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IN TOUCH – Transport Minister Nusrat Ghani

TX:Ìý 31.07.2018Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý KEVIN CORE

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White

Good Evening. ÌýThe air is thick with promises about a better transport deal for disabled people – on trains, on buses, at airports and on the streets, themselves. ÌýSo, on tonight’s programme we’ll be trying to find out how many of those promises are likely to be kept, especially the ones relevant to blind people. ÌýLater, we’ll be hearing from the Chief Operating Officer at Manchester Airport about how they intend to respond to two consecutive annual reports describing their service to disabled people as poor.

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But first, I’ve been talking with transport minister Nusrat Ghani about their plans for what they’re calling an inclusive transport strategy. ÌýIt covers all forms of transport and they say their aim is for all disabled people to be able to travel with confidence by 2030. ÌýBut, just to get to the bus stop or the station you have to be able to use the roads with confidence as well.

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One of the greatest concerns of visually impaired people at the moment has been the trend towards shared spaces. ÌýThe idea is that restrictions such as traffic lights are relaxed, often there are no pavements and drivers, cyclists and pedestrians share the roadway using their own common sense and consideration to create a more relaxed environment. ÌýWell that’s the theory but it’s an idea many blind people dislike intensely, saying it’s dangerous and frightening and that they avoid routes where it’s being operated. ÌýBut the Department of Transport is now calling on local councils to halt shared space projects where they’re still in the planning stage.

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Minister Nusrat Ghani told me why.

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Ghani

I know that shared spaces work very well for those individuals that are disabled and in a wheelchair but it doesn’t work for all.Ìý And what we don’t want to do, in any way, is to knock back the confidence of people with disabilities, including those with visual impairment, not to go out of their home and use public transport.

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White

A lot of visually impaired people just think they are intrinsically dangerous and would like to see this idea dropped altogether.Ìý Any chance you might do that?

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Ghani

Well you know it might come to that, it might come to that but we need to just do a bit more research into it.Ìý Shared spaces in themselves can be quite varied and I know that in my own constituency when research was undertaken that it focused mostly on those in wheelchairs and not those with visual impairments, so unfortunately poor decisions can be made.Ìý The concern that they have has been addressed and we will ensure that when the street design is being taken forward that all disability groups are accounted for and their needs are understood.

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White

Let’s talk about trains.Ìý It’s still necessary, in many cases, for blind people to book your assistance for your journey in advance.Ìý A lot of blind people would say that’s not equality is it, many people would like simply to up and go, like everyone else, and be able to depend on appropriate assistance.

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Ghani

An inclusive transport strategy is going to update passenger assist.Ìý When you are arriving at a train station and you’ve booked through passenger assist all parts of that journey should be honoured and if they’re not the passenger should be compensated.Ìý Two other points, if I may.Ìý The Access for All programme, we’ve just put out another £300 million of funding to enable our very old Victorian stations to become step free access.Ìý And then of course you’ve got the Disabled People’s Protection Policy, which basically lays the sort of service that you should expect.Ìý And we’re working with the officer of [indistinct word], for example, to ensure that when this service isn’t up to scratch that train operating companies can be held to account to make all of those processes a lot easier are absolutely key.

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White

But would you accept the principle that you ought to be able to get to a station and depend on help because often you don’t know what help you’re going to need until you get there?

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Ghani

Yeah, absolutely, which is why we are saying, very clearly, that disability awareness training just has to improve, has to improve and we need to make sure that we respond to all of our passengers and if there are issues that are raised that they’re dealt with quickly.

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White

On the issue of technology, I mean blind people want to be as independent as possible and do things for themselves but increasingly the technology, for instance, say for buying tickets on stations is inaccessible, you know ticket machines with flat screens, no buttons, not helpful.

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Ghani

Agreed, absolutely agreed, which is why there is a huge segment of inclusive transport strategy, the disability awareness training element, through the management structure, that if you are responsible for transport at the very top, at the management team, we need to understand what all of your passengers’ needs are.

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White

The fear is that if the technology isn’t accessible there may also not always be the staff.Ìý What guarantees can you give that staffing on stations won’t be cut?

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Ghani

You’re absolutely right, you need the right amount of staff on a station and that will continue as well but you need the staff to be appropriately trained.Ìý So, it’s about having staff that are connected up and staff who are able to do their job because they’ve had the right training to help people with disabilities.

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White

But what about staff on trains as well because a lot of the disputes we’ve had recently between unions and rail companies have been about that?Ìý There is a worry that the train companies, in order to bring their franchises in at an affordable cost, will want to cut staff in that way, whereas visually impaired people – I suspect most of us would like to feel we could be sure of assistance on the trains themselves.

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Ghani

Well there will always be a second person on the train and you would hope that…

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White

So, are you agreeing with the unions that actually they need the staff on these trains, keeping to the level at least that they’ve got at the moment?

