Work Stream Leaders Top Three Highlights
Work Stream Leaders Top Three Highlights
Much of MACS work is conducted through work streams. Leadership for each area is provided by the work stream leads. Highlights for this reporting year are set out below.
Planning and Strategy
David Hunter is Co-Lead of the Planning and Strategy work stream, sharing responsibility with the Convener. The team also includes the other work stream Leads ensuring connection across all areas of the Committee's work and preventing silo working. This year's main achievements include the following:
A number of strategic initiatives that have been introduced by the Scottish Government, which will have implications for disabled people's mobility for many years. These include the first Delivery Plans for the NTS2, the capital investment plan (STPR2), a draft National Planning Framework (NPF4) and the ambitious plan to reduce private car kilometres by 20% by 2030, in line with the NTS2 and COP26 commitments.
MACS has engaged with these programmes and associated cconsultations, often through the Planning and Strategy work stream. Our consistent messaging has been to ensure that the "just transition" involves and includes disabled people, that the impacts of initiatives on disabled people are clearly understood with appropriate involvement of people with lived experience, and that the "Triple A" message of "Available, Accessible and Affordable" is reinforced at every opportunity.
Travel for disabled people is often hard, time-consuming and expensive – and sometimes impossible. We are therefore pleased to receive support from Ministers for the need to "close the mobility gap" between how disabled and non-disabled people travel. We also secured agreement from Transport Scotland to produce regular data on how disabled people's travel patterns compare with non disabled people. This information is essential if we can tell that the outcome we want to see – that the mobility gap is closing – is being achieved. The first edition of 'Disability and Transport', was published in July 2021 and confirmed that disabled people make fewer journeys than non-disabled – 1.63 journeys per day versus 2.07. In addition, it contains useful information about the modes of travel which disabled people use. We will look forward to seeing similar data in future years, and hope that they show positive trends.
View report on Disability and Transport Statistics
Motability is also an area the Planning and Strategy work stream has been focusing on for the past three years. Although a vital scheme to nearly 70,000 Scots, it was established in its current form over 40 years ago and we see major weaknesses in it in terms of its responsiveness to customers and value for money. During the past year, the Scheme made profits of over half a billion pounds and in addition made a donation of £170 million to the charity – in all, representing more than £1,000 per user, which we believe should be rebated to customers.
As responsibility for disability assistance is devolved to Scotland, we have continued to engage with the key stakeholders including the Scottish Government officials with responsibility for the Accessible Vehicles and Equipment Scheme ('AVES'), the Motability charity and its commercial arm Motability Operations. We have put our concerns to Ministers Graeme Dey, Patrick Harvie and Ben Macpherson who recognise these concerns. In turn we recognise the importance of continuity during the transition to introducing new Scottish disability assistance benefits and Ministers' wish to ensure that no one loses entitlement to a Motability vehicle during this transition. We have therefore asked Ministers to look for opportunities to change and develop the Scheme in the medium to longer term, once the transfer of responsibility for disability benefits has been completed.
We also take some encouragement from the introduction by Motability Operations from February 2022 of a £250 "new vehicle" payment to customers, which appears to signal a greater recognition by Motability that it cannot go on accumulating excess profits. MACS has been at the forefront of efforts to persuade Motability to return surplus profits to customers, rather than retain them within the Motability system.
We therefore welcome this move – which would appear to return more than £50 million a year to disabled people on benefits – and hope that it will be significantly increased in future years so that customers pay no more than necessary to access the scheme's services.
Bus and Community Transport
Audrey Birt is the MACS Work Stream Lead for Bus and Community Transport and continues to be supported by Joanne Devitt. This reporting year saw the team strengthened with further support from new committee members Graham Dunn, Pauline Kelly and Heather Still, who bring their own valuable knowledge and experience.
This year's achievements include the following:
Enabling the prioritisation of accessible taxi availability across Scotland. This has involved working closely with Transport Scotland, where a collaborative approach resulted in co-signing a letter to all 32 Local Authorities. The letter invited them to take account of their obligations within the Equalities Act to encourage disability training, whilst promoting the free REAL (Respect, Empathise, Ask and Listen) "Real Passenger, Real Person" training package developed by the Department for Transport. This also invoked the Triple A (available, accessible, affordable) standard for taxis and private hire cars as a key provider of transport for the most vulnerable in our society.
