Hi Larry,
A rather belated response to your request for information about the Cabinet organisation for Local government. In Sheffield this form of organisation has been in place for some months. Whether it's down to this or whether it's down to a lot a very hard work by disabled people, supported by our equality officer for disability, I don't know, but at the moment we do seemed to be having some success in making our voice heard.
I and two other disabled people have been invited to be members of the Policy Development Forum - Adults, a forum for councillors that works to develop policy in the City Council. Currently this forum is considering policy related to A Social Approach to Service Provision. This is entirely due to our requests for a social approach to inclusion to underpin policy and we have been responsible for initiating and leading discussion.
Our Cabinet unanimously supported a request from disabled people to take the first steps towards setting up a Centre for Inclusive Living in Sheffield and again we are taking the lead in this initiative.
We are also working with personnel from Social Services to consider our role in recruitment and selection procedures for posts that are concerned with providing the services that support us.
I wouldn't want to suggest that "everything in the garden is necessarily going to be lovely", but I do feel more hopeful that there could be some small culture change!
Christine
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