I’m hosting this Little E-book of Inclusion online to help everyone out there who’s delivering services on a shoestring, particularly the charities and voluntary sector.

My last entry was all about assessing the accessibility of your business property. This chapter is all about finding accessible meeting places in London. I have chosen London because many people feel they are priced out of quality venues in the capital. I love London and want to share it with you.

Hosting an accessible event in the capital need not cost the earth.

Here are some London venues that I have personally used or booked myself and I have found them to be inclusive and welcoming spaces. If you are a charity or community group be sure to enquire about discount which many will give if you ask.

Before making a room booking you need to know about the access requirement of your delegates, please ask everyone attending what facilities they need to help them take part. For example, you will need to know if people are coming with an assistance dog so you can have a water bowl available. When booking rooms be sure to let the conference centre know in advance if you will want to use the hearing loops, some venues have portable systems.

Finally, these venues are only a tiny fraction of what London has to offer. Soon I will be writing about venues up and down the country, so if you know a great inclusive conference centre let me know more!

1. Shelter
88 Old Street,
London EC1V 9HU
Phone: 0344 5151155
Website:http://england.shelter.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/309814/Shelter_room_hire_leaflet_2013.pdf

2. The Salvation Army
Chalk Farm Corps
10-16 Haverstock Hill
London, NW3 2BL
Phone: 020 7485 1605
E-mail: chalk.farm.corps@salvationarmy.org.uk
Website: http://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/lcn/Chalk_Farm

3. Arlington Conference Centre
220 Arlington Road
London NW1 7HE
Phone: 020 7428 1161
Email: enquiries@arlingtonconference.org.uk
Website: www.arlingtonconference.org.uk

4. Coin Street Conference Centre
108 Stamford Street
South Bank, London SE1 9NH
Phone: 020 7021 1600
Email: events@coinstreet.org
Website: http://www.coinstreet.org/images/coin-street-conference-centre/66-conferences-and-meetings.html

5. The Directory of Social Change
24 Stephenson Way
London NW1 2DP
Phone: 020 7391 4800 Website:http://www.dsc.org.uk/Services/CharityCentreVenueHire

6. Lambeth ACCORD
336 Brixton Road
London, SW9 7AA
Phone: 020 7274 2299

http://www.lambethaccord.org.uk/

Email: admin@lambethaccord.org.uk

I’m hosting this Little E-book of Inclusion online to help everyone out there who’s delivering services on a shoestring, particularly small companies and charities.

January’s Little E-book of Inclusion  is all about improving access to your business property.  Here’s a short checklist for you to use walking through your own office or shop.  It’s a starting point and if you get stuck call us on 0845 130 1669, we’re happy to help

Little E-book of Inclusion Chapter 1

Budapest Airport Shuttle Bus

The best time to visit Budapest is autumn – just when the summer sun has lost its heat and off-peak travellers can catch some last minute sunshine. I certainly wasn’t to be disappointed with the weather which was several degrees higher than London.

Despite all the prior warnings about poor facilities for disabled people I was still left deflated at what I found there. Several budget airlines fly to Budapest and from London the journey is around 2 hours. It’s really easy. Liszt Ferenc International Airport won’t disappoint disabled travellers. It’s got all the usual equipment such as a lifts to get you on and off the plane, WCs etc.

If you’re on a budget (who isn’t these days?) and money won’t stretch to paying for private taxis then your next best option is to use the Airport Shuttle Service which drops off at any address or hotel in the city. The Airport Shuttle can be paid for in the arrivals hall. Once you’ve got your ticket, simply wait with others who are sharing your bus, drivers appear from time to time by the door, announce their route and off you go! This only works if you’re able to transfer from your ‘chair to a minibus seat. http://www.airportshuttle.hu/en/

Our hotel, Continental Hotel Zara, an old Hungarian Bathhouse oozed chic style and tradition – just what the doctor ordered! Sadly it also boasted an enormous front entrance step that was not mentioned on the website or any hotel literature. So it was disappointing to require assistance in and out the hotel every day. Inside, as you would expect from any million dollar makeover, there were several lifts and good quality accessible bedrooms. It was a real blow not to use the rooftop garden or any swimming & spa facilities: all were not accessible to me. I can’t imagine what Hungarian building inspectors would’ve made of those enormous steps up to the pools.