Alongside this we have worked collaboratively with the Health and Social Care Alliance to explore the concept of 20-Minute Neighbourhoods, which has previously been mentioned; however, the main outcome was to ensure that all of those involved in the concept stage understood the need to involve disabled people at the start of this policy development.
In relation to our aspirations for transport to health and social care, this work has been frustratingly slow to progress; however, we have raised awareness across NHS Boards on the importance of transport and we have secured dedicated support with Scottish Government to progress this work and MACS nine recommendations from their Phase 1 work, which in itself is a key achievement. A link is provided below to the report of the March 2020 Development Day and nine recommendations.
Working together to deliver improvements - Transport Scotland March 2020 Development Day Report (pdf) (transport.gov.scot)
Ferries and Aviation
2021-22 has been a year of transition, especially for ferries and aviation in general, but also for the Ferries and Aviation Work stream. Hilary Stubbs continues to lead, with the Convener Linda Bamford and Naghat Ahmed continuing with their support. The work stream now benefits from the newly appointed MACS members Lynsey Shovlin and Heather Still. The new members have been allocated their resource in this area due to their knowledge and experience.
This year's achievements include the following:
The work of the Ferry and Aviation work stream has gradually moved from rapid responses to the Covid-19 pandemic to a more "work as normal" footing. However, the Aviation side of our work has been slow to recover with our main piece of work being a response to a consultation on how Scotland can have national and international connectivity that allows us to enjoy all the economic and social benefits of air travel while reducing our environmental impact. In our response we were keen to ensure that any new developments were fully accessible and maintained the lifeline services to the Islands.
Over the year we have met several times with the Transport Scotland Ferries Team. The team has been strengthened over the year and we delivered an awareness session to their new members. This year they have begun to draft the Islands Connectivity Plan, which will replace the Scotland Ferries Plan when it expires in 2022. It is pleasing to see that the new plan supports our aim for inclusive travel and joined-up journeys.
This year was the last year of the Ferries Accessibility Fund. This fund has supported improvements to port/harbours, terminals and helped ferry operators and owners to introduce more accessible facilities. Hilary Stubbs and Naghat Ahmed sat on the panel, which considers the applications to the fund and have seen successful projects including Changing Place facilities, shelters at a harbour, ramps, automatic doors, lowered reception desks and a guide to ferries for autistic passengers.
As stated above, over the year the Ferries and Aviation work stream has welcomed two new members, and it's pleasing to see their knowledge influencing our response to discussions. At the end of 2019 the National Islands Plan was approved by Parliament. During 2019 we had regularly contributed to the draft document and were pleased to see that one of the Strategic Objectives was "to improve transport services". MACS was also invited to have a representative on the National Island Plan Delivery Group.
Hilary Stubbs took up this role and has contributed to transport topics and other areas where we have an interest such as accessible housing and opportunities for cycle hire for disabled people.
Mobility as a Service (MaaS) – over the past two years we have built up a sound working relationship with colleagues from the MaaS team and Hilary Stubbs was invited to sit on their approval panel for the second round of the MaaS Investment Fund in 2021. Hilary was lead on the assessment of the accessibility and inclusivity of applications. The successful bids show innovative responses to travel options and some include Demand-Responsive Transport and links to Community Transport, which both feature in the work of MACS.
Leads Meetings – the work stream leads meet every quarter to discuss topics of interest. This year has seen the introduction of a Risk Profile for MACS. The Leads review this and update it at each meeting and meetings are chaired by Hilary in her role as Vice Convener.
Rail
2021-22 has been a year of transition, both for rail in general and also for the Rail work stream. Marsali Craig and Hussein Patwa co-led this work stream until the summer of 2021 when the leadership was transitioned to Simon Watkins and the Rail team refreshed. This included two of the newly appointed board members joining the team. With the retirement of Marsali, Hussein and Fraser Sutherland and the arrival of Simon Watkins, Lynsey Shovlin and Pauline Kelly, almost the entire membership of the Rail work stream has changed during this year. The planned handover allowed for relationships to be maintained with key stakeholders and key areas of work to be handed over between leads. The new members had been recruited for their knowledge in this area.
