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Disability Equality Scheme

Education Service Disability Equality Scheme 2006-2009

1. Introduction

Clackmannanshire Council Education Service's Disability Equality Scheme (DES) provides a framework, and associated action plan, for the promotion of disability equality in our schools and early years centres.

The DES reflects the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act, 2005. This places a general duty upon local authorities to promote disability equality. Within the context of a council-wide DES, the local authority must demonstrate how, in carrying out its functions, it will:

• Promote equality of opportunity between disabled people and others
• Eliminate unlawful discrimination
• Eliminate harassment of disabled people related to their disability
• Promote positive attitudes towards disabled people
• Encourage participation by disabled people in public life
• Take account of disabled people even where this means treating them more favourably

In addition, the Act places specific duties upon education authorities to support the process of planning, delivering and evaluating action to meet the general duties in the context of the provision of education. Thus, an Education Service DES, nested within the council-wide DES, provides details of this process and an associated action plan. In particular, the Education service DES includes details of arrangements for schools to:

• Assess the impact (or likely impact) of their policies and practices on equality for disabled pupils ( appendix 2)
• Gather information on the effects of their policies and practices, the educational opportunities available and the achievements of disabled pupils
• Provide an annual report in respect of the above
• Carry out the steps needed at school level to fulfil the general duty
• Maintain a copy of the DES

This Scheme establishes a context for the continued promotion of disability equality in Clackmannanshire's schools and early years centres. It sets out the commitment of the Education Service to assess, through its establishments, the impact of its policies and practices on disabled people (pupils, staff, parents and other stakeholders) and to take subsequent appropriate action.

It provides guidance to support schools and centres in assessing the impact, or likely impact, of their policies and practices on disabled people and to gather information on the educational opportunities available to and the achievements of disabled children and young people.

2. Legislative Context

The 2005 Act is part of a suite of legislation designed to challenge disability discrimination and to remove barriers to participation in society faced by many disabled people. This section summarises the relevant legislation and schools' key responsibilities. It also defines some of the legal terminology used in the legislation.

2.1. Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA)

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 makes it unlawful to discriminate against disabled persons in connection with employment, the provision of goods, facilities and services or the disposal or management of premises.

Under the legislation a 'disabled person' is defined as a person who has a disability. A person has a disability if he has:

'a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long term adverse effect on his ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.'

The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 amends and extends the meaning of disability in relation to mental illness and to cancer, HIV infection and multiple sclerosis.

2.2. Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 (SENDA) - Disability Discrimination in Education

The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 (SENDA) was introduced to make further provision to address discrimination, on grounds of disability, in schools and other educational establishments. Part 2 of the Act is entitled Disability Discrimination in Education.

Under the act it is unlawful for a body responsible for a school to discriminate against a disabled pupil, or prospective disabled pupil, in any of the following areas:

• Through the admission process
• In the provision of education and associated services
• Through exclusion from school

2.3. Education (Disability Strategies and Pupils' Educational Records) (Scotland) Act 2002 (DSPERA)

The Education (Disability Strategies and Pupils' Educational Records) (Scotland) Act 20002 requires each education authority to prepare and implement an Accessibility Strategy in order to improve, over time, disabled pupils' access to the curriculum, the school environment and school communication. The Education Authorities has recently completed a detailed audit of the first Accessibility Strategy. This work has informed the development of the DES.

2.4. Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act, 2004

The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act, 2004 introduced the term 'additional support needs'. This applies to any child or young person who, for whatever reason, requires additional support for learning. Additional support needs can arise from any factor that causes a barrier to learning whether the factor relates to social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic, disability, family or other circumstances.

Additional support needs replaced the term 'special educational needs' which applied only to children with particular types of learning need. The Act also removed the Record of Needs process and introduced the adoption of Coordinated Support Plans for children and young people with long term, significant learning needs that require support services from outwith education.

It is important to acknowledge the distinctions between additional support needs and disability. Some pupils may be disabled but not have any additional support needs; some may have additional support needs but not be disabled. Data gathered for the DES must take into account the definition of disability in the DDA (see 2.1 above) and include disabled pupils, disabled parents and carers, disabled employees and other disabled stakeholders.