The cheapest and most accessible way of getting around the Budapest is by bus (not all the buses have ramps and low floors) but the nearer you get to the city centre their numbers go up. We used a tourist “hop on and off” bus which was a great success and suited us well because we only wanted to take in the big attractions. Be warned that disability awareness is pretty low. We often needed to ask drivers to park closer to the kerb or to move their cleaning buckets away from the designated wheelchair space – although in all honesty the same can be said of bus drivers in London!

We had a first class visit to the Museum of Modern Arts, it had an amazing exhibition simply called “Being Hungarian”. Sadly access is via a side door and it is necessary to press a bell and wait outside for gallery staff to come down. We had such a good time there we had planned to go back and spend more time at the exhibitions upstairs but sadly that didn’t happen. www.mucsarnok.hu.

No trip to Budapest would be complete without a swim at the local thermal baths. Sadly the platform lift at the main entrance seems to have been taken out of use sometime ago. Thankfully there is another back entrance but it is not written into the guidebook or sign posted very well, so we wasted quite a bit of time hunting for the correct door. Once inside the baths there is a lift, accessible WCs and two accessible changing units (although there are no handrails, this is simply a changing area big enough for your wheelchair and an assistant). To help getting into the many thermal baths there is a pool hoist. http://www.xn--szchenyifrd-cbb8wq6b.hu/?lang=en

My biggest disappointment was finding that Saint Stephen’s Cathedral has not maintained or repaired its platform lift, so the many steps with poor handrails are very difficult for disabled people. Apparently the cathedral has promised to repair its lift sometime in 2012. Let’s not forget that Budapest is home to the largest synagogue in Europe, it is open most days for tours and prayers, http://www.greatsynagogue.hu/. I did not fit in a visit here because the synagogue was closed during my stay for the festival of Sukkot. However the building has recently had a multi-million dollar makeover so it’s possible that here access for disabled people is more like London or other modern cities.

How might I sum up access for disabled people in Hungary? Put simply, don’t expect to enter a building by the same door as everyone else, at best you’ll have to find a side door, which more often than not will be locked, so you could be waiting outside sometime whilst the keys are found.

Many Hungarian shops and tourist attractions have stepped entrances directly off narrow and often cobbled streets. The painful truth is many historic and treasured landmarks will not be opened up to disabled people for sometime. There are organisations of disabled people working hard to improve the environment, here’s hoping that Hungary’s membership of the European Union will allow good ideas and best practice to be shared and barriers can be removed. The National Federation of Disabled Persons’ Associations based in Budapest campaign to improve access and raise awareness of disability. It has an international officer, Éva Caesar and she welcomes emails and calls from disabled tourists. The website, very thoughtfully has pages in English. http://www.meosz.hu/index_23.php

The government announced this week that its “preferred candidate” to take over from Trevor Phillips as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) was Baroness Onora O’Neill. Baroness O’Neill is a crossbench peer and was previously principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, is an honorary professor of philosophy at Cambridge, and is said to have written widely on equality and human rights.

But Sir Bert Massie, the DRC’s only chair throughout its seven-year existence – before it was merged with other equality organisations to form the EHRC in 2007 – compared her task to “removing the debris” when “part of the house has fallen down and the wind is blowing in”.

The EHRC is planning to cut staff posts from about 250 to just 150 by the end of 2012, down from as many as 525 people after its launch, and its budget is set to fall to £18 million by 2014-15, down from £62 million in 2010-11.

Sir Bert questioned what the EHRC had achieved on disability discrimination, and pointed to levels of unemployment among disabled people that are now seven per cent higher than when the DRC was dismantled. He said: “The EHRC has lost a lot of its powers, it has lost a lot of its budget, and it has lost a lot of its functions. It is fairly hard to compare it with the DRC, which always was a much more dynamic organisation.”

He added: “A lot of disability groups supported the merger [in 2007]. Those who were more cautious thought disability might be downgraded. But what has happened is that the whole EHRC has been downgraded.”

