Category: Uncategorized

Introduction

The Canadian government has an impressive online presence in terms of Disability Inclusion. I have no doubt it is sincere, but does it walk as good as it talks? 

Some months ago, a Blue Mountains Disability Forum meeting featured guests from two Canadian disability service providers who spoke about how they responded to the challenges posed by COVID 19. One of those guests was Stuart McReynolds, President and CEO of the Abilities Centre, based in Whitby, Ontario.

This is from their website: The dream of Abilities Centre began in the early 2000s, with a group of community champions who saw the urgent need for increased programming and services for people with disabilities in the Durham Region and across Canada. Their vision was to create a place where people of all ages and abilities could come together and realize their full potential, and in the process, change the social fabric of our communities and country. 

On Saturday morning (12 March), at 06:00 I had a Zoom chat with Stuart McReynolds. I wanted to know how what I read of the Canadian government’s public commitment translated into action.

A Genuine Commitment – and a Shared Challenge.

As we talked it was obvious that there was a great deal of similarity, in terms of expressed commitment to Disability Inclusion, in each country, though it was articulated in very different ways.

Canada has a Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, and a national Disability Inclusion Action Plan. The Minister, Carla Qualtrough, is legally blind and has a background in human rights law. She is highly regarded.

But, as Stuart observes, while it is a good thing to have a Minister for Disability Inclusion, there is a risk that this role can be seen as a success in itself, rather than an integrated function that permeates the wider government culture.

The Canadian government has established the Disability Inclusion Action Plan, which “will focus on: reducing poverty among Canadians with disabilities. getting more persons with disabilities into good quality jobs. helping meet the Accessible Canada Act goal of a barrier-free Canada by 2040.” The language will be familiar to Australians, especially those living in New South Wales.

As we talked, Stuart observed that requiring compliance with disability inclusion legislation and policies was delivering some good, but also much response was limited to minimal compliant actions. Good changes were happening, but resistance to the Disability Inclusion message was just as apparent.

Compliance as a tool of accountability is like a hammer head without a handle. The refinement and effectiveness of the tool is expressed only when it is complete. The other part of accountability is engagement and commitment. This is a common challenge for both countries.

How Do We Energise Engagement and Commitment?

Later that Saturday, I listened to an a very interesting interview with Miranda Briana Epler, founder of Change Catalyst, on the podcast With, Not For. This podcast is from the Centre for Inclusive Design, located in Sydney’s University of Technology. 

Miranda said something I will come back to in more detail when I write about her book, How to be an Ally, which I am listening to at the moment. She said, “We are getting better, but not very fast.”

Here, she echoed Stuart’s and my sentiment. What is the mystery of such resistance in a sea of goodwill? Must the process of creating universal Disability Inclusion be so slow? In some respects, it must. Canada’s 2040 goal may seem like a very long time before the whole nation is fully accessible – that’s 18 years away. In fact, that’s an ambitious target, given the cost of the necessary changes to be made to the nation’s infrastructure to provide universal accessibility to people with mobility and vision disabilities. However, whether it would happen without a clear and costed plan is another matter.

But accessibility is not just about the physical environment. It includes the social, cultural and psychological – and here, too, a clear and costed plan is necessary.

Before such a plan can be developed, we must ensure that what is proposed is based on knowledge, not guesswork. There is a question we must answer – how do we overcome the resistance to positive change?

Where To From Here?

It was obvious, talking with Stuart, that we share opportunities and challenges. Canadians are doing things that we in Australia can learn from, and vice versa. I gave Stuart details of the Australian Network on Disability (AND). He was contemplating something like AND’s Access and Inclusion Index.

We have an idea to set up a regular conversation between Disability Inclusion advocates in both countries. It would be good to include the UK as well, but this will take some delicate discussion over time zone differences to find the least painful times – especially for Australian participants.

Conclusion

The Disability Inclusion Challenge is global. Great work is being done in organizations dedicated to the cause. Our governments are genuinely supportive in legislation, policy, and sentiment – which is a good start. Our organizations and businesses are open to change to various degrees. Our communities are generally responsive and open to being more inclusive.

Progress is being made. How do we accelerate it?

Introduction

It took me 16 months as DEN Chair to wake up to the reality that effective change needed far more than I understood. To be an effective leader I had to develop a plan, form strong alliances with departmental leaders, and get an education.

As a member of the DEN, I had been passive. That was because of the way the DEN was set up. It had a strong secretariat provided by the department. This was normal. It meant that important work could be done without adding a burden to members in their regular roles. But it also meant that the contact between the DEN and the department was via the narrow channel of the Chair. Even as deputy chair in 2016, I had no real role. It was a job in name only.

In 2018, with membership restored, I created the DEN’s Guidance and Action Team (GAT). This wasn’t a management committee. The DEN didn’t need one. The GAT was essentially a group of activists who were into holding the department, and themselves and the DEN, to account. This widened the scope of conversation and engagement considerably. I started off with 15 buzzing and  passionate members. The number has since expanded to 27.

I have written about the GAT in The DCJ DEN Story: The Leadership Challenge, which is a page on this blog you can find through the menu. I mention here in the context of reflecting on accountability.

The Need for Accountability as a Shared Experience

Staff with disability need a strong and effective staff body through which they can engage in a shared conversation about Disability Inclusion with their colleagues and their management. It’s not for solo heroes. Engagement in the shared conversation must be dynamic and many voiced – in a spirit of shared accountability.

I have raised issues on the impediments to Disability Inclusion to focus attention on where the more problematic challenges lie. Local toxic management, unresponsive leadership, and distrustful and fearful staff do not describe every reality, and certainly not most. But these scenarios are nevertheless present in the public sector.  And the principles are universal – local management, senior leadership, and staff with disability – all have a role to play in that conversation of shared accountability.

Worst case scenarios – leading to a perfect storm of discrimination and exclusion – will occur under certain circumstances. Less perfect storms will happen when fewer failures of leadership (at all levels) are present in the chain of accountability.

No Heroes Needed

Disability Inclusion is everybody’s business. But the necessity of personal survival means that it cannot be a matter of somebody going alone as an Inclusion Hero. Managers and leaders who do not foster a culture of universal inclusion are failing a legal, policy and moral responsibilities. 

That failure is not about personal culpability. Managers and leaders of genuine moral integrity and compassion are as bound up in the constraints of culture, as we all are. If we are silent when we witness injustice for reasons of our own self-preservation, how can we hold others to account?

Senior leaders want better, but they know that being direct will not always get them what they want. If you are going to be an activist, you have to be canny. This is a seemingly paradoxical observation. If you have ten senior leaders in a room, all of whom want the same thing, you will not always get a frank and open conversation.

Think about it. Unless the situation is a full-on crisis that demands frank and fearless conversation…. But wait! Not even then. Researchers into decision-making argue that there are complex factors that influence how challenges are confronted, assessed, and responded to. We do our best, no matter what level we are at, to make good decisions and choices. And we routinely fall short of our ideals – and then convince ourselves we did not.

Executive leaders are not superhuman. Getting a senior leadership role does not confer remarkable insight. It would be nice to think that all senior leaders are smarter and more capable. That is true most of the time. But it is also true that individuals on the toxic end of the psychopathy spectrum will pass scrutiny and become an executive leader. There’s a certain ‘wisdom’ that a little bit of psychopathy helps in leadership roles – in government and in business. Indeed, there may be a ‘psychopathy gap’ to bridge. I am being serious here. I will do some deeper digging on that theme later.

The upshot is that we have senior executive leaders who are generally very smart and accomplished, and yet who make poor decisions about how to respond to issues of inclusion. Let me be clear, here, and emphasise that this is the normal state of affairs. How do I know? There are four compelling pieces of evidence in Australia:

1. There is an abundance of literature written by highly qualified consultants working with (mostly) corporations using grounded research on inclusion, discrimination, bias, and decision making – and how they all intersect. We are not as smart, or as good, as we think – but we can be more so.
2. We still have Diversity and Inclusion units. This tells us that achieving the ideals we all (well most) sincerely agree on is far harder than we hoped or imagined. It’s a journey, not a step.
3. We have Employee Resource Groups for staff with disability, and for members of other minority and diversity groups. Staff still need to organise to advocate for change – and the rights and dignities to which they are entitled.
4. We have a Disability Royal Commission. Think about it. Despite deep awareness of Disability Inclusion for over a decade; despite Disability Inclusion being on the radar of pretty much everybody; we needed a Royal Commission. It is not that we are evil. It’s that even good people do not stand up to be accounted when there is a powerful cultural, situational, and existential disincentive.

We must be honest about ourselves. We celebrate heroes for a reason. Despite the sentimental overuse of the word, and hence its devaluation, we still acknowledge a hero as a stand-out – an exemplar. The vexed issue of whistle-blowers and the weakness of the protections theoretically provided tell us something important. Encouragement to speak up to expose misconduct isn’t backed up by the support promised. Being as good as we’d like to be is not only harder than we imagine, it can also be dangerous.

Perils

If staff, managers, or leaders engage in discrimination, calling them out can be a perilous thing to do. Even when a desperate victim of such discrimination submits a formal complaint, or even takes legal action, and is successful, conduct may not change. I know of too many specific instances of this being the case.

Organisational cultures that fail to develop an inclusive spirit are ultimately influenced by senior leaders. The problem isn’t that the senior leaders do not care. While there are technical mechanisms to hold perpetrators of discrimination to account there is often no active will to do so. This is a cultural issue I haven’t yet explored to the degree that I feel confident discussing it. 

Conclusion

Our psychology, as individuals, as members of groups and communities (including organisations) creates a reality that falls short of our ideals, and our beliefs about how good we are. Moving closer to our ideals is possible, but that requires informed self-awareness.

We are all accountable for how inclusive we are. Good change happens when there is shared, informed and intentional conversation that then leads to action.

A workplace culture that is not inclusive and compassionate on its own account, and is shaped by toxic management and unresponsive leadership, should be unimaginable in a public sector setting. That’s the ideal, and the goal of Disability Inclusion. Staff are a part of the accountability equation too. Intentional change works best and fastest when its everybody’s business.

Below are my top 6 books that have helped me get a better understanding of how organisations – and those within them, work. The hyperlinks are to Amazon. This is not a recommendation you buy from them (Please support local independent bookstores when you can). It is to assist readers who may wish to use audiobooks and ebooks. Check out the authors on YouTube as they often give talks on their work.

Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts – by Brené Brown

Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement – by Daniel Kahneman

The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth – by Amy C. Edmondson

The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale – by John A. List

What Works: Gender Equality by Design – by Iris Bohnet

Fearless Leadership: How to Overcome Behavioural Blindspots and Transform Your Organisation – by Loretta Malandro

Introduction

How do we respond to evidence of discriminatory behaviour? Your reflex might be to imagine a simple act of confronting it and making it stop. But that’s not how we operate. Yes, some of us will act directly, but most of us are far more nuanced. Concerns about standing out, being seen as an activist, the status of the ‘perpetrator’, their reactions, and the extent to which we believe we will be supported all come into play.

Accountability has many layers, and many players. This, unfortunately, is little explored in Disability Inclusion.

The Canadian government has an interesting approach. It has a Management Accountability Framework (MAF). It sounds like a great idea, but it is still subject to the usual caveats that must be applied to all ‘good ideas’. Nevertheless it is worth quoting the website:

The 2021-22 people management methodology of the Management Accountability Framework (MAF) centres on departmental performance and management practices with respect to people management policies and priorities such as diversity and inclusion as well as departmental readiness for future of work.  

The methodology is aligned with the strategic vision for people management – to build a skilled, diverse, and productive workforce, with an improved employee experience, a healthy and inclusive workplace and an agile organization of work that consistently delivers results for Canadians. 

That sounds great. But I am especially interested in the ideas of Management Accountability being laid out re “departmental performance and management practices”. This is not to be a singular focus on managers/leaders, but the reality is that these are the people who set the cultural tone – if only by enabling, rather than impeding, what staff in general want to create. 

The accountability of staff in supporting Disability Inclusion is so often dependent on what management is seen to endorse. The worst-case scenario is staff supporting actions or values which are not supported by local managers. Then appeals up the chain of responsibility and power backs the managers, and not the staff.

When Things Go Wrong

The unfortunate reality about advocating for Disability Inclusion is that it tends to focus on apparent failures. This is often a mismatch between what staff value and what managers allow or support.

In any workplace there are two cultures which fuse to create an overall culture (management/executive and other staff). The point of fusion is often the nexus of mistrust between staff and managers. This is no better illustrated in my own experience; before I became DEN Chair. The then Secretary of FACS invited staff to contact him re any thoughts or concerns. I don’t know how many people did, but I was one of them. My colleagues responded to the invitation with a mixture of cynicism and suspicion.

There was a reason for this. Fine sounding statements from senior leaders tended to be scintillating bluster that led to an unequal and disappointing subsequent engagement. This eroded respect and trust. Putting on the mask of authenticity was seen as a deceptive action. Staff have long learned not to be deceived. And with bitter staff, senior leaders have learned to be cautious about being open. All that does is lead to further suspicion and mistrust.

The complexities of leadership at a senior level are not easy to communicate in such an atmosphere. The inevitable process of change management is always a challenge; and is rarely accepted agreeably by staff. An atmosphere of mutual mistrust is no good place to promote change.

Change management tends to be something confined to restructures within the public sector. It is not seen as being applicable to Disability Inclusion. Let me explain why this is not a good idea.

There’s a popular notion that ‘change is the only constant’. This tends to be uttered in a resigned and glib manner; or articulated with sparkling insensitivity. In its original Taoist context, it has a deeper meaning. Nevertheless, it is especially true as we, as a culture, respond to the changes in our level of recognised diversity and equity, and the values espoused in response – inclusion, and all that means, being the primary one.

As our cultures and communities evolve, the ones that acknowledge diversity and embrace inclusion are more successful. The strategic approach taken to change management for organisational change, as imperfect as it may be, is as applicable to cultural change.

The Darwinian principle of ‘the survival of the fittest’ does not refer to those who can run faster and longer. In this sense, the most fit means the most apt. Saying ‘aptest’ just doesn’t work. It is what is best adapted and most suited. Cultures must adapt to survive and flourish in a changing environment – especially when the culture itself is the changing environment.

The presence of UN conventions and national and state laws concerning Disability Inclusion impose an adaptive pressure upon an organisational culture. This is reinforced by policy. In NSW the Premier’s Priority concerning employment of people with disability in the public sector is an instance of policy pressure for adaptation.

Beneath policy we have plans and strategies. On one level Disability Inclusion is everybody’s business. It’s not okay for staff to be inert, pending directives from management. But if there is a toxic and distrustful relationship between staff and management, personal survival is a stronger imperative – especially when management signals it has no authentic commitment to Disability Inclusion by its actions or inactions.

How Likely is This? 

There are two sides to this question. One is personal and the other is cultural. Let’s deal with the personal first.

There are some managers on the more toxic side of the psychopathy spectrum. They will make the right signals and then contrive to have their far less inclusive and compassionate take on things seem like compliance with policy. The trouble is that we don’t have a handle on where the too toxic line should be drawn. We need to evolve that awareness. This is especially necessary when it comes to leadership and management roles. 

There is good evidence that 20% of managers are responsible for 80% of instances of bullying. If we drilled down deeper, we might find that 5% of managers are responsible for 50% of bullying. That’s just my speculation because I haven’t seen data on this. I don’t know if it is available. My point is that people on the more toxic end of the psychopathy spectrum not only generate a higher level of alleged bullying, but they also create a workplace culture unwilling to confront such misconduct. 

On a broader management culture level, we have 2 related concerns. The first is that executive leaders and senior managers are a class apart from the rest of the staff. They are less likely to hold their own to account. In any defined group it takes an almost radical perspective to hold a member to account – and that can be an act of martyrdom. This isn’t a moral failing of executives and managers. They are ‘victims’ of our psychology and instincts. We who are not in that group are just as vulnerable to conformity that looks like a moral failing. And can we say with absolute assurance that we would not conform?

The second concern is that here is a perfect place for a manager/leader on the toxic end of the psychopathy spectrum to operate. With skill, such a person can survive, and if they manage their instincts well, even thrive. The psychopathic personality likes power.

This means that almost certainly there will be leaders on the toxic end of the psychopathy spectrum in senior leadership roles. If, under them, there are others on the spectrum, as well as more junior leaders with no confidence to resist, it is possible to imagine a perfect storm of moral failure in which Disability Inclusion is shipwrecked while being celebrated as finding a safe harbour.

Conclusion

On the surface, the Canadian government seems to have a good accountability framework in place – in terms of how a department is managed and performs. I am still trying to find out how this is working out in the real world.

While it is essential to focus attention on leaders, who do have the responsibility to deliver on government and organisational objectives, it is important not to imagine that staff can be passive and merely compliant when it comes to Disability Inclusion.

Organisational cultures are layered in a way that tends to separate leaders from the rest of the staff in important ways. This is just how management and leadership works in organisations. Disability Inclusion should, indeed must, be able to reach across that separation. It is about our common dignity and wellbeing.

Introduction

Over the past few months, I have been delving into the psychological research conducted by practitioners of Behavioural Economics in my ongoing quest to understand why some staff with disability experience ongoing discrimination, and why change is sometimes painfully slow.

My aim has been to understand what and why, rather than take an accusatory tone that implies there is blame that should be assigned. Things are the way they are because of who we are. In short, the challenges of making Disability Inclusion real are not bugs. Rather, they are features we need to evolve into their next stage of potential.

In this set of essays, I will reflect on how accountability is something we must look at more closely. I was gently chided by a reader for making some essays too long, so I will keep this one to no more than the equivalent of 4 pages at the most. I expect 2 more of a similar length – but maybe 3.

The Virtue of Business

Public service has never been a theme much discussed in any of the 8 departments I have worked in. In recent decades it has been there discussion in the background, as kind of warm glow. But it has never been something thought to merit a deep dive. What does it mean, and why does it matter?

As inclusion has become an important theme, spurred on by anti-discrimination legislation and UN Conventions, its moral and economic dimensions have become important. The economic dimension has become a 

subject of particular inquiries.

Our communities are becoming more openly diverse through migration, and acceptance of differences that have always been with us. These were once part of fixed social structures that validated, or invalidated, human worth through inclusion, or exclusion, on grounds of gender, sexuality, religion, race, disability or states of health – physical or psychological.

In business there is a clearly delineated bottom line that is measured in unambiguous terms – profit. There are moral dimensions to how that profit is generated, of course. A business conforming to anti-discrimination law has a profit motive to embrace diversity and inclusion. Done well, it improves the bottom line.

This means a business can obey the law, be in tune with contemporary community trends, and improve its bottom line by adopting a genuine commitment to diversity and inclusion. It also means it can use productivity and profitability as a measure by which it can hold its leaders and business units accountable.

That’s the potential at least. The reality is more complex, because not all businesses keep such a keen eye on the economic performance of individual business units. The well-run ones do. Keeping skilled staff, reducing recruitment demands, lowering the rate and cost of absenteeism, and building and keeping high performing team all improve the bottom line. 

Well run businesses engage experts to help them perform better. Those experts conduct research, apply their findings, and then they write books. The goal of these businesses is to provide a service/product that will generate a profit of acceptable level and moral quality. The goal of experts is to help businesses – and then get their insights into the public sphere.

This is a clear foundation for assessing the accountability of participants in the business. The rest of us can learn from the extraordinary growth in personal and organisational psychology.

Public Service is Different

Now and then, there are arguments about whether a public service should be provided by a for-profit business. Some areas of government enterprise have been privatised. The ‘profit motive’ has been seen to inspire people to work harder and better. For-profits keep costs lower. But they also extract profit from the available funds. Their track record varies from okay to woeful. At least I have not come across any glowing success stories. I’d be happy to be disabused of my possible bias.

However, the bottom line for a public sector is sufficiently different – and more complex than simple cost control and profit generation. The revenue raised does not come from trading. The departments and agencies are not generally involved in delivering products or services that are paid for by users to cover costs and make a profit. The income and the output are not tightly related through cause and effect. This is not true of state-run enterprises, of course, but they are not the dominant function of a public sector.

A public sector has, of course, a clear financial accountability – to spend the money raised by taxes and charges in a way that delivers the most amount of good to all people in a given state or nation. This is where things get interesting in terms of accountability.

A public sector is accountable to the community in a way a private business is not. The community is both shareholder and customer, and governments ideally should be advocates for both roles equally. But how does that play out in NSW, representing 8 odd million shareholder/customers? It creates a level of complexity no business has to face. So, while there is a financial bottom line, it shares its place with other factors as well. Among these are the individual service objectives of each cluster, department, and agency.

Figuring out what constitute the best accountability metrics for a public sector is no easy feat. This is complicated by the size and composition of the workforce. Now let’s add into the business-as-usual demands a requirement to meet diversity targets. Here things get very interesting, and I will focus on just disability to explore this.