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Ghani

Well that is for the train operating companies to make that decision going forward.Ìý But having the right investment in our stations, having the right investment in our buses, having the right attitude towards how we manage our road infrastructure to help people continue and start and end their journeys is absolutely key as well.

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White

Let’s just quickly talk about bus services as well.Ìý One of the good advances in recent times has been audio announcement on buses, it’s great where it happens, it’s still patchy, are there plans to make it universal?

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Ghani

We are providing an extra £2 million for audio and visual equipment on buses.Ìý I’m very lucky I visited Brighton buses and they’ve got a fantastic service on their buses.Ìý So, we’re hoping that that will be picked up and taken forward.Ìý The bus companies I meet and the local authorities I meet are ambitious, so it’s just ensuring that when these decisions are made that the information is provided in a way that will work for lots of people including those with disabilities.

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White

And just one more point, on taxis.Ìý Guide dog owners are still telling us that they’re often finding themselves refused cabs – it’s illegal but it still happens and prosecutions are rare.Ìý This report is full of great aspirations but enforcement is key isn’t it?

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Ghani

First of all, it’s wrong, like you said, and it should not be taking place.Ìý I actually spoke to the All-Party Group on Disability just a few months ago and one of the members was late to the meeting because a cab refused to pick her up.Ìý You are right, it is illegal which is why we have made it very clear to licensing authorities that they need to do their job.Ìý They are able to fine cab drivers and they are also able to take licenses away.Ìý The fact that we are tackling it again with the inclusive transport strategy and reminding people not only of what their rights are but also licensing authorities of what their obligations are is absolutely key as well.

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White

Transport Minister Nusrat Ghani.

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The strategy is also promising improvements in the assistance we can expect at airports. Concerns about this were discussed on the programme when we covered a report by the Civil Aviation Authority.Ìý That said that though many airports were improving, some still had a way to go and one of them was Manchester. ÌýTheir services for disabled people were described as poor for the second year in a row.

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Tricia Williams is the airport’s chief operating officer.

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Williams

Well clearly, we are, as an airport, very disappointed.Ìý I’m personally disappointed as a leader, as part of the airport.Ìý And we’re completely committed to improving our performance in this area and have actually taken a number of steps already, so we are seeing that improvement coming through already.

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White

Because it was poor last year as well wasn’t it.

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Williams

It was and what actually happened, as a result of last year’s performance, was an amount of money was actually agreed with the airlines to put back into the service and that has actually led to, for example, more wheelchairs, more people who can assist and a long list of additional resource.Ìý But unfortunately, that didn’t bear fruit as quickly as we would have wanted to.Ìý But I’m confident that that will change and is changing already.

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White

Well, the two issues you mentioned there where the money has gone are very relevant to things I’d like to talk about because they relate directly to visually impaired people.Ìý One, is a tendency to leave us at crucial moments without information about what’s going on.Ìý We’re almost warehoused with no way of checking whether we’ve been forgotten or whether our flight’s been called.Ìý It’s happened frequently to me in Manchester, I have to say, why does that happen?

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Williams

Oh, I do apologise for that.Ìý I think we’ve had some learning around passengers with hidden disabilities or with disabilities that aren’t to do with mobility.Ìý So, the service originally started as passengers who required assistance from a mobility point of view and now we are changing and we have recognised passengers need all types of different assistance.Ìý And what we’ve done now is we’ve added additional customer service assistance, we’ve added additional help points located in and around the airport.Ìý We’ve actually installed, very recently, audio devices in our accessible toilets across each of the terminals – we’ve got three terminals here.Ìý And over the last year we’ve actually assisted nearly 7,000 visually impaired passengers.Ìý We’ve got a quarterly accessibility forum and we have input there from the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.Ìý So, I do believe we are improving and we are listening.Ìý We haven’t got everything right and I do apologise for that.Ìý We were disappointed in our performance and we are committed to improving that.Ìý So, whatever feedback anybody – any of your listeners or yourself – want to give us we are focused and definitely committed to improving in this area.

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White

Well let me give you a bit of feedback now.Ìý Most of us carry phones, can’t we be given a number to call so that we don’t have to try and find out way back to a desk to see if they’ve forgotten all about us?

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Williams

And I would expect that as standard really…

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White

Well it isn’t.

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Williams

…and you should be given that and I will pick that up, if that wasn’t the case.

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White

No one has ever offered me a phone number to call in that situation and I don’t know of anybody who has been offered that.

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Williams

Right, well I will pick that up, I think that’s something we should be able to set up pretty quickly.

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White

And can we talk about wheelchairs as well in relation to visually impaired people.Ìý We told people on the programme a couple of weeks ago about the partially sighted woman presented with no alternative to being conveyed in a wheelchair, when she landed, though she didn’t need this and she found it embarrassing.Ìý Now we know for some visually impaired people this wouldn’t have been a problem, they might be elderly, they might lack confidence or they might just not care but for many it feels inappropriate.Ìý Why does that continue to happen?

