Contents

Enabling Information: A report on improving access and raising standards in information services for disabled people and their carers in Scotland.

Enabling Information: Introduction

A Report on improving access and raising standards in information services for disabled people and their carers in Scotland

Final report of the scottish working group on information services for people with disabilities

March 1995

The Establishment Of The Working Group

In February 1994 the Social Work Services Group of the Scottish Office Home and Health Department convened a meeting to discuss how to take forward the results of the Scottish Office survey, Survey of Information Services for People with Disabilities, which was carried out in June 1992. The meeting included representatives from the Scottish Office, the Benefits Agency and the Association of Directors of Social Work, as well as from the voluntary sector, and organisations of disabled people. It was agreed that a short life working group should be set up and that SWSG would convene the first meeting, although its role was to be a facilitator rather than having any control over the group. It was agreed at this meeting that the needs of children, those with a sensory impairment, ethnic minority groups, and people living in rural areas should be covered. The meeting agreed on the bodies which would be invited to send representatives to the group.

The members of the group were:

Ann Foster Liz Beedie David Dunsmuir Gillian Fyfe Alan Hyslop Jackie Heaney Dougie Herd Mike McCarron Andrew McNaughton Bill Moore Liz Nicholson Lawrence Nugent Janet Thomas Shirley Young

Scottish Consumer Council, chairman Edinburgh Disability Benefit Centre Disability Scotland (from September 1994) Scottish Consumer Council (until July 1994) Common Services Agency, Health Systems Division Strathclyde Forum on Disability (until September 1994) Lothian Coalition of Disabled People Association of Directors of Social Work Scottish Office Home and Health Department, Social Work Services Group (from October 1994) Social Work Services Group, Scottish Office Home and Health Department (until October 1994) Citizens Advice Scotland Strathclyde Forum on Disability (from September 1994) Disability Scotland (until September 1994) Children in Scotland

The support staff were:

Liz Macdonald Margaret Regan

Researcher Secretary

The first meeting of the Working Group was held on 16 March 1994. At this meeting the remit of the group was agreed as follows:

• to consider how the provision of information for people with disabilities and their carers at national and local levels might be improved in the light of the experience and initiatives of existing information services in Scotland, the findings of the Scottish Office survey, the experience of the National Disability Project (NDIP) in England and other initiatives and experience generally; and
• to produce a report by March 1995 for the consideration of the Secretary of State with concrete proposals, including rough estimates of costs for implementing provision in Scotland.