A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People: delivery plan

3 Our ambition: Places that are accessible to everyone

Actions

Disabled people can live life to the full in homes and communities across Scotland, with housing and transport and the wider physical and cultural environment designed and adapted to enable disabled people to participate as full and equal citizens.

In the Scotland we want:

• Greater and more meaningful involvement by disabled people in designing policies and services.

• Disabled people to benefit from increased availability of affordable and accessible housing to support people to continue to life independent lives.

• Increased availability of accessible and inclusive transport and services.

• Increased awareness of the additional barriers living in rural or remote areas can bring for disabled people.

Housing

62. We will work with local authorities, disabled people, and other stakeholders to ensure that each local authority sets a realistic target within its Local Housing Strategy for the delivery of wheelchair accessible housing across all tenures and reports annually on progress.

63. We will ensure that the grant subsidy arrangements for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme do not prevent specialist housing identified by local authorities as a priority from being built.

64. Research, involving wheelchair users and homebuilders, into creating tailor-made wheelchair accessible homes from mass-market new homes will identify issues and costs surrounding such interventions.

'Accessible housing is the cornerstone of independent living. Without an accessible home, it's clearly impossible for many disabled and older people to live as equal citizens - to work, to play, to have relationships, to be active members of our communities and all that follows from that: in other words to do all the things nondisabled people take for granted.'

Etienne d'Aboville
Chief Executive, Glasgow Centre for Inclusive Living

65. We will work with health and social care partnerships, disabled people, local authorities and the housing sector to develop guidance for housing and care providers on timescales for installing adaptations. We will begin this work in 2017.

Transport

66. Through our Accessible Travel Framework, developed with disabled people and transport providers, we will:

• Develop our Accessible Travel Hub - accessibletravel.scot - that aims to draw together up-to-date information about all aspects of transport accessibility in a one-stop-shop so that everyone can learn from good practice, make connections and share their work.

• Scope requirements for training with disabled people and transport providers/operators covering awareness of hidden impairments and ways of communicating, including basic BSL phrases.

• Explore ways of making disabled people more aware about how they can influence decision-making in transport.

• Specify and agree common standards of service for disabled people if their public transport journeys are disrupted.

• Produce information about bus layout designs which improve accessibility, identifying specific changes and how they benefit people with different impairments.

• Develop a comprehensive source of accessible information about purchasing tickets for a multi-modal journey, including pricing and concessions.

• Research the current content of transport providers' customer surveys and co-produce a set of standards for surveys and other feedback mechanisms, like mystery shopping.

67. We will publish a consultation on improving parking before the end of 2016 which will invite views from disabled people and others on how we can improve the laws on parking to restrict people parking on pavements at dropped kerbs and double parking. A Bill and supporting guidance paper will follow setting out how local authorities implement and enforce parking, including disabled parking spaces, across Scotland.

Culture and leisure

68. A new help guide from VisitScotland giving practical advice to businesses and setting out key accessibility hints and tips will meet the needs of disabled people attending events.

69. Scotland's heritage is an important part of our identity, and disabled people should have equal access to it. We will improve physical and online access to the historic environment and collections by 2019 so that more disabled people can enjoy their heritage.

70. Creative Scotland's future plans, and revised Equalities Outcomes - to be published in April 2017 - will be informed by their review of equality, diversity and inclusion in the arts, screen and creative industries.

71. We will ensure barriers to accessing and participating in Scotland's culture are broken down. The new Cultural Strategy will be owned by the people of Scotland and will be co-created with practitioners and cultural delivery bodies across the sector.

Sport

72. Disabled people's participation at all levels of sport and physical activity will increase through an action plan developed in partnership with disabled people through a new Equality in Physical Activity and Sport Forum by 2019.

73. sportscotland will invest in disabled people and athletes and ensure that the needs of disabled people and athletes are addressed through investment to Scottish Disability Sport, Active Schools Network, the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

74. A new parasport facility for Scotland in Inverclyde, with an investment of £6 million, is being built to promote the inclusion of disabled athletes in sport. All building work will be completed by the end of March 2017. Scottish Disability Sport are now working with 31 governing bodies and local authorities across Scotland to improve access to sporting facilities for all disabled people.

Rural and Island communities

We know that some of the barriers that impact on disabled people's lives are heightened in rural areas. Many of the actions in this plan will make a difference in rural as well as urban Scotland.

The Government is committed to bringing forward an Islands Bill, which will contain a provision to island-proof future legislation, policies and action plans. In the spirit of that forthcoming legislation, we have consulted specifically with the relevant local authorities across Scotland with responsibility for island communities to identify any potential negative impact from the plan, and will continue to review this as we move forward with implementation to ensure that there is no detrimental impact on our island communities

75. We will deliver a workshop with Local Action Groups through the Scottish Rural Network to develop and stimulate new ideas for improving the life chances of disabled people in rural areas.