The EHRC’s budget is currently just a few million pounds more than the DRC’s, he said – following government cuts – even though it is dealing with nine different equality strands. He said he was not convinced that the government “really believe in having an equality commission”.

Sir Bert served as an EHRC commissioner for two years, before resigning in 2009 over concerns at Phillips’ leadership. He said Phillips had been a good public speaker, and worked well with the media, but had been a flawed chair, and had failed to stand up to the government.

He also pointed to salaries paid to top EHRC staff that had been twice as high as those paid by the DRC. But he said the Labour government had also put too many of its own supporters onto the commission’s board. He said at the time of his resignation that the EHRC had failed to take up the agenda developed by the DRC, had not allocated sufficient resources to disability, and had done too little on human rights.

Sir Bert said he did not know Baroness O’Neill but was “encouraged” by her background in human rights. But he said disabled people would need the new chair to be able to talk not just about human rights, for issues such as health and social care, but also equality, for employment and education, and would need to be “robust enough to stand up to the government”. He said: “I wish her well but it is going to be difficult.”

The EHRC is also seeking a new deputy-chair and five commissioners, one of whom will chair the commission’s disability committee and will be its disability commissioner.

The decision to recommend Baroness O’Neill was taken by the new Conservative culture secretary, Maria Miller, who until last month was minister for disabled people. The parliamentary joint committee on human rights will now hold a “pre-appointment scrutiny hearing” at which it will question Baroness O’Neill. Miller said the committee’s conclusions would be “considered carefully”, before a final decision was reached on whether to appoint her.

She said: “This is a really important time for the EHRC – strong leadership is vital and the new chair will play a crucial role in ensuring that it remains the valued and respected national institution it was always intended to be. I warmly commend Baroness Onora O’Neill to the committee for this role.”

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Sue Bott, director of development for Disability Rights UK (DR UK), had been given tickets to the event in the Olympic Stadium by the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), and told them in advance that she was a guide dog-user.

But she was given two seats in the middle of a row where there was not enough space for a guide dog to sit at her feet.

As a result, she asked other spectators to move so she could sit in the aisle seat, with her guide dog Faith beside her on the steps.

Bott was first approached by a member of staff halfway through the opening ceremony, as the Queen was about to declare the games officially open, and was told that Faith was a “health and safety” issue.

She said: “At first I thought it was a bit of a wind-up, but then I realised she was actually serious.

“I really got quite cross and in the end I said to her, ‘I hear what you are saying. I don’t agree and I am not going to take any notice.’ I actually missed the Queen opening the games.” 

She was later approached again, this time by a London 2012 manager, who told her that Faith, who was sitting quietly beside her on the steps, was a “health and safety hazard”.

Bott said: “I told her that she was interfering with my enjoyment of the evening. She was saying, ‘suppose we have to evacuate the stadium?’ and I said, ‘I would get out easier with a guide dog.’”

By this time, there were empty seats beside Bott and her daughter, Angela – who had accompanied her and was describing the action to her – so they moved along and Faith sat in front of one of the vacant seats. But there was still so little room that part of the seat in front kept hitting Faith’s paws.

Bott said: “I just felt totally humiliated. It was ridiculous. If Faith is a hazard then so is every disabled person and every wheelchair-user.

“I am still struggling to believe it. It just feels like a bad dream. I would not have expected that kind of treatment in a million years.”

Bott was even more disappointed because earlier in the day she had enjoyed taking part in the Paralympic torch relay as part of a five-strong team of disabled people from DR UK.

She said the treatment she received in the stadium “really took me back to years gone by”, and added: “What it does prove is that we still need our disabled people’s organisations fighting for our rights. We cannot relax for a moment.”

A DCMS spokeswoman said she believed it was her department’s fault that Bott had been given a seat in the wrong section of the stadium, which was not accessible to guide dog-users.

But she has so far failed to comment on the attitude of London 2012 staff in the Olympic Stadium.

A LOCOG spokesman said: “If it was a health and safety issue it is something we have to take extremely seriously.”

He has so far failed to comment further.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Baroness [Jane] Campbell has been told by fellow peers – with none of them voting against the move – that she can now be accompanied by a PA, and that her assistant will be able to finish her speeches if needed.