The NSW Premiers Priorities set a target of 5.6% of the NSW public sector workforce being people with disability by 2025. Note, this is not a minimum of 5.6% per department/agency, but across the sector. This is, for me, a significant weakness in terms of equity, but that is for another essay. The NSW Premier’s Priorities were introduced at the end of the 2018/19 financial year. This will be 3 years ago at the end of the 2021/22 financial year.

I believe that the NSW public sector has already hit that modest target (the UK Civil Servicerate is 10% among the 34% who have declared their disability status and “only” 5.4% among senior civil servants). The 2021 PMES results shows 5% across the sector, but in a range from 2% to 12%. While recruitment methods must be improved to eliminate disincentives, biases, and discrimination in hiring people with disability, a greater emphasis on changing workplace cultures is critical. 

The creation of a safe work environment in which staff with disability can be open about their needs for workplace adjustments and accommodation is essential if there is any realistic hope of surveys showing the actual level of staff with disability.

Importantly, while the PMES results are grounds for hope, internal reporting across the sector show results significantly lower. What will be the metric used to affirm the 5.6% is hit or missed? Internal workforce surveys or anonymous PMES results? It must be the former. Hence the gap between the present situation and the target is so much greater.

Accountably Hitting the Target

Having a target without a means of hitting it is problematic. It’s like setting up a bullseye; but omitting the important fact that not only are there no skilled archers, but no bows or arrows. The people who have been charged with hitting the target have good intent, but only a vague idea of how to make the bow, bowstring and arrows – with which they then must become proficient.

Clearly it is unjust to hold people to account to hit a target without skills and tools. It is even more problematic when senior leaders are unaware of the skills and tools needed.

The presumption has been that getting to the target is more about recruitment, and that sorting out recruitment practices isn’t all that difficult. It is. Research on decision-making is clear that biases can derail the best intent in recruitment – and that anti-bias training isn’t effective. Also, this isn’t just a challenge for new staff, it applies also to existing staff fearful of disclosing a disability when seeking a promotion – despite assurances.

The greatest challenge is changing workplace culture, and here we come to the role of leaders, the need for plans, strategies, upskilling and how to create a framework of accountability.

Conclusion

As we think through what accountability means in the context of supporting staff with disability, we enter a realm of complexity that is well-researched in diverse areas, but not knitted together to offer guidance for advocates for Disability Inclusion in the public sector.

In my next essay I will reflect on this complexity, and how we can begin to assemble the means, and acquire the skills, to hit the target. Then the means of accountability can begin to take shape.

Michael Patterson

Introduction

I have a passion to understand why key pain points in the struggle for inclusion experienced by staff with disability (and others) remain stubbornly in place despite genuine calls for, and commitment to, change.

This my latest reflection on the idea that it’s not a bug we have to fix, but a feature we must learn to evolve.

Let’s Be Fair – to Begin With…

Disability Inclusion is an idea that is grounded in legislation at a state and national level – and in a UN Convention – for a reason.

That reason is that our culture doesn’t ‘get’ Disability Inclusion – or inclusion generally. Individuals and families do, of course, when they have direct and sustained exposure through contact with someone they love. In fact, inclusion as an idea is relatively novel beyond intimate circles – in the span of human evolution. Women have been seeking inclusion since before the beginning of last century – as people of equal dignity and rights. Employees have struggled to be treated fairly, and sometimes humanely, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. 

In my youth (in the 60s and 70s) I participated in activities in favour of women, Aboriginal people, gay and lesbian people, and multiculturalism. Back then we marched, protested, and engaged in forms of ‘consciousness raising’. As a community, we have made a lot of progress since then. The right to be judged by the content of one’s character and not some other attribute is, however, something that is still in contention. We exclude, now, for fewer reasons, and less uniformly, than we used to. But we still exclude – as the various identity movements make plain.

So, ‘getting’ inclusion – disability or otherwise – is something we don’t instinctively do well as humans. Exclusion is, I believe, hardwired into our biology, and, because of this, it lies at the foundation of our cultural instincts. It was not always a bad thing. Exclusion can be protective and vital to ensure wellbeing. We see this in anthropological and historical accounts of human cultures and communities.

The important thing now is that we live in a complex pluralistic culture in which the legacies of natural exclusion are no longer beneficial, and we must deliberately and purposely change our behaviour.

Intentional Change is Hard

Most of us are pretty inclusive, in any case, these days – in the sense that we are open to engaging with a diversity of people. And we do so comfortably – up to a point. Our contact with a diverse range of people is constrained by family, social and work settings – and that means that the scope of diversity through direct experience is limited. We may believe, rightly, that we are inclusive, but the opportunity to live that out may be limited. And this creates a problem of the novelty reaction.

In 2010, when I joined the DEN set up by AHDC, one of my fellow new members had a right below elbow amputation, which he offered when we shook hands. I wanted to stare, to normalise what I was seeing. It took a few meetings for me to become used to seeing this guy as just another DEN member. I wasn’t disturbed by what I was seeing. In fact, I was fascinated, and wanted to imagine what it was to live without a hand – rather than hands that did not work as intended, as was my situation.

When I became DEN Chair in November 2016, I suddenly found myself on a steep learning curve as I became more aware of challenges deaf and blind staff faced. It took me over 2 years to develop a reflex of sensitivity – we met only 4 times a year. Even so, in early 2021 a blind colleague, who used a screen-reader called JAWS sent me a draft document to review and comment on. I sent it back with an email saying that I had highlighted some passages I’d like to discuss. She rang me up, laughing. JAWS does not read highlighting. I was rightly ridiculed. I felt like a fool for a while. Then I put it down to a learning experience. In my haste I had reverted to my normal reflexes and biases. There was no ill-will or disrespect intended – I was just habituated; and had lost my intentional focus.

I had 4 sisters. Now I have 3 – and a brother. I spent 6 months talking with my youngest sister before I left Tasmania about her struggle to reconcile her deep sense that she was male. She had not long left a fundamentalist Christian movement and was allowing herself to imagine a sense of self that had been gnawing at her.

When she told us of her decision to undergo transgender related surgery and medication the family was thrown into an existential crisis. Despite our conversations I could not immediately empathise with her decision – because I had no foundation for doing so. But I knew her well enough to know the choice was not frivolous – and to undergo what she was about to experience her motivation had to be profound. I had to learn to empathise, so my new brother and I talked daily for months. He was going through a traumatic time. Living a new identity isn’t easy first up – on a personal level, or a social one.

Nothing that I loved about my youngest sister had changed. I welcomed the former ‘her’ as my brother – ‘he’. But my sisters struggled. They still say “she”, even when he is present. Its not that they do not love him. We have regular sib hook ups on Zoom. They are anchored to a belief, which he had violated – and that violation is not accepted.

One sister had a real problem. She had had a double mastectomy because of breast cancer. I had spent 2 weeks post op providing live-in support for her and her family because her husband couldn’t handle the reality of what had happened to his wife. We spoke daily about how she was feeling – physically and emotionally. For her, the idea that anybody would undergo the same kind of shocking surgery willingly was incomprehensible. She now gets that to do that willingly takes a motivation of extraordinary intensity. Doesn’t mean she agrees with it, or understands why the choice was made.

The challenge was not to agree with the decision our youngest sibling had made, but to honour it as a choice made freely and in a spirit of existential necessity. But it was not all about him. It was about all of us, as a family. You don’t realise how deeply rooted beliefs and presumptions are – until they are radically disrupted. It took intentional acceptance and adjustment to create a new normal. His father (my stepfather) did not adapt well. His religious beliefs were a barrier to complete acceptance. 

We struggle with realities experienced by others if they are unfamiliar and alien to us – especially if that also means they violate our sense of the proper and good. I do not think less of my siblings who call my brother ‘she’. I am saddened, but I understand. Such change is not okay for everyone.

I had no theoretical concern about transgender choices until it became part of my intimate reality. My reflex was to reject and deny, even while being supportive – because the idea seemed absurd. I was biologically male, and she was biologically female. Surely that was it? On deeper reflection I understood that was not necessarily the case. It was easy for me to accept my new brother because nothing had fundamentally changed. What I loved about my youngest sister was there, still, in my new brother. In fact, magnified because we now shared the extraordinary business of understanding what it is to be male – he as new experiences, me as a deep reflection. 

He has subsequently developed a genetic condition which robbed him of physical energy. He is now dependent on an electric wheelchair, courtesy of the NDIS. We have talked almost daily as he has struggled with getting a diagnosis; and diminishing capacity for physical activity. That’s taken around 5 years. It has been a psychologically draining experience – with fruitless and costly medical appointments and allegations of malingering reminiscent of the early days of encountering Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Adapting to disability isn’t easy for those who live with it. But it can be harder for those who are outsiders who have no permission to ask questions that help them understand and get a perspective. Having the right and the opportunity to ‘normalise’ radical expressions of being human is a rare thing. The weeks I spent supporting my sister after her double mastectomy gave me an insight few get. We had open conversations for a long time afterwards. Looking back, having those conversations was a privilege. To be part of such a profound personal transformation had a deep impact on me. 

That may seem a strange thing to say when someone close to you is suffering so much. But the reality is that acceptance of novel and radical expressions of being human is enhanced by proximity and exposure. This is why people whose family members have a disability are so often highly committed to supporting staff with disability. This truth applies across the spectrum of diverse attributes of being human, where inclusion is a concern. Familiarity can confer understanding, empathy, and acceptance more readily than good intent. Action is stimulated when genuine personal feeling of connection are aroused.

Change is hard for everyone. Its hard at every level to be authentically and practically inclusive. Its harder when you are distant from the existential drama of the lived experience – which is where most of us are. Our good will to be inclusive is a necessary foundation. But it is only a beginning.

What Do We Have to Do?

As a Social Ecologist I read widely in anthropology, religion, psychology, history, politics, economics, and sociology. This is the minimal requirement for a deep intellectual understanding of a contemporary perspective on inclusion.

Yeah? And I expect the average public servant to do the same? No. I simply want to emphasise the degree of complexity that exists on an intellectual level. There isn’t any way that this complexity can be conveyed in the standard learning and development opportunities expressed as various takes on ‘awareness’ courses – not even at a more ‘operational’ level of understanding. 

I am not saying such courses do not have value. But we should not inflate that value. It is limited to providing foundational awareness. After the course, what happens to continue and deepen the development of the understanding needed to be freely inclusive at every instance when such a response is required? Not much.

Somebody has laid the foundations, and the timber has been delivered. But we have no architect to craft the plan, and the workers are off doing important other things. How will the house of inclusivity be built?

A culture of inclusion is evolving. We are getting there. But that evolution must have a volitional and intentional element to it – if it is to move at the pace desired. We can act with goodwill, but without discernible skill. Or we can act with goodwill and skill.