2.5. Disability Discrimination Act, 2005

The Disability Discrimination Act, 2005 is effective from December 2006 and places a duty on all public authorities to promote equality of opportunity between disabled and other persons (see introduction, above).

3. The Context within Clackmannanshire

To date, Clackmannanshire Council Education Service has taken full account of the above legislation and welcomes the DDA 2005

The Disability Equality Scheme demonstrates our commitment to ensure that we take full account of the experience, interests and needs of all disabled members of our school communities and that we are actively promoting disability equality.

We recognise the value of ensuring disabled people are involved throughout this process of development and on a continuing basis as we assess the impact of our policies, practices and actions over the next three years. The DES has drawn on and been developed in the context of a number of relevant policies and planning and monitoring devices. These include:

• The Integrated Children's Services Plan
• The Accessibility Strategy
• The Inclusion Policy (which details the ASN framework)
• The Joint Health Improvement Plan
• The Local Authority Statement of Improvement Objectives
• Quality Improvement processes for schools including School Improvement Plans and Standards and Quality Reports
• The Parental Involvement Strategy

4. Involving Disabled People

The DES has been developed with the involvement of disabled people. The Education Service suggested a number of ways that disabled people might wish to be involved that did not depend solely on attendance at meetings. For example, we included the possibility of telephone and email contact, home visits and/or school based involvement whereby disabled people might be actively involved in aspects of impact assessment. Our action plan includes a commitment to ensure the sustainability of disabled people's involvement.

All staff were circulated with an invitation to become involved in the DES if they were disabled. We were aware of the possibility of non-disclosure of their disability by disabled staff and did not want to restrict the invitation to 'targeted' individuals. Nevertheless, we will continue to engage proactively with all staff to raise awareness and promote disability equality for all employees of the Education Service. One action in the plan will be to analyse, as soon as possible, the reasons why no members of staff accepted the invitation to participate in the DES.

Parents of disabled pupils were involved through discussion with the Parent and Children's Services Network Coordinator. Parents of disabled children were invited to share their views on what was working well and what improvements they would like to see in the provision for their children. The outcomes of these discussions have been included in the action plan.

Disabled pupils were involved in discussing their experiences and what they thought worked well and what could be improved to ensure greater disability equality. Information was drawn also from disabled pupils' involvement in discussion about facilities at the proposed new secondary schools in Clackmannanshire.

This involvement has had an impact on the development of the DES in the following ways:

• Identifying barriers
• Establishing priorities for action
• Contributing to impact assessment
• Gathering evidence
• Proposals for monitoring and evaluation

5. Impact Assessment

The primary functions of the education service as outlined within the Scotland (Schools) Act 2000, have an indisputably high impact on disability equality.

Through involving disabled people and a range of council and partner organisation representatives, the Education service has identified and prioritised a core set of policies and practices for impact assessment between 2006 and 2009.

Certain policies and practices have a particularly obvious impact on disability equality, such as the Accessibility Strategy and implementation of the additional Support for Learning Act (ASL). However, these have been subject to sustained analyses and attention through quality assurance processes and with the arrangements for associated professional development of staff. Other policy areas such as the complaints or anti-bullying policies have not been the subject of such scrutiny in terms of the impact upon disability equality and have been prioritised accordingly.

6. The Action Plan ( see appendix 1)

7. The arrangements for gathering evidence of the effect of policies and practices on the educational opportunities available to, and on the achievements of, disabled pupils

The following arrangements are in place: disabled pupils are identified through a number of routes and in partnership with parents and with the pupils themselves. Data on attendance, progress, attainment and exclusion rates of disabled pupils can be drawn through the authority's management information system (SEEMIS). Associated school record provide data on educational opportunities offered to and participation of disabled pupils.

8. The arrangements for putting the information gathered to use

Schools will disaggregate SEEMIS and associated data sources annually to review the impact on disabled pupils and staff of their policies and practices. A summary report or impact assessment will be included within each school's annual Standards and Quality report. This will be subject to discussions and action, where appropriate, through the authority's annual quality improvement cycle.

9. An annual report will be published that summarises the steps taken under the action Plan, the results of the information gathering and the subsequent action

With the involvement of disabled people, the Education service will review annually the evidence from schools and centres regarding the impact of their policies and practices on disabled pupils and staff. The outcome of the review process will be published. It will inform the implementation and development of the action plan for the following year.