Below are some of the work stream's key achievements this year. However, it should also be noted that during the height of the Covid-19 crisis travel by rail fell by 90% in Scotland and the period following has been about long, slow recovery. Given the changes in work patterns that the crisis has generated there is even a question whether rail travel will ever return to "normal". At the time of writing this update, Saturday is ScotRail's busiest day of the week.
This year's achievements include the following:
Whilst the recovery from Covid-19 has been the priority, the team were pleased that the ScotRail Equalities Group accepted their proposal to monitor and report on the use of Passenger Assistance as a proxy for the return of disabled passengers travelling by rail.
On the wider and bigger picture there have been two big developments in rail this year: the "nationalisation" of ScotRail as an operator of last resort; and the publication of the long-awaited Williams-Shapps Review of rail UK wide.
View Great British Railways: The Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail.
The nationalisation of ScotRail came into effect in April 2022 and we were gratified to see that the operator announced a reduction to one hour for the notice required to access Passenger Assistance. This compares very favorably with other train operators in the UK.
The Williams-Shapps Review was also encouraging in that the new body it creates, Great British Railways, will have a statutory duty to improve accessibility.
The Review also announced the first ever comprehensive audit of network accessibility at every station in the UK and this work has already begun in Scotland. We will be looking to the results of this work to provide a map of what needs to be done to make the railways in Scotland accessible for all.
Beyond this, the Rail work stream was instrumental in constructing the "Rail Development Day" in August 2021, for MACS as a whole. It included a presentation by the newly appointed UK Disability Champion for Rail, ScotRail's Equality and Inclusion Lead and an update from a representative of the Office of Rail and Road.
Members of the work stream have also been heavily engaged in the plans to redesign Waverley Station in Edinburgh, which, if pursued, should lead to significant improvements in access for disabled people at this major, high-footfall transport terminus.
Roads, Infrastructure and Active Travel (RIAT)
2021-22 has also been a year of transition for the Roads, Infrastructure and Active Travel (RIAT) Work stream. Keith Robertson led this work stream until September of 2021 when the leadership was transitioned to Susan Fulton and the RIAT team refreshed. This included one of the newly appointed board members joining the team who was recruited for their knowledge in this area.
With the retirement of Keith and Fraser Sutherland and the arrival of Graham Dunn, the team, under the leadership of Susan Fulton, took on a new focus incorporating the inclusive active and sustainable travel elements of their work, including accessible pedestrian environments to support the sustainable transport hierarchy and climate change agenda. The planned handover allowed for relationships to be maintained with key stakeholders and key areas of work to be handed over between leads.
During and post transition, members of the team continued to work with and challenge various bodies across several areas to reinforce the need for inclusive public places and spaces that everyone can access and use – irrespective of ability; for example if the discussion is around cycling and bike provision MACS always advocates for the inclusion of accessible/nonstandard bikes, if the conversation is around Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging MACS advocates that this should include accessible and inclusive EV charging provision as well as accessible infrastructure surrounding the EV points.
Members of the work stream collaborated with the team involved in the Low Emission Zone exemption criteria and were pleased to influence the provision to include not only online registration but registration by phone and in person.
The RIAT team continue to work with external partners in various areas. For example:
Sustrans Scotland – to assist by giving advice on the need for robust and meaningful EqIAs, involving disabled people or their representatives at the start of the process.
Paths for All – to continue the work with Paths for All; walking and wheeling is for everyone, walking and wheeling is for everywhere and walking and wheeling is for every day.
Scottish Road Works Commissioner – to work towards eradicating the current barriers roadworks and road work signage present for pedestrians and in particular disabled people, and with Public Health Scotland – to collaborate on the work being undertaken in relation to the Health Inequality Impact Assessment linked to the 20% reduction in car kilometres by 2030.
The RIAT Work stream also continued to work across Scottish Government through various groups and forums including Roads for All Forum, Inclusive Design in town Centres and Busy Street Areas, the 20% reduction in car km and the safer speed limit of 20mph Task Group.
Consultation responses on a diverse range of topics is another area of work that the team have been involved in and responses include – Parking Charge Notice, Local Place Plans, Electric Vehicle Charge Points for New Residential and Non Residential Buildings, 20% reduction in car km route map and Pavement Parking.