Lives of disabled people continuing to improve
Hon Ruth Dyson
Minister for Disability Issues
Embargoed
until 17 August 2008 Media
Statement
Lives of disabled people
in New Zealand continuing to improve
Minister
for Disability Issues Ruth Dyson, welcomes the New Zealand
Disability Strategy Implementation Review. The report is
an independent review into the progress made by central
government agencies implementing the strategy from April
2001 to June 2007.
“It's very pleasing to see a huge shift in the attitude towards disability in New Zealand. The changes made across government agencies and wider society has ensured that disability issues are considered at all levels and quarters in New Zealand," said Ms Dyson.
“One indicator of progress has been that New Zealand won the Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Disability Award (Roosevelt Award) last year. This award recognises countries that have made noteworthy progress in improving the lives of disabled people through economic, humanitarian and social efforts.
“The review involved wide consultation including in-depth interviews with disabled people, disabled people’s membership organisations, parents of disabled children, disability support providers, central government agencies, local authorities, District Health Boards, tertiary education institutions and lead implementation agencies.
”I acknowledge New Zealand still has some way to go before disabled people can say they are living in a fully inclusive society that values and enhances their participation in the community. New Zealand is striving to make a truly enabling society a reality for all our citizens,” said Ms Dyson.
The report is available at www.odi.govt.nz
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FACT SHEET
Life and Disability: a review into the effectiveness of
the “New Zealand Disability Strategy Implementation
2001-2007”
The Disability Strategy is a government document mandated under the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000. The Disability Strategy’s vision of a fully inclusive society will be realised when disabled people say they live in a society that highly values their lives and continually enhances their full participation.
Litmus Ltd, an independent research agency based in Wellington, conducted the first review of progress on the implementation of the Disability Strategy for the period April 2001 to June 2007.
Key findings
The
review found that that Disability Strategy is still
relevant.
Disabled people felt that implementation
over the six years had resulted in positive changes,
including:
• greater empowerment
• improved
communications and accessibility
• wide recognition of
their value and contribution to society
• greater
inclusion in central government decision making.
•
There have been significant levels of government
implementation activity, including:
• a lot of work to
understand disability issues
• considerable
consultation with disabled people
• increased
accessibility to government information and services
•
provision of more funding into services and supports
accessed by disabled people
• legislative changes to
remove barriers to participation and reduce
discrimination.
• Nevertheless, there is still a long
way to go and disabled people feel progress is too
slow.
Four challenges to implementation.
•
society’s attitudes to disabled people
• absence of a
national implementation plan and linked funding
• size
and status of the Office of Disability Issue
•
embedding in government agencies knowledge about disability
issues and responsiveness to disabled people
The review
makes twenty recommendations to improve Disability Strategy
implementation.
In summary, these recommendations
suggest:
• Prioritising implementation activities that
are likely to have the greatest positive effect on the lives
of disabled people.
• Providing additional focus on
those disabled people who are the most disadvantaged.
•
Moving to multi-year plans and reports for priority areas
that are contributed to by multiple agencies, including
central government agencies, local government agencies,
district health boards and disability support
providers.
• Refining annual planning and reporting
requirements to better align with agencies’ planning
cycles.
• Enhancing support to central government
agencies to improve, and embed, their disability
responsiveness.
• Facilitating greater partnership
between central government agencies and disabled
people.
• Developing the capacity of disabled people to
contribute as employees and external experts on disability
issues.
• Continuing to support regulatory change to
remove barriers experienced by disabled people.
•
Improving the regular supply of information that can be used
to monitor changes in life outcomes of disabled
people.
• Planning, with government agencies and
disabled people, the review of progress after ten years to
allow comparison of the 2001 post-census disability survey
date with the 2011 survey.
Government work programme
to implement the Review’s recommendations
The
government has agreed to a work programme in response to
these recommendations:
• The Office for Disability
Issues (the Office) will facilitate the development of
action plans for priority areas of implementation by
government agencies.
• The Office will implement its
plan for engaging with local government agencies and
District Health Boards to enlist their support for
implementing the Disability Strategy at a local level and to
contribute to central government planning to achieve
outcomes in priority areas.
• The Office will work with
stakeholders to develop a common understanding of what is
meant by partnership with disabled people in
decision-making, and promote examples of successful
partnerships in practice.
• The Office will remain
active in promoting regulatory changes: in 2008/2009,
particularly in the areas of building and housing (building
code review) and in legislative changes to allow
ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights
of Persons with Disabilities.
• The Office will develop
toolkits to support government implementation action. In
2008, a toolkit on making information accessible will be
released. In addition, the Office will discuss with the
State Services Commission other ways to improve government
agencies’ disability responsiveness.
• The
development of a new planning and reporting framework to
make targets and achievements more transparent in priority
areas, including long-term disability supports. It will
encourage multi-agency, multi-year planning and reporting in
key areas of the Disability Strategy.
• The Office
has signalled to government agencies its intention to change
the timing of the Disability Strategy planning and reporting
cycle so that this better aligns with agencies’ planning
processes; and has modified its planning and reporting
templates to make it easier for agencies to report
data.
• The Office will work with Statistics New
Zealand and other stakeholders during 2008/2010 year to plan
the 2011 post-census Disability Survey, and will include a
comparison of the outcomes from the post-census Disability
Surveys in 2011 and 2001 in its 2011/2012 work
programme.
ENDS