities body would lose the focus on disability rights that the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) had achieved, and the Government had recognised that BCODP’s genuine concern had to be represented.

At the meetings of the taskforce I worked closely with Nick O’Brien of the DRC to make sure disability rights got a fair hearing, and this resulted in the EHRC being required to have a definite disabled commissioner and a specific disability committee. However, I was aware that many activists continued to have major misgivings about the EHRC and the expectation that all the effort to raise the profile of disability rights through the protests of the 1990s would be lost in an ineffective new body.

It is a shame that activists’ concerns have been realised. In part this has been because the Government’s support for such a single body seemed to arise more from administrative convenience, and to placate business who lobbied for just one equalities body, rather than from a sense of wanting to up the profile of equalities by strengthening the voice of excluded communities.

The only redeeming features of the Government’s direction has been the inclusion in the body of human rights, and the proposal in the proposed single equalities bill to include socio-economic class amongst the determinants of inequality.

But, in part, this failure has been because of the Government’s selection of Trevor Phillips as Chair. I think he is a very intelligent person who sometimes hits upon issues in a new and relevant way. Also, anyone who has the connections necessary in government to get the job of Chair is clearly someone who is a good relationship builder with powerful people.

But he misjudged his stakeholders at the Commission for Race Equality, and his approach to equality groups at the EHRC has been sadly dismissive – though I hasten to add that his failure to recognise deep-seated stakeholder concerns were no worse than those of some of the reps during the taskforce meetings. Trevor seems to reflect a sort of professional middle class blindness on how raw some inequalities still feel to some groups – disabled activists amongst them.

I think there is a real need for the Commission to make strong links with the people who look to it for championing their rights. That was my view when I was interviewed first time out for the Disability Commissioner role. It still is. The Commission needs to learn frankly what inequality really feels like to those who experience it most. Anything else is middle
class wishful thinking.

• Andy Rickell is a disability rights campaigner and CEO of the Vassall Centre Trust.

•• Read our interview with Trevor Phillips on pages 20-21