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	TX: 22.06.07 - Scope - Who Does it Speak For? PRESENTER: LIZ BARCLAY

	THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 91훑괵 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. BARCLAY 'Time to Get Equal' is a week of events run by the disability charity Scope this week, including art exhibitions and speed volunteering. The campaign is an attempt to raise awareness of disability discrimination. Executive director of Scope, Andy Rickell, is here. Andy, tell us about some of the events that you've organised. RICKELL There are over 70 events happening this week. A couple of events I'll mention: In Chester there's a march by disabled people to raise awareness about the discrimination of disablism and also we're partnering with the Lancashire County Cricket Club a match today at Old Trafford raising funds for Scope's campaigning work. BARCLAY I'm interested in the use of the word disablism, are you talking about - I mean obviously you're talking about discrimination against people with disabilities but is this a word that has passed into usage throughout the disability movement? RICKELL It's certainly widely used across sections of the disability movement. It's not yet found its way into the Concise Oxford Dictionary, we're working on that. BARCLAY Okay, but not everyone in the disabled community is happy with the involvement of Scope in disability awareness campaigning. The Disabled People's Direct Action Network or DAN has described Scope as part of the problem not part of the solution when it comes to securing equality for disabled people and Linda Laurie from DAN is in our Sheffield studio. Linda Laurie, in your view why is Scope part of the problem? LAURIE Hi Andy, nice to speak to you again. RICKELL Hi. LAURIE Well I think that I would like to say well done to Scope for carrying out this research and the survey about discrimination against disabled people in Britain but I mean there's nothing new in it, it was done 20 years ago. And I think we would say that the part of the real problem is campaigns such as Scope's Time to Get Equal campaign. I think very interestingly the examples that have been mentioned haven't included the frivolous events such as throwing a Frisbee in Hyde Park, making a giant sponge cake, organising a French day where people dress up as characters from the TV series 'Ello, 'Ello. And we would say this doesn't do anything to raise awareness or challenge discrimination about disabled people in Britain. What it actually does is raise money for Scope, doesn't it Andy? BARCLAY Andy, what's your response to that, that there is no role for the frivolous in raising awareness, it's only about raising funds? RICKELL No it's about finding a means by which people can engage and people engage on different levels. The issue is that disablism is an insidious and frankly accepted and tolerated form of discrimination in some parts of the country. There is a massive way to go in terms of getting everyone to the same level of awareness of discrimination that Linda and myself have. BARCLAY When you first took up your job with Scope you were accused of hypocrisy in a way because you had yourself been quite open about how you felt about Scope and its campaigning methods and you yourself were feeling that it didn't approach disability awareness issues in the right way. What differences have you made since you've been there in the last three years? RICKELL I think there's been a massive cultural change since I joined. When I joined we employed less than 12% disabled people, we now employ more than 20% disabled people. When I started there were no senior managers who declared themselves as disabled people, that figure is now between 30 and 40%. We continue to bob along at around a majority of trustees who are disabled. In terms of the commitment that Scope has made, Scope has now embraced the philosophy of independent living, it's now embraced the philosophy of inclusive education. Those are massive changes from where the organisation was just three years ago. BARCLAY Linda Laurie, don't you feel that Scope is making the kind of progress that now would see it - that it should be awarded a positive tick in the box for raising disability awareness? LAURIE Well I mean I don't think the issue here is how - is Andy's job and his political beliefs, I think the issue here is that we're still being churned out the same messages by charities that were being churned out in 1991 when the Disabled People's Direct Action Network organised a huge demonstration against Telethon, you know when people were demeaning us by saying oh the answer is to sit in a bath full of baked beans and raise money for charity. Black people have started to challenge the idea that you know problems in the so-called developing world - malaria, HIV, AIDS, etc. - can be solved by giving money to Oxfam and in the same way we're saying that people have been raising money for charity, millions and millions of pounds, year after year after year, yet you know disabled people are still six to seven times more likely to be unemployed. BARCLAY So are you saying the charity ... LAURIE It's not the general public that Scope needs to be persuading, it's - they need to be campaigning vigorously so that MPs replace the ineffective Disability Discrimination Act that they supported with fully comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation for disabled people. BARCLAY Andy, so is charity really the wrong concept for ending disability discrimination? RICKELL I think yes charity is the wrong concept. The concept has to be around disabled people's equality and human rights. Scope has to cease to be a "charity" [inverted commas] and become more a social change organisation but that does require us to work with a whole range of people - disabled and non-disabled people - in order that we can do that. Disablism is too big an issue just to be left to a small number of activists. Linda's absolutely right, Scope should be using - and indeed does use - its political influence to influence the legislation, she's absolutely right that the legislative framework that we currently have for anti-discrimination is not comprehensive civil rights legislation. The Independent Living Bill is a key part of that and we've been campaigning on that this week. Linda's absolutely right and Scope is committed to changing the manner in which it campaigns to be much more hard edged. BARCLAY Andy Rickell from Scope and Linda Laurie from DAN, thank you both for joining us. Back to the Transcripts homepage Back to the You and Yours homepage The 91훑괵 is not responsible for external websites

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