All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness

All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness

Pre-briefing for APPG on Deafness visit – 19th December 2006

Introduction

The Group have invited the Minister to discuss two topics:

1. Implementation of the recommendations in the access to communication in english for deaf people report
   
2. Developments in the administration of the Access to Work scheme and the future plans for the scheme.  

Access to communication in english for deaf people

One person in seven is deaf. That’s nine million people in the UK for whom service providers and employers may need to provide language and communication access services to enable full access. For most, hearing aids supplemented by a loop system are sufficient to enable effective communication. But for many deaf people, additional language and communication access services are needed to enable effective communication. Deaf people who require language and communication access services often receive a service that is far below the standard that they should reasonably expect. This means that there are literally hundreds of thousands of deaf people for whom the provision of language and communication access services is a right that they are denied. This lack of awareness amongst service providers, employers and deaf people themselves is exacerbated by the dire shortage of the professionals that provide language and communication access services.

The access to communication in english for deaf people report makes recommendations that will lead to an improvement in this situation and will assist service providers and employers in meeting their legal and moral obligations to provide equality of access. The report was funded by the Department for Work and Pensions and is the culmination of a collaborative campaign supported by the leading organisations working with deaf people and coordinated by UK Council on Deafness. The participating organisations receive regular evidence of a lack of access to vital public services and barriers to employment as a result of people not receiving the language and communication access services to which they are entitled by law.

The campaign has already recorded a number of successes. In 2003 there were only 12 registered Speech To Text Reporters, there are now 20 with more in the pipeline. The Association of Verbatim Speech To Text Reporters has been set up and the Association of Notetaking Professionals is about to be. The unitisation of qualifications by CACDP is leading to more flexible training opportunities and multi-qualified professionals. The recently merged ACE Registration Panel will promote and protect the essential high professional standards. Leaflets have been produced and distributed by RNID, on behalf of the campaign, that provide careers advice for those considering training to be a Language Service Professional (LSP) and guidance to service providers and employers about their duties under the DDA. A training programme for Cued Speech Transliterators is being established in the UK for the first time. The aim of the recommendations in the report is to develop and build on these successes.

The responsibility for implementing the recommendations in this report lies with a wide cross section of organisations from the public, private and voluntary sectors. A successful outcome will depend on considerable collaboration requiring careful coordination. We would, however, be failing hundreds of thousands of deaf people if we allowed this complexity to remain a barrier to progress.

The recommendations have been designed to be achievable within three years. However the lack of provision is so deep rooted that the real solutions needed are much more long-term than that. In many ways we are only scratching at the surface by seeing an increase in LSPs measured in 10s as a success. The recent achievement in increasing BSL/English Interpreter provision illustrates this: a doubling of registered BSL/English Interpreters in three years now gives a ratio of about one registered interpreter per 100 sign language users. Compare this to Finland where there are double the number of registered interpreters for a population a tenth the size of the UK (that’s one registered interpreter per five sign language users), and they still consider there to be a shortage of supply.

The ratio of English language based LSPs to potential users in the UK is so high as to be almost statistically meaningless, somewhere in the region of one registered LSP to 100,000 potential users. Such is the magnitude of the challenge we face.

There is considerable commitment among the main stakeholders for progress to be made, and awareness, whilst still very low, is increasing. This commitment needs to be built upon and supported with goodwill and funding from a wide variety of sources.

It has already been demonstrated that demand alone will never significantly drive up the supply of LSPs. Supply will only increase with coordinated strategic intervention from those agencies that have a duty to provide access.

Policy recommendation

That the Office for Disability Issues support coordinated initiatives to implement the recommendations in the access to communication in english for deaf people report leading to a greater awareness of and supply of Lipspeakers, Electronic Notetakers, Manual Notetakers, Verbatim Speech To Text Reporters, Deafblind Manual LSPs and Cued Speech Transliterators.

Access to Work  

Access to Work has been operating across the UK since 1994.  The scheme initially helped just over 10,000 people per year, and this has now grown to around 37,000. Access to Work enables people to move into or retain jobs they might otherwise lose because of their disability.  Arguably of all the government employment initiatives for disabled people Access to Work is the most successful and makes the greatest difference to the lives of deaf and disabled people enabling them to enter or remain in employment.

For deaf people the scheme has been invaluable in providing communication support for such things as job interviews, training courses, staff meetings and appraisals.  Without Access to Work many deaf and disabled people would be out of work.  In a recent Parliamentary answer to Danny Alexander MP, it was revealed that for every individual helped by Access to Work there is a net benefit to the Exchequer of almost £1,400 and a net benefit to the economy of almost £3,000.