My observation of Disability Inclusion advocacy is that the enthusiasm is rarely matched with skill. And not every skilled performance is informed by contemporary knowledge. The enthusiasm produces good results – but not at the pain points.

These pain points are where change seems to incomprehensibly stall. What seems evident to those excluded seems to be ignored by those who have the power to drive or facilitate change. Here, trust in an organisation’s commitment to inclusion falters, and may be broken – if not repaired and cared for.

In an age when there is a wealth of knowledge informed by sound research, Disability Inclusion can (and should) become a professional grade skillset. This is an insight essential to practitioners of Disability Inclusion. But it is more important to staff with disability. If your Disability Inclusion advocates are not professional in their approach, you are not being served to the extent that is fair to expect.

How to be a Professional Disability Inclusion Advocate

In November 2016 I suddenly found myself Chair of the DEN. At the last meeting of the year the then Chair announced his immediate departure to the NDIA. My immediate challenge was to rebuild membership. We were in a restructure, and we were bleeding members because of the transition to the NDIS, and disappointment with the pace of change. I had time to think about the sense of disappointment, which I had been feeling as well. At first, I continued the old way of doing things, even though they were not working.

In 2018 I attended the Australian Network on Disability (AND) annual conference in Sydney. I have written about this at length elsewhere (see the blog page – The DCJ DEN Story: The Leadership Challenge), so I won’t repeat here. This was my trigger event that helped me understand my objective – to make the DEN a professional body. Staff resource groups are welcomed as ‘amateur’ disrupters. They are tolerated and welcomed so long as they can be controlled. The idea that they can be equal partners in change is novel.

The idea of disruption is popular these days – usually in terms of technology. It means that the normal has been unsettled (disrupted), and when things settle down again it’s a new normal – the disrupter has been included as part of the normal. The technological examples abound – the smart phone being an exemplary instance.

This is where we must re-imagine Disability Inclusion in conformity with the UN, the Commonwealth government, and the State legislation. It is a right, not an act of charity to be doled out at the convenience of the donors.

But to make it a genuine disrupter it must be professional, disciplined, and driven by knowledge, backed by evidence.

Rights are immediately applicable, not when it is comfortable or convenient for organisations or workplace cultures to get around to it. It is certainly not the case that these rights apply at the pleasure of leaders and managers. And yet it is impossible to read the data reported in the NSW State of the Sector reports as meaning anything else – year after year.

Yes, leaders and managers are under pressure on their own account. But it is not clear why staff experiencing bullying and discrimination should continue to suffer affronts to their dignity in the service of operational outcomes – as if they are making a noble sacrifice for the good of all.

If managers and senior managers are experiencing undue pressure, their duty is to feed that back to the executive, and not to pay it out to subordinate staff. It gets paid out to the most vulnerable and least included individuals or groups. A glitch in senior leadership becomes a cross for less empowered staff to carry.

Here I am not ‘accusing’ leaders and managers of not doing their duty. I am pointing out a pain point which can be addressed by skilled and informed action. It is unlikely that any remedy will be instant; because the limits of our ability to adapt to new ideas and act upon them will come into play. But without informed and skilled development of a remedy, little will happen in a timely manner.

Effective Disability Inclusion must be a partnership of the key players (staff with disability, Allies and Champions and business units) in an organisation. It’s not just the role for a staff resource group. Organisations run on professionalism, discipline, knowledge, and evidence. If staff with disability (and staff in general) want an effective voice – to trigger Disability Inclusion (and Inclusion generally) as a disrupter – knowledge and skill are needed.

Inclusion is Hard, But it’s Not a Mystery

There has been fabulous research over the past 20 years on what it takes to be an inclusive organisation. Why then, is this research not integrated into contemporary understanding of what challenges are? Part of the answer is that the sector lacks a committed resource to track and integrate new knowledge as it emerges. Another part of the answer is the limited knowledge of leaders.

I have had rich conversations with Deputy Secretaries, Executive Directors, and Directors who ‘get’ the challenge acutely. They have degrees in, or read in, psychology. Of course, qualifications are not a prerequisite. Knowledge is. What is uniform about them is an intellectual curiosity – and a willingness to have conversations. However, they are in the minority, and they do not function in a culture that promotes inquiry and reflection.

My point is that at a professional level a functional insight into individual, group and organisational psychology is essential in a contemporary public sector. This is especially so if the pain points that impede full inclusion for staff with disability, and others, are to be addressed. 

Translating Good Ideas into Good Action

I have been listening to The Voltage Effect, by the economist John A. List. It’s a book about scaling – taking a ‘good idea’ and making it grow – and why trying to do so often fails.

List is among the growing number of economists who explore the economics of action – not just money related matters. Although money plays a big part it’s not the main game. Ill-advised actions generate costs and losses to businesses and governments. Smart actions generate benefits that can be expressed in monetary terms – but human wellbeing is the target. Behavioural economics is a field that is dependent on research and data. It gives us good data on what works.

Disability Inclusion is a great idea. It is scaling at a decent pace. But the actions that drive are a different matter. Not all ideas about how Disability inclusion are producing results when converted to actions. The NSW State of the Sector report produced by the NSW PSC acknowledges that there is a need for more work to be done, more effort to be applied to support the development of genuine inclusion for people with disability within the NSW public sector. That’s a call to action that gets drowned out in the noise of the mundane reality of the sector doing its core business. 

It’s a good idea in that noble vague sense that, of course, we must do better. Nobody disagrees with that.  But it has no shape as a strategy. It is informed by data – people reporting the pain of exclusion. But not by data of what works.

Conclusion

Inclusion is something that is a necessity on a cultural level, and a requirement in our laws. Few people would argue it is not a great idea. And there is steady progress being made.

However, the fact that we have Diversity and Inclusion teams, with their plans, frameworks, and strategies, tells us two important truths:

1. We need them because Inclusion is hard to do, and:
2. It’s harder to do than we thought.

But our beliefs about why it is hard are not informed by evidence we can use to make it easier.

I suspect there is a moral presumption that because inclusion is a good thing to do, good people will do it without difficulty. If that’s the case, there is abundant evidence that this is not a valid belief, and it should be abandoned. The goodwill in organisations is real, but it can be tapped only up to a point. It should not be relied upon as the primary source of change energy.

I don’t know that the answer is. I have spent a long time trying to figure out what the problem is – why good people let bad things happen to those who should be included, and resist changing the way things are done.

The answer lies in what research can tell us about what motivates us at individual and organisational levels. Some of that is available, but it’s not in a neat package labelled ‘How to Be Inclusive in 5 Easy Steps’. Maybe one day it will be.

In the meantime, we can be mindful that what we are asking of ourselves, and being asked of, is not easy or simple. There is no on/off switch for bias or non-inclusion. There is no magic silver bullet that will slay ‘the demon of exclusion’. There is no demon, no bug – just a natural human instinct that isn’t evolving as fast as our culture is changing. We are playing catch up. We can go faster if we apply the new knowledge and skills.

There’s a spectrum along which we are travelling along under our own steam. We are moving unevenly toward an ideal destination of full inclusion. How fast we move depends on what the sector’s organisational cultures create; and how we, as individuals, understand the challenge, and respond to it.

“Keep your values and your facts separate.”  Daniel Kahneman- Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment

Introduction

What is noise in this context? It’s the range of difference in decision making generated by a number of people using subjective responses to a particular question. This includes what are claimed to be ‘objective’ processes of assessment. 

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt observes that we make decisions using unconscious processes and our conscious processes are often no more than PR agents employing rationale to defend our decisions. 

What we call reasons are often no more than a rational defence of an irrational decision. For example, researchers in the USA have found judges make harsher decisions just before meal breaks and less harsh decisions after they have eaten. 

Other research involving multiple judges assessing a hypothetical case shows a huge range in sentences proposed. Reasons for decision would be well reasoned argument – but such argument, as objective as it appears, essentially papers over real unconscious reasons for the decision. 

Across public sectors discontent with grievance handling is consistent. The normal response is to assume there is something wrong with the process, rather than how process is employed by people making decisions about grievances.  Improving process won’t solve the problem if it’s about how decisions are arrived at in the decision-makers minds.

Keep Your Values and Your Facts Separate

This is far easier said than done. In fact, the Behavioral Economist, Iris Bohner argues that we need far better guidance on making fact-based decisions. Our values may not be the values of our employer. Values constructed at organizational, and even sector level, are not intimately linked to complex psychological processes that make us unique decision makers. An effective decision-making guide can deliver fairer decisions.

Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues demonstrate that wide disparity in judging a situation across any group indicates that while the ‘facts’ of a matter are plain to all, how those ‘facts’ are processed and evaluated varies sometimes wildly.

This leads to a staggering proposition. You can’t evaluate a decision on the basis that it was reasonably argued. Beautifully argued cases can still be an extreme (and irrational) expression of a range of possibly fair judgements. If you agree with a decision, or not, that may just be your bias kicking in.

We like to believe we are smart and fair minded – and that may be true – up to a point. But we are, according to research, more likely to over-estimate our own virtues and strengths than be modest or realistic.

There is a big problem that Kahneman and others have identified. We usually don’t make decisions that are optimally smart or fair. Consider the plaintiff guilty of an offence and facing a judge for sentencing. Let’s assume the guilty verdict is okay. His sentence will depend on who is the judge – and the judge’s mood, whether the decision is make before or after a meal, whether the plaintiff triggers a strong reaction in the judge, as well as how the judge has decided prior recent cases. The fact that justice might be blind does not impede influence of unconscious responses – biases essentially.

But Grievances are Not Court Cases

This is true, but consider the following:

In response to the statement “I have confidence in the ways my organisation resolves grievances” on the NSW Public Service Commission’s People Matter Employee Survey (PMES) the following results are very interesting: 

• 2016 page 58 – 43% Agree, 10% Strongly Disagree, 15% Disagree.
• 2017 page 63 – 36% Agree, 11% Strongly Disagree, 17% Disagree.
• 2018 Page 48 – 40% Agree, 11% Strongly Disagree, 15% Disagree.
• 2019 Page 28 – 41% Agree, 10% Strongly Disagree, 15% Disagree.
• 2020 page 30 – 45% Agree, 22% Strongly Disagree, 33% Disagree.
• 2021 page 18 – 46% Agree, 22%, Strongly Disagree, 32% Disagree.

In the 6 years (2016-2021) agreement rates have shifted 3%. But strongly disagree and disagree have gone from static 10%-11% and 15%-17% to more than double for 2020 and 2021. There is little doubt this is an impact of COVID. But even so having 25%-28% of staff not agreeing grievances are well-handled should not be acceptable, let alone around 55% of staff. Here I am not suggesting that COVID is an excuse for higher levels of discontent. I am acknowledging that it is an abnormal factor that has adversely impacted the level of discontent. If anything, it reflects poorly on organisations in managing issues precipitated by the pandemic.

