Make room at the top table

Setting up an Office for Disability Issues was the right thing to do, but to be really effective it needs a higher status, says Andy Rickell

I have only one complaint about the Office for Disability Issues (ODI): it should be given a much higher status within government. And I also have only one complaint about the Minister for Disabled People role: it should be a Cabinet post.

In my opinion, the minister and the ODI offer the right mechanism for promoting disabled people’s rights within government; they just need the status and power to do so.

My ongoing reflection on the Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People report is one of increasing amazement that government can come up with something so potentially powerful and useful for disabled people. The report’s writers clearly listened to the representatives of disabled people. The social model of disability, and independent living as defined by the disabled people’s movement, have for the first time become government policy, even if we also recognise that government delivery is currently far from that reality.

The creation of an arm of central government focused on disabled people’s equality, what is now called the Office for Disability Issues (ODI), is necessary to ensure that somewhere in government, disabled people’s equality is number one on the agenda (even more so with the demise of the Disability Rights Commission). And given its limited resources, it has a very sensible work plan.

I particularly like the concentration on getting good hard and soft evidence about the reality of disabled people’s lives, so that progress towards equality can be measured and addressed. This idea of asking disabled people directly about their views and experiences is fundamental to an equality approach, both through direct surveys and through Equality 2025, the body of disabled people set up to advise government based on disabled people’s input across the country.

However, if we believe that equality for disabled people will deliver improved life chances for the 11 million Britons who are disabled, then the ODI should have the clout to match its mission. Currently it sits in the Department for Work and Pensions, implying that the government’s main interest in disabled people is about the benefits bill and jobs.

But as Gordon Brown correctly defined it, equality is about equal citizenship, about full participation in everything in life. So the ODI should be at the heart of government. Westminster government struggles with this. I see only one radical solution: that the ODI should be a separate department, with a direct ministerial link to the top table: the Cabinet.

This sounds excessive. For instance, what about the representation of other disadvantaged groups too? Perhaps there should be a Department for Equality and Human Rights with a Cabinet minister, rather than the current ridiculously fragmented approach.

Whatever the solution for the representation of equality issues generally, 11 million disabled Britons who overall experience increasing poverty and are the biggest users of state support services, deserve their representation at the highest level in government. Only that way can the effectiveness of government policies as a whole be challenged by a minister responsible for doing so. Policies like welfare reform and “social care” should not escape an equality challenge in Cabinet.

• Andy Rickell is an executive director at Scope: andy.rickell@scope.org.uk