"I DON’T think anyone would quibble with the view that the public sector has been ahead of the private sector in promoting equality of opportunity in employment for disabled people. Equally no one would disagree with the view that there is still a long way to go, particularly around representation of disabled people at senior levels.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that staff with disabilities remain concentrated at junior levels, stay at those levels longer than nondisabled colleagues and continue to lose out on promotional opportunities. The Disability Rights Commission report, Creating an Alternative Future: The Challenge, emphasises the point that when in work disabled people are less likely to have a managerial job and are twice as likely to experience unfair treatment.

Disability in the Civil Service recently moved out of the shadows and into the mainstream. For me, the key driver was the Civil Service-wide ten-point plan developed by Waqar Azmi, the chief diversity adviser and launched in November 2005 by Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, and Bill Jeffrey, the Civil Service diversity champion and Permanent Under Secretary at the Ministry of Defence.

The ten-point plan was brought in as part of the Civil Service reform agenda to help to build a highly capable Civil Service that is representative of the population it serves and to deliver the Government’s business priorities and excellent public services. It is an extremely robust plan and clear on what it wants to achieve — a Civil Service that takes concrete action to address under representation of key groups at the most senior levels and one that has a zero tolerance of discrimination, bullying and harassment on any grounds. This is because increased numbers of these groups at the top of the service would provide both the most visible signal of change and would also lead to broader change in the way equality and diversity is managed and valued in the service at all levels, across all equality and diversity strands.

The ten-point plan not only offers leadership programmes to bring disabled people into the senior Civil Service, but also sets targets for every Government department, includes measures on recruitment, behaviour and culture change and strengthens the accountability of permanent secretaries.

I take heart from the progress that has been made and I have no doubt that the new Disability Equality Duty that came into force on December 4 will help to reinforce the message that disability equality must be a priority for everyone. As Anne McGuire, the Minister for Disabled People, pointed out while launching the new duty; this will help to tackle the institutionalised discrimination and the shocking inequalities disabled people still face in the public sector.

In my view, achievement of behaviour and culture change is pivotal. If we achieve that, as set out in the ten-point plan, the attitudinal problem that limits our abilities in the eyes of colleagues will disappear and we will make real progress. Equality for disabled people is not only the right thing to do but, as Sir Gus said at the ten-point-plan launch, “it will enable policies and services to be developed in ways which will result in better outcomes for everyone in society”.

www.civilservice.gov.uk/diversity/ 10_point_plan/index.asp

Paul Zickel is chairman of the Civil Service Disability Network

[Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/career_and_jobs/public_sector/article1536863.ece]