The decision by the Lords procedure committee overturns a standing order dating back to 1707, which states that “no person shall be on the floor of the House” except peers and House of Lords staff.

Baroness Campbell said the decision was “uplifting” and would make her “feel equal” on the floor of the House.

She said: “It is not easy to overturn these ancient standing orders. It is a part of the ritual and tradition of the House of Lords. I take my hat off to this committee and my fellow peers. There was not one objection.”

Since she joined the Lords in 2007, Baroness Campbell has frequently had to rely on fellow disabled peers, such as Baroness [Rosalie] Wilkins and Baroness [Tanni] Grey-Thompson, to finish her speeches for her when she was unable to continue for impairment-related reasons.

Now she will be able to use her PA to make notes, provide other personal assistance, and complete speeches, although it is likely that only one of the several PAs she employs – who has expertise in public speaking – will assist her with her speeches.

Baroness Campbell told Disability News Service that the move would make a “huge amount of difference” to her work in the Lords, and was an example of “the House of Lords at its best”.

She said: “I really understood that they wanted to do their best but they wanted to do their best for everyone and were not just going to go with the sympathy vote.” She said that she had “never felt more supported in an organisation than I do in the House of Lords”.

She added: “It is what I have always fought for, having complete control of your life, over the way you speak, the way you conduct yourself.  It will mean I am comfortable in the chamber. When someone speaks I can get a PA to scribble it down for me.”

She said her work in the Lords had been “really difficult” over the last 18 months, particularly on the hugely complex welfare reform bill, on which she helped lead opposition to many of the government’s proposals.

Without being able to take notes, she had to remember what was said during debates, which was particularly crucial when a minister was replying to one of her amendments.

She said: “Having to concentrate [so hard] practically killed me. I was exhausted. This will take a lot of the pressure off and I would hope I will be able to think and act a lot better.”

Baroness Campbell said she believed this pressure contributed to the serious health problems she has experienced over the last year. And she said she hoped the decision to allow her to take her PA onto the floor of the House would send a message to other disabled people that “if you really want to do something, you can, there is a way to do it”.

She said: “I like to think I provide some kind of idea of the art of the possible. At a time like this when things are so difficult for disabled people it does send out a message that even in really difficult times, things like this can happen.  It shows that there are people in this country that want us, need us and are ready to stand by that. This shows that not all in the garden is doom and gloom.”

She added: “If I have my PA by my side I do feel I can conquer the world, and it shows how important personal assistance is for people who cannot for whatever reason manage on their own.”

The committee report says Baroness Campbell’s request for her PA to support her is “reasonable”, because not granting it would “limit and ultimately prevent her from taking part in the work of the House”. But it says that this “reasonable adjustment” applies only to Baroness Campbell and that any future requests by other disabled peers would have to be “considered afresh”.

Baroness Campbell also welcomed the decision that Hansard, the official record of parliamentary proceedings, would not mention if a speech was completed by her PA.

She said: “It is just me. I am all on my own. This is what personal assistance is all about. It is about facilitating the person to be who they are.” And she said the decision demonstrated why she opposed the deputy prime minister’s plans for a smaller – and largely elected – House of Lords, as it illustrated how peers “will change and reform, given the right arguments”.

She said Nick Clegg’s plans would mean losing “the highest and the best thinking the country has to offer for a very, very cheap price” and result in a Lords that was “either a mirror of the Commons or something loosely like it”, with more “career politicians”.

She said she had felt “more accountable to the disability movement than probably ever before” since she joined the Lords. She added: “I think it works incredibly well. You only need to look at the outcome of our work. There is no other second chamber like it in the world.”

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Accessible transport campaigners have discovered a Transport for London (TfL) business plan which shows that investment in step-free access in 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 will be zero.

In the document, which outlines how much TfL will be investing across London Underground until 2017-18, the “step-free access” section shows that investment in 2009-10 was about £47 million, before falling to about £33 million in 2010-11, about £28 million in 2011-12 and about £23 million this year, but will plunge to zero for the next three years. Even in 2016-17, there will only be about £4 million investment in step-free access, and less than £10 million in 2017-18. Transport for All (TfA), which campaigns for accessible transport in London, said the decision was “an insult to disabled and older Londoners”, undermines TfL’s claim that access was a “priority” and shows “complete disregard for disabled people’s right to travel”.