I will allow that not all discontent about how a grievance has been handled is because of how it was handled. Some folk will expect that the only just and proper decision is in their favour – and that’s not always a fair stance to take. 

In the context of staff with disability the rate of failure to obtain a decent outcome without intervention and advocacy is high. We know that in recent times in the NSW public sector, around 24% of staff with disability say they have been bullied. On page 21 of the 2018 Sector PMES report we can read:

Of those who reported bullying, 20% made a formal complaint to their agency (compared to 22% last year). Only 21% of those who formally complained felt their case had been resolved satisfactorily, and 50% indicated that it had not. 

The low level of reporting is a cause for concern. But the fact that half of those who did report were not satisfied with the outcome is even more worrying. It takes some strong need to make a formal report – a genuine sense of grievance. It is, in my experience, unlikely that people with disability who make formal reports are exaggerating or inventing their cause for grievance.

Staff with disability tend to be more reluctant than most to submit a formal grievance. They feel more vulnerable to reprisals – and finding an alternate role can be far harder for them. As DEN Chair I was asked to intervene in complaints and grievances. Only one was not justified in the terms of the complainant’s perception, but the intervention turned what could have been catastrophic for the person’s psychological health into a positive outcome for all parties.

It is clear that there is a problem in how grievance are responded to. I have written recently on the problem of bias. Noise is another factor that makes a mockery of rational and objective assessments. If there is not one assured fair standard what can be done to assure fairness?

The Need for Really Fair Measures and Processes

Processes that may be administratively rational may still not account for the people factor – which introduces bias and noise. In fact, administratively rational processes may entrench injustice because it is mistakenly assumed that by following a rational process the outcome must be rational and fair.

In fact, an administratively rational process essentially provides a defensible outcome – so if there is a complaint, a decision can be plausibly defended – because defending decisions is essential for an administrative process. Whether the decision is objectively right or just is less important – because determining that is, as demonstrated here, an entirely problematic affair.

Kahneman argues that machine learning algorithms are better at decisions than humans. He uses the example of sentencing guidelines being a better guide for making fair decisions than allowing judges to arrive at sentencing decision on their own. Iris Bohner argues that designed systems give better results than the kind of guesswork we have now. Bohner has a particular interest in recruitment processes that can remove bias.

The argument for an evidence-based system for assessing complaints and grievances raised by staff with disability that takes decision-making away from managers is compelling. In a document titled Disability Management Across the UK Civil Service, Microlink argued, in relation to workplace adjustments, for significant changes to the way things are done. To be clear, Microlink is a private sector company advocating for the adoption of its own services. But if we allow that its claim to know what works is valid, we can explore the key ideas. Here are some key ones:

• Enable self-referral to expert case advisers. 
• Appoint a named business manager with the authority and accountability to ensure end-to-end service quality. 
• Provide a service that uses experts and not managers to diagnose what is needed and to order the adjustment, drive the process and minimise unnecessary assessments. 
• Make sure that the first point of contact is an expert who can provide triage. 
• An effective case management system is required to track cases and collate relevant data. 
• Publish measurements to increase visibility, awareness and accountability of the process. 

This is a rational process that suits workplace adjustments. Would it work for grievances and complaints? The immediate objection would be cost, and that it would complicate a process that an agency is perfectly well capable of handling – despite compelling evidence to the contrary. What it does is take control out of the hands of those who benefit from keeping that control.

Obviously, the noise and bias risks are just being transferred to a different source. Would an independent expert be less noisy and biased than managers with no expertise and a possible interest in controlling the process and the outcome? I think the answer is a clear “Yes.” 

External experts are engaged to assess ergonomic needs of injured staff. Injured staff are sent to medical experts to assess fitness to remain at work. Legal branch is engaged when there is a legal question to be answered. ‘Independent’ investigators are called on, at an agency’s discretion, to assess a complaint allegation. The extent to which such investigators are ‘independent’ is debateable. An agency defines the task and pays for the service. The investigator is in service of who pays, not the truth – at least those who want to get further business understand this to be true.

The presumption of the need for independent expertise to intervene confirms that such a need is recognised – albeit selectively.

Conclusion

I am sharing my struggle to make sense of why good people do not act to address injustice swiftly and effectively. When I set up the DEN’s Guidance and Action Team (GAT) in September 2018, I encountered an astonishing number of colleagues with disability who had endured years of discrimination and bullying. In February 2019 half a dozen of them told their stories to our department’s executive board of management. That was a transformative experience that fundamentally changed the department’s response to Disability Inclusion.

But revelations of conduct that constituted serious misconduct did not result in holding those responsible to account. Why was this? At the time I was so grateful for the positive responsive from our executive leaders, and the subsequent positive impact, I didn’t ask. It has taken the distance of over 24 months for that to become a question in focus. This is important. I have no doubt that the executives who were present would agree that the lack of action is a cause for concern. I have retained contact with the 6 DEN members, who share that sentiment.

How a senior executive team squares away the lack of progress is another question. Don’t get me wrong. We made a huge amount of progress in a lot of areas. The impact of that meeting reverberated powerfully. But it stopped short of holding identifiable perpetrators of bullying and abuse to account. Why was that?

This has nothing to do with conscious or intentional choices. None of the people I esteem as Disability Champions are fully conscious of how their championship is failing the cause. Tremendous progress has been made over the past couple of years. That is everywhere evident – but so are the gaps.

The important thing is that what is causing those gaps is an attribute of the ‘system’ which is being revealed through a lot of very good research. That research is accessible through excellent publications. I have put links about the ones I am aware of below. I use Amazon, not out of any affection – it simply provides the best range of available publication formats.

I don’t know what the solution is in any practical and immediate sense. I do know that the solution must be doing other than what is done now. My purpose here is to stimulate reflection and conversation – toward an agreed understanding of the challenges, risks and possible solutions.

A major consideration is the distinction between rules and standards when making decisions about the kind of behaviour that is acceptable/required. Standards are noisy, whereas rules are not. There are questions about optimal wording, and interpretation of either – and the consequences for non-compliance. Consideration of these things is where effective decision-making is critical.

One of those possible solutions might be implementing “Decision Hygiene”. Here are a few links where you can download brief discussions:

• Hbr.org
• Productcoalition.com
• Behaviouralscientist.org

They may get the conversation moving.

Books

Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement Daniel Kahneman et al (also see YouTube interviews)

What Works: Gender Equality by Design, Iris Bohnet

The Fearless Organisation: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, Amy Edmondson

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, Jonathan Haidt

Introduction

The curse of government is that good ideas can turn to mere ghosts of their former selves as re-conception of the original idea is matched by constraints on resources and changing realities.

The field of Disability Inclusion is no exception. The genuine commitment to Disability Inclusion expressed by the NSW government does not form an inoculation against good ideas becoming neutered by a loss of fidelity to the original intent.

Disability Inclusion has not been looked at with an informed critical eye. We can be too close or too distant to see clearly. The bureaucrats who continue to deliver invaluable work in promoting Disability Inclusion are hampered by a situational myopia. This isn’t a criticism. It’s the reality of working under time pressures and resource limitations. The luxury of deep review is not available, which is why consultants are used – and, despite their best skills, they can be too much the outsider. 

Activists outside bureaucracy may chafe against the constraints of the system with good cause, but unless there is a sympathetic engagement with the bureaucratic perspective, criticisms can come across as a churlish lack of appreciation for the work that is being done. It is rare that such an engagement happens – and even rarer that it becomes a sustained conversation.

The NSW Disability Council merits a closer critical look in this context. I will look at it in the context of a report – Review of the NSW Disability Inclusion Plan 2018 prepared by the Sax Institute and delivered in June 2019. Never heard of it? Me neither, until I found it by accident.

Disclosures

• Until 10 June 2021 I worked in the Department of Communities and Justice’s Disability Inclusion Team which provided secretariat services to the NSW Disability Council.
• I have presented before the Council, and I have attended an International Day of People with Disability event hosted by the Council.
• I was sent information about applying to become a Council member in 2021, which I completed and submitted with reservations about losing my independence to comment. I was not successful, fortunately. Looking at the new membership, I would have been a very bad fit.
• It was the process of applying for membership that spurred me to take a closer look at the Council. It was previously just something in the background I was too busy to put time into thinking about.
• I have also been chatting with a former Council member

When Things Don’t Work as Envisioned

Good ideas degrade progressively from conception to implementation – and if they are not cherished and nourished, they degrade further. Eventually they are discarded as flawed and failed or they survive in zombie form.

The NSW Disability Council was established in 1987 under the Community Welfare Act (1987). It was continued in the Disability Inclusion Act (2014) – see Part 3. Something that was a great idea 30+ years ago may not be such a good idea now.

I don’t have the mission of the Council from 1987, but the current mission is in the current Disability Inclusion Act at 3:17. It is to:

(a) to monitor the implementation of government policy in relation to people with disability and their families, 

(b) to advise the Minister on emerging issues relating to people with disability, 

(c) to advise public authorities about the content and implementation of disability inclusion action plans, 

(d) to advise the Minister about the content and implementation of the State Disability Inclusion Plan and disability inclusion action plans, 

(e) to promote the inclusion of people with disability in the community, 

(f) to promote community awareness of matters concerning the interests of people with disability and their families, 

(g) to consult with the National People with Disabilities and Carer Council and other similar bodies, 

(h) to consult with people with disability and undertake research about matters relating to people with disability, 

(i) any other functions prescribed by the regulations. 

These are all good things to do, but who is going to do this? The Council comprises no less than 8 and no more than 12 members who are:

a) members of, or persons employed by, organisations concerned especially with the interests of people with disability, and 

(b) other persons with appropriate skills and experience in matters relevant to the interests of people with disability. 

These attributes are fine as they are. There is also a requirement that “The majority of members of the Disability Council must be people with disability.” That means 7 of the 12.

The members are appointed by the Governor. This is an immediate concern for me. Back in 1987, when Disability Inclusion was in its infancy, and our social structure was very different, that would have been fine. But now, in 2022, that level of formality seems to be anachronistic. It’s too much like the respectable middle class still congratulating itself long after the Disability Inclusion horse has left its stable.

Similarly, the Council meets at the NSW Parliament House. It’s a great venue, but it’s also rather grand in today’s context. Let me be more specific about that context. Relative to 1987 there’s vastly more Disability Inclusion activity. Its no longer a respectable middleclass struggle, as it was way back when families banded together to make decent lives for their kids. That struggle led to the creation of what became significant disability service providers running group homes, enterprise and employment programs, and day programs. Back then there was very little by way of support in the community. There was very little awareness of disability, and Disability Inclusion wasn’t even a thing. Now those parent-based organisations are part of the backbone of a far more complex  and substantial Disability Inclusion environment.

