Consultation outcome

Royal Association for deaf people response

Updated 23 March 2020

1. About us

Since 1841, the Royal Association for Deaf people (RAD) has worked to ensure that Deaf people have access to services in British Sign Language (BSL). From supporting children, young people and their families; to helping Deaf people find work; to befriending older people; we are here to make sure the people who use our services get the support they want, when they need it and that it is accessible to them.

1.1 The process of engaging with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)

Typically, we have engaged with the DWP via surveys or email, and on occasion by direct phonecall. We have also been involved in working groups facilitated by the DWP, such as the Stakeholder Engagement Group and Operational Stakeholder Group – both of which have provided opportunities for us to feed into the work of the Department.

Our staff have not always found the process of engaging with the DWP to be accessible (48 of our 103 staff are Deaf). Some colleagues, for instance, have reported having to rely on their own Access to Work support. The DWP often listens to our concerns carefully and respectfully, and we have had many positive engagements with the Department in the past, particularly with regards to Access to Work. However, we have also encountered difficulties when engaging with the DWP, such as:

• key contacts within the DWP leaving the Department, resulting in a loss of ‘institutional memory’ and, as a consequence, requiring us to establish new working relationships and understandings afresh

• a concern over the lack of understanding around the use and application of the Flexible Support Fund Dynamic Purchasing System

• a feeling that we are making progress, only to see little if any substantial change in the longer term

• the degree to which there have been benefits from engaging with the DWP

Over the years there have been instances where we have felt we have made good progress with the DWP and had an opportunity to input into some important work (e.g. in 2017 we presented at an internal DWP conference about telephone assistance, from which we were also able to establish useful relationships).

Following a considerable amount of work with the DWP on Access to Work in the past, we had also felt that the Department’s understanding of the needs of Deaf people in general had improved. We have also had opportunities to respond to draft policies and procedures, such as the commissioning of services for Deaf jobseekers.

At the same token, however, and despite our engagement activity, we are disappointed by the lack of improvements we would have liked to have seen with regards to policies for Deaf people – particularly in terms of translating high-level policies into practice. For instance, we would have liked to have seen the DWP take steps to ensure that any information it produces (e.g. in the form of publications, written material) is translated into BSL, however, this does not yet appear to have been translated into practice.

Further, there have been specific policies and programmes that we would have liked to have been involved with – such as the introduction of Universal Credit (UC) and its implications for Deaf people – but were not given the opportunity to do so (as far as we are aware there is still no information or advice about UC that is available in BSL).

2. Engagement and experience with other public sector organisations

In our experience, we would generally say that local authorities tend to take on board our advice and guidance well, and are usually willing to make reasonable adjustments for Deaf people. We have also had a very positive experience of working with HMRC on a pilot service for Deaf people, which is now commissioned as a commercial service (https://www.royaldeaftax.org.uk/).

3. Engaging with the DWP in future

In terms of how the DWP could helpfully improve its engagement with us going forward, we would suggest the following measures:

• Involving and engaging with the Deaf community from the very start of any policy- or decision-making process

• Ensuring all consultation events have a BSL interpreter(s) wherever they are needed

• Ensuring any online surveys/consultations are made accessible for all Deaf people, for example by translating questions into BSL

• Nominating a single point of contact from RAD (e.g. our Policy Officer) through which key communications with the DWP can be relayed