Lianna Etkind, TfA’s campaigns and outreach co-ordinator, said TfL’s long-standing promise to ensure a third of the tube would be step-free by 2012 had been “eroded time and time again”. She said London was being “left behind” at a time when the government had more than doubled investment in a major part of its Access for All programme to improve access to Britain’s railway stations, recognising that “in a time of squeezed budgets, there’s a strong economic case for accessible transport”.

Etkind said: “Those of us who can’t use steps remain excluded from almost all of the tube network, and as a result, excluded from work, family life, and socialising in London. “If the mayor is serious about a London where disabled and older people enjoy equality and are included in all that the capital has to offer, he must take the lead and restart investment in an accessible London Underground, so that older and disabled Londoners can travel with the same freedom and independence as everyone else.”

Transport for London’s position is still unclear. It initially claimed that the document was “out of date” and that step-free work “continues through a range of other projects”, such as the major Crossrail and station upgrade programmes. But TfL has so far been unable to explain why the document showed investment in step-free access plunging from £47 million to zero in just four years.

A TfL spokesman said it had invested “hundreds of millions of pounds in making the transport network more accessible in the last few years” and was “constantly improving” accessibility. He said 65 (of a total of 270) tube stations were now step-free from street to platform, with another station to be added this summer, with “plans to deliver step-free access at a further seven stations by 2018”.

But TfL has so far been unable to clarify why the figures show such a dramatic fall.

It is believed that most – if not all – of the access upgrades to the seven stations could be due to work carried out at railway stations through Access for All and Crossrail.

The disability charity AbilityNet, which analysed the accessibility of five sites for its report, said disabled people should be a significant market for any retail website, because they “often have less cash and less opportunity to shop around the physical high street”.

The charity tested the accessibility of Compare the Market, Go Compare, mySupermarket, Kelkoo and Confused.com.

Not one of the five achieved the three-star rating that indicates a basic level of accessibility for disabled people.   It found four of them – with one star each – were potentially breaching the Equality Act, while Kelkoo – the only site to gain two stars – only satisfied some legal accessibility requirements.

One blind user of screen-reading software who tested the mySupermarket site said they would rather “starve” than use it to buy groceries.

Robin Christopherson, AbilityNet’s head of digital inclusion, said: “Like everyone else in these hard times, the country’s 12 million disabled people want to get the best deal when they’re shopping, whether that’s for insurance, groceries or anything else. “But these cash-strapped shoppers are losing out due to badly-designed web pages that prevent them from shopping around and accessing the online bargains they need to make ends meet.”

He added: “It is just as illegal to bar disabled visitors from accessing your goods and services online as it would be to keep them out of your shop in the ‘real world’.”

A Compare the Market spokeswoman said: “We are always looking at ways to improve what we do and we have taken AbilityNet’s report very seriously. We are reviewing the report and looking at their findings and after that process has concluded we will see what changes we can make.”

Chris Simpson, chief marketing officer for Kelkoo, said his company would “look carefully at the findings of this research and, where possible, review our practices to improve this experience for disabled people”.

He said: “We are certainly open to further talks with AbilityNet to understand more about the study and how we can improve our score going forward.”

A Gocompare.com spokeswoman said: “We’re keen that Gocompare.com should be easily accessible to as many users as possible. We welcome this report and will be looking carefully at the findings to see where improvements can be made.”

No-one from Confused.com was able to comment, and mySupermarket did not reply to requests for a response to the report.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Phillips has faced repeated criticism during his two three-year terms as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

His decision not to seek a third term was revealed in a foreword to the commission’s new strategic plan. The plan also reveals that – due to drastic cuts in its budget – staffing levels at the EHRC are set to fall from 420 to between 150 and 180.

Two years ago, the parliamentary joint committee on human rights said “major questions” remained over Phillips’ leadership, following a series of resignations by commissioners.

Two disabled commissioners, Baroness [Jane] Campbell and Sir Bert Massie, had been among those who resigned in 2009 over concerns at his leadership.