Things are very different today. I will use myself as an example here – as a contemporary disability activist. As well as chairing my department’s Disability Employee Network for 3¼ years; and designing its current Disability Inclusion Action Plan, I am a member of my local governments Access Committee, and I participate in the Blue Mountains Disability Forum (as an observer). This is a group of service providers from the Blue Mountains and Western Sydney. I also have ongoing relations with the Australian Network on Disability and the UK-based PurpleSpace, as well as Disability Inclusion activists in the NSW public sector, and the Centre for Inclusive Design. In addition, I have been working in disability-related roles continually for 19.5 years.

The Disability Inclusion scene in 2022 is vastly more vibrant and complex than it was in 1987. The idea that this scrappier community would want to meet at Parliament House or want to have their membership of any group sanctioned by the Governor is hard to imagine.

Whatever the function of the Council was at its inception scarcely applies now. It can’t do what its charter says it does simply because the disability landscape is so much more complex and dynamic. And, it has neither the expertise nor the time nor resources to fulfill its job description.

The Limits of Reality

The Council meets bi-monthly – 6 times a year. The meetings are from 10.00am to 04.00pm with breaks for lunch (30mins) and morning and afternoon tea breaks (15 mins is usually allowed). That’s 5 hours per meeting for business. That’s 30 hours a year – 360 person hours all up. That’s a shade over 10 working weeks for a single NSW public sector employee.

So, let’s refresh our memories on the Council’s tasks:

1. to monitor the implementation of government policy in relation to people with disability and their families, 
2.  to advise the Minister on emerging issues relating to people with disability, 
3.  to advise public authorities about the content and implementation of disability inclusion action plans, 
4.  to advise the Minister about the content and implementation of the State Disability Inclusion Plan and disability inclusion action plans, 
5.  to promote the inclusion of people with disability in the community, 
6.  to promote community awareness of matters concerning the interests of people with disability and their families, 
7.  to consult with the National People with Disabilities and Carer Council and other similar bodies, 
8.  to consult with people with disability and undertake research about matters relating to people with disability, 
9. any other functions prescribed by the regulations. 

That’s not doable. I spent 19.5 years working in disability related matters in the NSW public sector. I had a pretty decent output rate. Could I do that in 2 ½ months? Not a chance. This would be a full workload for a fulltime worker over 12 months – at least.

Let’s just look at points 3 and 4. In NSW there are 128 local government areas. There are currently 9 departments and an array of statutory authorities and other bodies. Let’s leave the other bodies out and focus just on the departments and local governments. That’s 137 in all. The NSW Disability Inclusion Act requires that all public authorities must provide copies of their Disability Inclusion Action Plans (DIAPs) to the Council, which must read, discuss, and advise the public authority and the Minister on the content. 

If the Council did nothing else, it would have to process one DIAP in under 15 minutes – 4 for every hour it met for a whole year. Plainly that’s not possible. Council members get paid a small fee for attending meetings, but they are volunteers, so expecting them to put in many hours of unpaid work to fulfill the Council’s brief is not reasonable. Though this happens only every 4 years, there isn’t a year’s grace to do this. It would be more like 6 months, or less, more likely. 

But, of course, the Council does not review all DIAPs, only a selection provided by the Department of Communities and Justice. This means there is no comprehensive overview of the DIAPs, which are the operational edge of the state’s Disability Inclusion Plan (DIP).

Points 7 and 8 are important functions; but expecting them to be performed in the available time is not reasonable, especially when point 8 includes conducting research.

Likewise points 5 and 6 require promotional activity. How would the Council deliver on that on top of all other tasks? These days promotional activity is a professional activity, and would require a budget, plus the time to design and develop any promotional activity. 

The Council does not have such resources. The Department of Communities and Justice provides a secretariate service to the Council and is, as such, the body most likely to act to meet the Council’s scope of activity – which begs the question as to why the Council should be involved, in name only, in work conducted by a government department. This becomes problematic when we look at point 1: to monitor the implementation of government policy in relation to people with disability and their families.

One might expect that such a monitoring function should be at arm’s length from especially the department with a particular brief to implement policy “in relation to people with disability and their families.” But given, now, other departments have particular briefs as well – think Health, Customer Service, Transport and Education – the task is complex and large.

Let me be clear. I have no critical comments to make about implementation of policy and the role out of disability related services in NSW – other than the obvious one. This is that it’s still not ideal and not enough resources are being applied. Agitating for more isn’t criticism – it’s just necessary to keep focus on the intent in the face of strong competition for resources and attention.

So, in sum, the NSW Disability Council can’t deliver on what’s on its plate. So why not rethink what it is about? The obvious question to ask is: What would we lose if the Council, as it currently is, ceased to exist?

I don’t know what the answer is. But this is what I do think I know. Having a government department effectively subbing for you, and most of what you do is provide a brand, really isn’t a good use of resources. Also, it’s kind of misleading.

An Alternative?

I think the Council is an archaic concept wrapped in a form of respectability that is past its use by date. Having a suite of functions that it cannot meet is an echo of an earlier conception. Even though 2014 is not that long ago in some respects, Disability Inclusion has moved at a cracking pace – as we’d hope. The NDIS has altered the landscape as well. With so much more happening, staying abreast of what has been achieved, and where the blockages are, is hard work – even for a fulltime expert effort, let alone a group that meets for 30 hours a year.

The NSW Disability Inclusion Plan (DIP) 2021-2025 says, on page 21:

DCJ will convene the NSW Stakeholder Disability Forum. Members will be drawn from people with lived experience of disability, the Disability Council NSW, the community and government sector.

This could be a good idea, but I have reservations. It can be reduced to an almost tokenistic effort to comply with the fact that it’s in the DIP; and must be done. I am not exactly sure why the Council is included, except it might seem rude to exclude it. Stakeholder groups will have a hierarchy, and I could imagine the Council wanting to be seen as the top dog, and others disagreeing. The reason for this is explored later.

On top of this, there is the NSW Disability Inclusion Action Plan – a state-wide version of what state agencies are doing. I was surprised to discover this. At present I have no idea how this state-wide DIAP is going to operate. I don’t know who created it. There is nothing evidently available on its governance. I don’t know if there has been buy-in from the departments mentioned in it. There was one section that suggested to me that some things may be good ideas developed without consultation with the agencies nominated as players.

The Review of the Disability Inclusion Plan

The Sax Institute’s June 2019 Review of the NSW Disability Inclusion Plan 2018 has some useful thoughts about what needed to be done to improve outcomes from the first NSW Disability Inclusion Plan. I have selected parts of the Key Findings which talk about what more can be done. The full Key Findings are below, at the end of this essay, as an appendix. Here, I have omitted the good news as not relevant to my point. However, for the sake of balance I will quote the last few lines of the Key Findings – Despite this, many narratives of success have been gathered demonstrating the breadth of the groundswell towards inclusion. 

2014 to 2018 DIP Sax Review Key findings 

• DIAPs: The documents provide evidence of significant activity in the inclusion space, both in terms of the processes undertaken to develop the DIAPs and the volume of actions documented by agencies. Many stakeholders also noted that inclusion work within their agencies extended well beyond what could be articulated in their DIAP. However, there was also a sense that some DIAPs were not ambitious enough and had recorded activities that may have already been planned in other contexts. 
• Resourcing: Lack of resources was cited frequently as a challenge for agencies in both developing and implementing their DIAPs. Regional local government areas in particular struggled with the process citing limited staff capacity to support consultation, engagement and planning and fewer financial resources to support the realisation of the initiatives. The Liveable Communities grants helped some local government areas implement smaller scale initiatives, such as installing ‘lift and change’ facilities. 
• DIAP implementation: Critical to successful implementation were good governance, inclusion champions (including at the executive level), and drawing on the organisation’s internal resources including human resources divisions and employees with lived experience. Another success factor was embedding responsibility for actions within and across agencies. For local councils, this often involved including DIAP actions in their Integrated Planning and Reporting (IP&R) structures.
• Disability Employee Networks (DENs): Several NSW Government clusters had DENs actively championing and driving positive initiatives internally. These DENs represent some of the key work being done towards the employment target; however, members reported that the workload could be a significant addition to their substantive positions.
• Impacts: Most agencies were not actively monitoring or collecting data that could demonstrate meaningful outcomes making it difficult to quantify the tangible impacts of their DIAP. Despite this, many narratives of success have been gathered demonstrating the breadth of the groundswell towards inclusion. 

What Happened to the Report? 

In June 2019, I was working in the Disability Inclusion Team in Communities and Justice; and was not aware of it. It was a turbulent time. The department was in the process of forming through the merging of Justice and FACS, and I was busy. Its presence may have been notified, but it would not have been a priority for me – as a review of the DIP. I will only note that given it contained a lot of comments on DIAPs, it would have been a handy resource for me.

The Disability Council read the review and did not like it, apparently. I can see why. From its perspective it would have lacked specifics and clarity. Now I have designing and implementing a DIAP under my belt, with my other background, the review makes a lot of sense to me. But, I’d have to ask how many people back in June 2019 would have had the experience and knowledge to make full use of the report? As a guess, I’d say I could have counted them on one hand, and would have had fingers left over. In June 2019, I would not have been one of those people – despite the value of the DIAP information.

The problem is that report written by an outsider covering a comprehensive array of themes is useful to insiders who have the background to get the best out of it, but not to insiders who do not have that background. This is a common problem – because the insiders who have the background are often considered to be biased; or hold views that do not sit comfortably with the politics of the governing agency. Also, outsiders don’t know what questions insiders want answered at a sufficiently nuanced level. Even good project briefs don’t provide that guidance, because they are written with presumptions that are not spelled out.

In this case the Disability Council was not the client, so it did not have an effective say in how it wanted evidence to be presented. But the Disability Council was a stakeholder in a very important way. The Disability Inclusion Act specifies that Disability Inclusion Action Plans are to be reviewed by the Council, not a government agency. And these plans are the operational expression of the Disability Inclusion Plan. So, I think it could be fairly argued that the Council should have been the client, or at least a partner with a say in what it wanted to know.

Though this essay is about the Disability Council, I wanted to look at the key findings of the report, and the report itself because they help frame a context for understanding the Council’s role and purpose.

A Place for the Disability Council the Disability Inclusion Landscape in NSW

The Sax report has some very clear messages from the coalface, and it does seem to me that a coordinated response with buy-in at Board level across all public sector agencies is essential to address the issues identified. Resourcing is a key concern across the spectrum of Disability Inclusion activity, and there must be effective advocacy for those resources.