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Williams

It shouldn’t and I do believe OCS, who provide the service for us here at Manchester, actually said that that was a mistake and it shouldn’t have happened and it shouldn’t happen.Ìý People who are visually impaired and don’t require a wheelchair shouldn’t be offered a wheelchair, they should be given assistance through a customer care agent, for example, that should have happened.

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White

I should say not everyone is unhappy with Manchester.Ìý Martin Conway, who’s visually impaired, got in touch to say his experiences didn’t reflect the portrayal of Manchester in the CAA report and that he’d had a lot of good experiences and thought the service had improved.Ìý So, it can be done.Ìý Which leads me to ask what is the problem, is it not enough money to provide staff or is it not enough understanding that different disabled people have varying needs?

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Williams

I think last year it was probably a combination of both.Ìý I think we definitely needed to put more resource and more investment into the service and we’ve got 133 additional customer care agents now.Ìý So, it shouldn’t be the case that we don’t have enough resource.Ìý We’ve set up an engagement forum and actually setting that disability engagement forum up and meeting regularly gives us a better insight into what passengers need.Ìý So, I think we have been delivering a good service for a certain number of passengers and I’m glad to hear that somebody’s actually acknowledged that.Ìý But clearly, we’ve got more work to do and I think the improvement plan we’ve got in place will make sure that we are more ahead of the game rather than catching up in the future.

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White

Tricia Williams.Ìý And we’ll keep next year’s report on our radar.

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Finally, another warning shot, this time for high tech companies across the Atlantic. America’s National Federation for the Blind has filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. ÌýIt’s about a major American software firm, and it’s relevant to us because Epic Systems Corporation is making relationships with some NHS Trusts in the UK.

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Chris Danielsen of the American NFB told me more about the case.

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Danielsen

We’ve got a company – Epic Systems Corporation – that has software that it deploys to hospitals, clinics, other healthcare entities here in the United States where blind people are working.Ìý That software doesn’t work with what is called screen reader technology or screen access technology.Ìý Healthcare facilities have bought these shiny new systems from Epic and all of a sudden that accessibility has disappeared.Ìý You’ve got to remember that there are a significant number of blind people who are employed in that industry.Ìý For example, as medical transcriptionists – that’s a job that blind people were very often steered to by rehabilitation agencies because of course at one time it was an easy job for a blind person to do.Ìý

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White

Now Epic have told us that they do work to integrate with assistive technologies, including broad support for screen readers, to the maximum extent possible on different versions of technology.Ìý How do you react to that, is that good enough?

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Danielsen

I don’t think it is.Ìý I don’t want to say that Epic doesn’t have good intensions necessarily but our understanding is that there’s often some attempt to script the implementation of Epic system, basically customising the screen reader, the individual blind person’s screen reader, so that it works better with Epic’s software.Ìý That process, however, doesn’t always take place in a timely manner and we believe that there needs to be systemic change at Epic.Ìý Our concern is that there may well be an individual accommodation model happening but that that’s not sufficient to meet the problem and to allow blind people to continue to – in a lot of cases – maintain employment that they already have – they’ve got a job and suddenly they can’t do it effectively.

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White

What could be the result of this?Ìý What’s the status of this case you’re bringing and could it establish a precedent?

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Danielsen

One of the things that the MCAD can do is say that a lawsuit can go forward and if a lawsuit does go forward then that has the potential to set precedent.Ìý The other thing that could happen is that the MCAD, as I understand it, could make a ruling against Epic and require it to do certain things to make its software accessible for the purposes of being used in Massachusetts.Ìý But either way the industry would be put on notice that this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

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White

Well we’d like to hear from listeners here if you’ve got examples of changes, perhaps in software, which are making it different for you to do jobs you’ve done before.Ìý Chris, the NFB in the States has a reputation for going to law, does this make a difference, have you found it’s an effective approach?

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Danielsen

Yes, we have.Ìý It is not, by the way, our preferred approach, we tend to get publicity when we go to the courts.Ìý We have a very good track record in court of addressing accessibility in this way.Ìý We also have a very good track record of partnering with organisations that we have not litigated with like Expedia, for example.Ìý But we do whatever is necessary as the circumstances present themselves to get these issues addressed.Ìý And between a 60 and 70% unemployment rate among blind people in the United States the last thing we need is for blind people who have existing jobs to find that they’re suddenly unable to do them and become unemployed when they were in fact engaged in productive work.

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White

That was Chris Danielsen.

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Well Epic told us that at the time of recording they hadn’t yet received a copy of the complaint.

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And that’s it for tonight, your comments and your stories are always welcome. ÌýYou can call our action line on 0800 044 044 for 24 hours after the programme or email intouch@bbc.co.uk. ÌýAnd if you can go to our website you can click on contact us.Ìý You can also download tonight’s and other In Touch editions from there. ÌýFrom me Peter White, producer Kevin Core and the team, goodbye.