Phillips also faced criticism in a report by the public accounts committee in March 2010. More recently, he had appeared on a collision course with the coalition, after arguing last year that its plans for reform risked turning the EHRC into an “anonymous, cowed, nit-picking compliance factory, remote from the everyday challenges that face ordinary people”.

The Government Equalities Office had laid out plans to slash the commission’s budget and reduce its powers, remove funding for its grants programme, and ask the private or voluntary sector to take over its national helpline.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “Trevor Phillips’ appointment as the chair of the EHRC ends in September 2012. The government are looking for an appropriate successor. It was Mr Phillips’ decision to leave.” She declined to comment further.

An EHRC spokeswoman said: “As I understand it, he is not seeking another term.” She also declined to comment further.

The EHRC’s budget is set to fall to £26.8 million by the end of 2015, compared with £70 million when it launched in 2007, and it warns in the plan that this will mean “significant” changes.

The strategic plan lays out the EHRC’s three “strategic priorities” for the next three years.

The first is to promote fairness and equality of opportunity in the economy, such as tackling the causes of the “pay gap” between the salaries of disabled and non-disabled people, and ensuring decisions by the government and the public and private sector “take full account of equality and human rights”. 

It also wants to promote fair access to public services, including “dignity and autonomy” in social care.

Its third priority will be “promoting dignity and respect and ensuring people’s safety”, including a programme to reduce disability-related bullying in schools and workplaces, and tracking the implementation of recommendations from its well-received inquiry into disability-related harassment.

The plan says legal action will continue to be the EHRC’s “last resort, when nudge, persuasion and advice have not proved effective”, and that it will have to move from providing direct services such as a helpline and grants to being “a catalyst for change and improvement”.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

The 19-year-old was often prevented from leaving the so-called “Blue Room” at Beech Tree School, near Preston, which is run by the disability charity Scope.

The mother of the young man – known only as C – has only now been able to speak out publicly after a judge lifted an anonymity order which had prevented any naming of the school or the local authority involved, Wigan Council.

C’s mother took the council to the Court of Protection, which ruled 12 months ago that it was a breach of her son’s rights to confine him to the padded room to control his “challenging behaviour” – at one stage on 192 occasions in just one month – without seeking a court order under the Mental Capacity Act authorising the school to deprive him of his liberty.

In delivering his ruling last year, Mr Justice Ryder concluded that the failure to provide C with the “specialist, qualified care and treatment” he clearly needed was “unacceptable”.

C’s mother said the improvement her son had made in the last year had vindicated the family’s battle.

 Her son now enjoys walks in the country and trips to a swimming pool, while his attention span and vocabulary have “dramatically increased”.

She said: “The ‘professionals’ within the named organisations each had the authority to halt the tragic existence of my son’s incarceration within the Blue Room but failed in their duty to do so over a considerable period of time.  His elder brother and I have witnessed the practice of seclusion enough to know that it is unnatural, particularly cruel to someone with the diagnosis of C and serves only to dehumanize, and there should be no place for its use in 21st century ‘care’.”

C’s brother added: “He has gained weight, grown taller and shows affection to those around him. I can now enjoy a relationship with him where we laugh and have fun, which is something I hadn’t seen my brother do for some time.”

Mathieu Culverhouse, a lawyer at Irwin Mitchell, which helped the family win the case, said: “This shocking case is one in which the responsible authorities failed to obtain the legal authorisation needed to deprive someone of their liberty.

“It’s clear from the progress C has made over the past nine months that the unlawful treatment he was receiving was not working.”

 As a result of the case, and falling pupil numbers, Scope has decided to close the school.

Tara Flood, director of the Alliance for Inclusive Education, said: “On the one hand it is good to see a special school closing but it is terrible it took such an appalling breach of human rights for the decision to be made.”

Richard Hawkes, Scope’s chief executive, said the charity was “very sorry” that C “didn’t get the support he needed”.

He said: “It took us too long to realise that we had become over-reliant on an approach that wasn’t working.” He said it had been a “really challenging case” and that the charity had acted with “nothing but the best intentions”.

He added: “We tried too hard and for too long, to manage a very difficult situation without securing the right combination of external expertise and support.” Wigan Council declined to comment.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com