I am concerned that, between the Council, the DIP and the DIAPs (state and agency), as well as a stakeholder forum, several things represent a risk:

• There is no proposed resource to ensure coordination and cooperation sufficient to address the issues in the report.
• The voice of activist stakeholders – the people driving change – may be filtered through bureaucratic processes in a way that will water down insight into areas where urgent change is needed.
• The valuable and scarce resources needed to make things happen – and stay happened – will be spread too thinly across competing interests. Disability Inclusion is like any other domain – there will be competing interests.

I struggle to imagine that the NSW Disability Council is fit for purpose in 2022. I think a sector-wide Disability Inclusion Community-of-Practice, led by active and ardent practitioners is a far better option for addressing issues of NSW policy and practice. Stakeholders from DENs, DIAP governance, Executive Disability Inclusion Champions and other key areas of Disability Inclusion policy, practice and programs would be crucial participants. Support from key community stakeholders would also be essential. I’d also like to see the Australian Network on Disability and PurpleSpace bring their expertise and professionalism to the conversation.  I’d rather see such a body sit with Premier and Cabinet than anywhere else – so it has an assured whole-of-government perspective. It must be facilitated, rather than controlled, by government agencies.

If the Disability Council is to be retained, I’d radically prune its notional workload to create a body with a doable mission. This would require a major rethink.

The Council’s Idea of its Future

The Council commissioned a report – the Evaluation of options for increased NSW Government funding to support the NSW Disability Council. The final draft, prepared by the Gegis Consulting Group was completed in March 2020.

The report explored a range of options that included making the Council better resourced, so as to fulfil its range of functions independently. So far as I can see, it’s not online, which is a pity.

None of the recommendations were taken up by the NSW government. I can understand why, as a former bureaucrat. I can equally see why the Council sought to address its patent inability to fulfil its mission as specified in the NSW Disability Inclusion Act 2014. 

The Council members who drove the rethink have gone. Their terms came up in 2021, and they were not extended.

So, we have an interesting situation here. The Council has a mission it cannot fulfil, and it knew it. It proposed a rational solution, which was rejected. Consequently, it is hard to conceive what the current value of the Council is considered to be.

Conclusion

To give anybody a workload they cannot fulfill through want of knowledge and resources is unkind – and disrespectful. At best it creates an illusion that something of value is being done – when it is, in fact, not being done anywhere near the extent created by appearances. At worst, it turns Disability Inclusion into an act of charity, where the act of charity is more important than the recipient. The Council didn’t start off this way.

Disability Inclusion is no longer a matter for charity – where those who control the means dole out betterment when, and as, they see fit. Yet this charity model remains entrenched in how governments continue to think and act. There is a lot of talk and promise of caring, but it’s not yet backed up with the of action needed to make the definitive differences required. Getting away from the charity model puts the power to drive change in the hands of people with disability. This isn’t what we have, and it’s certainly not what the Disability Council is – at the moment. I doubt it will be so in the future.

In Canada the national government has gone beyond the old Disability Inclusion battle cry of “Nothing about us without us!” to “Nothing without us!” This is a spirit of genuine inclusion. But I am yet to ascertain whether it is part of the lived experience of people with disability in Canada. That will be the subject of a later blog post.

We need a fit-for-purpose overview of the state’s expression of its commitment to Disability Inclusion. It must be driven by people with skin in the game – those with a sense of focus and urgency. It is easy to look at the good things that are happening and miss the failings because you are too far from the coalface. 

If it’s too close to government, it risks being captured by the gravity of process and culture which resists change. The instinct of government is to manage things on its own terms – and to resist being stirred up and made to move things along to a different beat.

If it’s too far away from government it risks distorting the reality of government processes into being an enemy, rather than an ally who assists the community to become more responsive to Disability Inclusion.

Disability Inclusion within the NSW public sector is at a stage in its evolution where there are two areas of focus:

• Shifting organisational practice to drive Disability Inclusion in deliberate and strategic ways, 
• Changing organisational culture to make Disability Inclusion part of the normal workplace experience. 

I focus on the public sector here because the DIAPs are the operational aspect of the DIP – and if they work well, the whole community benefits. That’s not the whole solution, of course.

In the wider community, similarly, the changes needed are about practice and culture. In the public sector, businesses and organisations, and in the community the persistence of discrimination, exploitation and abuse is no mystery – and neither are the solutions. The uncertainties concern our capacity and will to do what is necessary. These are not simple uncertainties to be glibly ‘solved’. 

The Disability Council has 8 specified functions – 1 of monitoring, 3 of advising, 2 of promoting, and 2 of consulting. Five of the functions are outward looking and 3 directed toward the government – advising. Three functions are ‘fact finding’ – truth seeking. The Council’s function can be described as – monitor and consult, advise and promote. That’s a good recipe for action in partnership with government. Somebody should be doing this – and be resourced to do so.

The real Disability Inclusion stakeholders are impatient and demanding. They are critical, even when things look good. If you hold a stake in something it is a thing to be protected and improved in a timely manner – and not when a large cumbersome mechanism gets round to it. Such mechanisms rightly protect resources and processes. That’s their job.

This is not a criticism of government. It is an acknowledgement of what is. The role of a stakeholder is to not accept that the way to do things is set by departments. That dynamic of demand and resistance is a natural and necessary tension. That’s why we have a thing called the Disability Inclusion Act. Business as usual had to be disrupted by legislation. But once disrupted, the demand for change must be persistent.

The term stakeholder is now used too loosely. A person or agency that has an interest in blocking or slowing an action because it conflicts with budget and other priorities may be a called stakeholder, but they also have a conflict of interest which will impede innovative solutions. You can’t have a body of blockers and movers and expect effective action – unless it has a driving imperative to make stuff happen. That means having activists with influence and passion and serious skin in the game. Smart governments will expose themselves to impatience. The old saying that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ applies. A stakeholder group of those motivated by the necessity of change will achieve far more than one whose spirit is diluted by members driven by the need to dampen enthusiasm.

The issue of Disability Inclusion is not whether, but how. That means that constraints upon resources must always be challenged – as must the belief that reliance on those resources is a necessity. We do too little of the latter. The biggest resource demanded is a willingness to change attitudes, beliefs and values to alter behaviour. 

We must protect against Disability Inclusion being captured, turning the words of the Act into fine sounding sentiments not backed up with change spurred along by impatient demands for action. A Disability Council suited to our time would be replete with impatient and disruptive activists who are prepared to bluntly tell government what’s not working. A government genuinely committed to realising the ideals of the DIA would, you’d think, welcome frank and fearless comment.

In NSW the Disability Inclusion Plan is a great idea. Its operational expression is via the Disability Inclusion Action Plans. To get the best out of them, they should be reviewed, assessed, and supported to evolve (and, I believe, reconceived). That can happen only via a competent and resourced body. For me that means including genuine activists who are operating at the ‘coalface’ in NSW government agencies and in the wider community as the majority of any such body. The key word here is “Action”. We need practitioners, not theorists or managers.

You can make up your own mind whether that’s what we have by checking out the Disability Council’s new membership.

This is an important matter. There is not a lavish supply of resources these days, so getting best value from what is available is essential. With the prospect of more ‘consultative’ mechanisms being set up, there is a risk that the opportunity to provide real support and guidance will be squandered in talk fests that create an illusion of action only. Celebration of intent isn’t enough.

Appendix

2014 to 2018 Sax DIAP Review Key findings 

Key findings 

• Compliance: All 10 NSW Government clusters and 128 local councils had DIAPs in place, although two local councils had incorporated a short section into their existing operating plans rather than producing a discrete DIAP. 
• Legislation: The legislation was seen by most as highly effective in driving the prioritisation of inclusion, increasing awareness of disability and complementing the work of the NDIS. Many stakeholders recognised the confluence of factors that were contributing to great shifts in the inclusion space. 
• NSW DIP: The NSW DIP was implemented as planned. Additional funding was available early in its rollout to deliver specific initiatives including media campaigns, human rights training, cross-sector partnerships and the Live Work Play conference, and to create positions in Local Government NSW to support local councils in their planning. These initiatives were perceived to add significant value to implementation and were recognised as creating a snowball effect. 
• DIAPs: The documents provide evidence of significant activity in the inclusion space, both in terms of the processes undertaken to develop the DIAPs and the volume of actions documented by agencies. Many stakeholders also noted that inclusion work within their agencies extended well beyond what could be articulated in their DIAP. However, there was also a sense that some DIAPs were not ambitious enough and had recorded activities that may have already been planned in other contexts. 
• Consultation with people with disability: This was done across clusters and local government, although lack of resources made it a challenge to do well in some cases. Disability sector agencies and people with lived experience perceived the consultations to be meaningful; although they also reported feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the level of requests to participate in these processes. 
• Ongoing engagement: As the process continued, engagement with the sector and people with disability was not always achieved, although several agencies had processes in place to gather feedback and respond to complaints. There were some observations that local government was better at this, particularly if they already had a community access committee to provide input and oversight into the development and implementation of council planning. 
• Resourcing: Lack of resources was cited frequently as a challenge for agencies in both developing and implementing their DIAPs. Regional local government areas in particular struggled with the process citing limited staff capacity to support consultation, engagement and planning and fewer financial resources to support the realisation of the initiatives. The Liveable Communities grants helped some local government areas implement smaller scale initiatives, such as installing ‘lift and change’ facilities. 
• DIAP implementation: Critical to successful implementation were good governance, inclusion champions (including at the executive level), and drawing on the organisation’s internal resources including human resources divisions and employees with lived experience. Another success factor was embedding responsibility for actions within and across agencies. For local councils, this often involved including DIAP actions in their Integrated Planning and Reporting (IP&R) structures. 
• DIAP reporting: Reporting was widely recognised as problematic. With little guidance provided, stakeholders agreed that reporting was largely anecdotal, giving little sense of impact or outcomes. Stakeholders commented that agencies had not reflected on their DIAP enough, particularly in terms of areas for further work, and there were concerns that there was little documentation of the challenges and limitations they faced. The need to carefully design and manage reporting requirements so as not to overburden agencies was also identified.
• Supporting structures: FACS, Local Government NSW, and the DIPIC were seen as useful resources and facilitators for planning and implementation. Some stakeholders felt they would have benefitted from more support, whereas others felt they required less as they were already leaders in the inclusion space. Some stakeholders said they would have liked the Disability Council to play a greater role in reviewing and monitoring DIAPs and holding agencies accountable; however, it was also recognised that the workload associated with this role meant that without additional resourcing this would not likely be feasible. 
• Disability Employee Networks (DENs): Several NSW Government clusters had DENs actively championing and driving positive initiatives internally. These DENs represent some of the key work being done towards the employment target; however, members reported that the workload could be a significant addition to their substantive positions. 
• Impacts: Most agencies were not actively monitoring or collecting data that could demonstrate meaningful outcomes making it difficult to quantify the tangible impacts of their DIAP. Despite this, many narratives of success have been gathered demonstrating the breadth of the groundswell towards inclusion. 