Access to Work spending has been increasing year by year since its foundation in 1994 and has consistently exceeded its set budget.  However, in April 2005 the budget was frozen for the first time (at £59.5m) and staffing levels were decreased.  This meant that Access to Work had to constantly review practices and delivery methods to ensure that they could manage an increasing workload at the same budget level as last year.

The budget for 2006-07 was allocated at £62m and no decisions on funding have been made beyond 2006-07. As a result, although the national guidelines on Access to Work have not been changed (any changes to the national policy will have to be made by legislation), regional Access to Work managers have had to revise their local policies to fit in their budget constraints.  This has affected communication support in terms of quality, health & safety issues and extra scrutiny.

This varies from region to region and there is no consistency in delivery of Access to Work provisions.  The lack of consistency in the current system is frustrating for deaf and hard of hearing people using the scheme and also to providers of communication support.

Furthermore, Access to Work funding has now been withdrawn from central Government departments.  This has been presented by the Government as freeing up resources for small businesses and also as a response to the new Disability Equality Duty faced by public sector organisations.  However, organisations working with deaf people are opposed to this move, as they believe it will make it more difficult for deaf and hard of hearing people to enter or retain employment in Government departments.  This appears to be borne out already by the fact that recruitment of disabled staff within the Department of Work and Pensions has decreased from one percent in 2002-2003 to 0.23% in 2005, whilst the number of disabled people leaving has shown a small rise. 

Restricted access to communication support

In some regions, Access to Work administrators are refusing to recognise the need to provide two interpreters for assignments over two hours long. Guidelines set down by the Disability Rights Commission, RNID and the British Deaf Association state that it is the accepted standard for two interpreters to co-work at meetings if the meeting is longer than two hours.  This working practice is also recognised and recommended by the professional associations of British Sign Language/English Interpreters for Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.  This ensures a high standard of interpretation for meetings that last more than two hours.

By insisting on a sole interpreter working for more than two hours at a meeting, this affects the quality of interpretation - even if longer bookings are accepted by solo interpreters, the quality and accuracy of the interpretation will be compromised, and the deaf employee will suffer in their ability to undertake their work. 

There is also concern that this is a health and safety issue for the interpreters.  It is likely that for this reason interpreters will refuse to undertake lone bookings lasting more than two hours. This will undoubtedly affect deaf people as they will become unable to participate in lengthy meetings, training and other work activities.

A comment made by one Access to Work adviser was that: “Jobcentre Plus is [not] paying for one interpreter to sit doing nothing for half of the assignment”. This reflects a total lack of awareness of the communication needs of deaf people who use BSL and the nature of an interpreting assignment.

Another Access to Work official said:  “Two interpreters - until further advised from our Head Office, we do not authorise two interpreters to be used at the same time”.

One Access to Work manager in the West Midlands has displayed a very low level of deaf awareness, for example stating that a deaf person wanting two interpreters was simply being greedy!  

Communication Support agencies

There is a national shortage of communication support professionals such as BSL interpreters and palantypists.  Therefore it often takes a lot of time to book communication support for meetings.  The use of communication support agencies saves time and stress for deaf employees, enabling them to carry out their work duties effectively.

Some Access to Work regional offices have now refused to pay any agency costs saying that they will not cover administration/booking fees.  This means deaf people often waste time searching for qualified interpreters and find this stressful.

Access to Work in some regions have contracts with agencies which use cheaper, unqualified and non-registered people who provide communication services which may be below the acceptable standard.  This restricts the choice of deaf employees in those regions, as the contracted agency is the only one Access to Work will fund – they can either use the contracted agency, or spend time booking communication support directly themselves.

Refusal to fund communication support for external training

Deaf employees need to update their skills throughout their career.  This means going on external training courses and they will need communication support for the courses. 

Because of the DDA, some regional Access to Work offices now say it is the external training provider’s responsibility to provide communication support.  Although trainers do have to make reasonable adjustments under the DDA, the cost of communication support and the small size of many training businesses often means that provision of interpreters is beyond this legal obligation. 

Questions for the Minister

There have been numerous reports of inconsistencies in the way Access to Work funds communication support, such as sign language interpreters, for deaf and hard of hearing employees.  How can the Minister ensure that deaf and hard of hearing people’s needs are consistently met and that communication support funded by the scheme is always of high quality?

How can the Government meet its target to get one million people off Incapacity Benefit and into work without increasing the Access to Work budget or extending its promotion?

Can the Minister reassure deaf people who use British Sign Language that if they have a long meeting, Access to Work will pay for more than one interpreter in order to ensure that the quality of interpretation is maintained through the meeting and the health and safety concerns of interpreters are met?

Is the Minister concerned by the decrease in recruitment of disabled staff into the Department for Work and Pensions since the withdrawal of Access to Work funding from central government departments?

Prepared on behalf of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness by UK Council on Deafness with contributions from UK Council on Deafness member organisations – December 2006