The full report can be found here

Introduction

I read/listened to Iris Bohnet’s What Works: Gender Equality by Design quickly. Bohnet is an economist. Not one of the dull types we are familiar with who bang on about GDP or balance of trade, but a Behavioural Economist. Behavioural economics is about what works, and what doesn’t – based on research, and not opinion or belief. There’s a wide gap between the two. 

I discovered the Freakonomics Radio podcast a few years back – the first effort to make Behavioural Economics popular. That got me curious. The UK government created its Nudge Unit back in 2010 to employ Behavioural Economic principles in its public sector. The idea of ‘nudging’ people toward desired actions intrigued me.

Bohnet’s exploration of gender equity issues is a tour of the biases that impede aspirations to gender equity. It is also a discussion on how to overcome the intention/action gaps that so often turn virtuous intent into just so many fine sounding words. 

When we look at reports on the status of marginalised people, we so often see expressions like “we need to do more” year after year. For example, from the NSW 2020 State of the Public Sector report we find “Much remains to be done…” and in the 2021 report “There is much to be done…”

Such inertia, and the need to say “More needs to be done” year after year, it seems, may be caused by bias. What is the “more” that must be done, and why isn’t it being done? What is impeding it?

What About Bias is Hard?

A little while ago I was intrigued by the idea of the wood wide web. Beneath the surface of a forest floor there is a network of roots and fungi that makes what we see as a bunch of individual trees intimately connected – to such a degree that it hard to see a forest as anything other than a community – and maybe a single organism. And trees are biased. They are shown to behave preferentially toward their own. Here’s a quick taste of this extraordinary insight.

As I reflect on bias, it seems we have an interlocking network of preferences and aversions that ties us to some, and keeps us distant from others. Such a network sustains us psychologically at a personal and family level, socially, and culturally – and impacts our physical wellbeing as well. How we chose, and why we chose, are fundamental to who we are. On one level philosophers argue over whether we have free will at all. It’s a complex subject, but choice-making is a foundational theme for understanding being human. Not honouring this level of complexity seems foolish. Bias is no simple matter.

In fact, bias is good in so many ways. By making it a negative thing, we impede our ability to think about it. So let me be clear. In the context of public service natural bias is a problem because there is an explicit requirement to treat all members of a community equally. That means that public servants must shift their sense of identity from our hardwired commitment to family, kin, and tribe to a novel sense of identifying with 8+ million people (in the case of NSW).

This is no easy thing to do. Anyone brought up in a religious environment will quickly know that despite noble sentiments, it’s hard to move away from one’s own faith community. Likewise, secular humanitarians will recognise that identifying with humanity, as a whole, is way more difficult than connecting with local groups with single, but noble motives.

In short, we humans are not naturally fitted to being unbiased. That’s a stretch goal – and not everyone is keen to stretch – or be stretched. We may recognise the virtue of a goal (the talk) but acting in conformity with that goal (the walk) is another thing.

From an historical and sociological perspective, contemporary Western communities are complex, pluralistic and diverse. Identifying across multiple groups is novel – and difficult. This is one of the compelling arguments for a diverse public service. Public servants, as a group, can overcome the natural hardwired tendency toward selective bias only when there is sufficient diversity.

Bohnet argues that diversity must be designed properly. Having a single member of a ‘diversity group’ risks tokenism – and can backfire. Likewise setting quotas can be problematic if not done intelligently. In short, mixing and matching to create what superficially looks like diversity may not only not work, it may also have the opposite effect – by hardening attitudes against the people intended to be helped.

In essence, the kind of unbiased work and service environments we see as essential in public service are the result of an acknowledged need to ensure fairness and equity. They are necessary, but they are also aspirational – in that they stretch members of the public sector to go places they are not comfortable going – and may not wish to go there in any case.

Beneath the noble rhetoric of public service, for most people it’s a job – and they will do as little as they need to do to keep it. For many, honouring the obligations they have toward those to whom they are naturally biased, is demanding enough. Having to overcome hardwired biases demands extra effort. If an organisation’s efforts to overcome biases is not coherent, consistent, strategic, and accountable it should not be surprising that efforts at equity, fairness and inclusion fail, have unintended consequences, and are resisted and mistrusted.

This is why this is all so hard.

What Can We Do?

There are a number of things we can do to overcome the intention/action gap to transform virtuous intent (the talk) into virtuous action (the walk).

1. Learn about our own inherent biases. As advocates and activists for Disability Inclusion, we will be more effective if we shift our understanding about what impedes that transition from ‘the talk’ to ‘the walk’.  There is a very good tool set up by Harvard University where we can self-test our own biases.
2. Learn to think more strategically. Iris Bohnet’s book is a great place to start. Being armed with knowledge and insights makes a big difference. If your goal is to persuade an organisation to change how it is doing Disability Inclusion, getting it to be more strategic and accountable will take some doing.
3. Learn to act more strategically. There is clear evidence that some actions are ineffectual, and others may have contrary consequences. For example, if you are seeking greater representation of people with disability in a group, don’t be content with numbers so low that they are little more than tokenism – and make sure the same group has members of other diversity groups as well. Bohnet has other guidance and resources too.

Conclusion

As I looked deeper into the problem of bias, I started to see possible explanations for my persistent concern with inaction in the face of evidence of bullying and abusive conduct toward staff with disability by managers. This conduct is acknowledged, but change to address it is very slow.

Moral psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, offered some vital insight in his observation that not everyone is comfortable with enforcing accountability for misconduct. Add to this group behaviour in hierarchies, where leaders are more likely to identify as a group and be more self-protective, and there is another piece of the jigsaw puzzle.

Bias is another puzzle piece – one that may bring the whole picture closer to being resolved. Let’s see.

Introduction

I have been talking about bias training with a few folk. The conversation was not disability focused; but was related to the wider diversity theme. Anti-bias training is not as useful as we’d like to think. 

U.S. corporations spend $8 billion annually on diversity training. Yet a meta- review of almost a thousand studies finds a “dearth of evidence” about their efficacy. As Bohnet concludes in the title to the book’s second chapter “De- biasing minds is hard,” attempting to raise awareness about the possibility of bias can be ineffective, or even counter-effective. (from Gender Equity by Design – see Resources at the end of the essay)

We are inherently biased – including about how biased/unbiased we think we are. Bias is a natural and good thing in many circumstances. Indeed, it can be essential to maintain good relationships in our private lives. Try not being biased toward your spouse or children. Nepotism is considered a duty, outside the public sector, or a public company.

In the NSW public sector, bias in how staff engage with other staff, job applicants, service users and community members is unacceptable if the consequences of a decision, or action, advantages, or disadvantages, others in an unfair manner. 

A public servant has a duty to treat all members of their public equally – hence taming our natural disposition toward bias for or against individuals or groups is an obligation.

Misdiagnosing the Problem

Bias is not the problem. Misapplication of it is. Back in the 1980s the buzz word was discrimination – and it became a bad word. We see this still in the term ‘antidiscrimination’. But to discriminate simply means to recognise a difference. It used to be a good thing to be recognised as somebody who is “very discriminating”.

As ideas and ideals become popular, they are also condensed and simplified, and given a simple moral valency. Thus, discrimination became wholly bad. You can see this by checking the Oxford Dictionary’s definition of ‘discriminate’. The primary definition is “make an unjust or prejudicial distinction…”. The second definition is the neutral one – “recognize a distinction; differentiate:”

Bias has a similar fate. The primary definition is “inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair:” The morally neutral definitions followed.

Discrimination and bias are natural human attributes that are hardwired into us. We can’t, and should not try to, remove them. What we must do is become aware of them; and apply them appropriately.

Conscious suppression of unconscious stereotypes, researchers have found, simply doesn’t work. (from Gender Equity by Design)

In the context of public service, this means meeting a high standard of self-awareness and self-control. This is not going to be achieved by attending short courses. The best such courses can do is make us aware of the challenge we face – to be alert to our inappropriate tendencies to be biased. How we might act to address that risk is not well, or usefully, described. That is a far more complex matter.

Diversity is the Best Answer

Humans are not, generally speaking, a self-aware mob. There are endless instances of psychological experiments that demonstrate this. I like the moral psychologist, Jonathan Haidt’s, description of our conscious self being the small rider on a large elephant of consciousness. Learning to be diligent about our inclinations toward bias on our own is not easy. Nor is it necessarily wise. Alone, we will fall afoul of our innate confirmation bias – and believe that we are way less biased than we really are.

There are compelling arguments about the value of diversity in teams. Put simply, multiple people coming from different perspectives may all bring their biases to bear on a challenge – as well as their insights and ability to call out others’ biases. Being aware of other people’s biases will help us be more aware of our own – and in a diverse group they may cancel each other’s out.

In the public sector there is always the opportunity to involve other people who are very different in a decision-making or problem-solving process. Equally, you can select people who are like you, or who are unwilling to do anything other than agree with you. That choice is always available – but why would you do that? It’s a question you must ask, and answer, of yourself. 

Electing similarity or diversity is where one succeeds or fails in meeting the fairness obligation. This isn’t diversity training. It is embedding diversity in practice as a deliberate choice.

“The positive effects of diversity training rarely last beyond a day or two, and a number of studies suggest that it can activate bias or spark a backlash.” (HBR’s Why Diversity Programs Fail)

Disability Awareness and Bias Training

Disability Awareness training does not appear to have been subjected to the same level of scrutiny as Bias training, which is a pity. I want to distinguish between awareness of specific disabilities and awareness of people with disability as a general class.

I strongly support awareness training for specific disabilities. For example, if there is a deaf or blind team member, understanding the work environment from their perspective is essential to ensure their full inclusion. Similarly, awareness of the realities of ‘Mental Illness’ should be mandatory for all staff, but especially those in leadership roles. I single out leaders because they have a duty, as a leader, to model and promote desired standards of conduct. This is best exemplified in the NSW Capability Framework – see personal attribute Act with Integrity – especially the behavioural indicators for Advanced and Highly Advanced.

For other kinds of disability, where awareness of individual needs is appropriate, ‘training’ is the wrong term. Creating a safe environment for a team member to be open about a need for an accommodation or an adjustment is the best option.

And this is where the issue of bias comes in. In any work team there will be a range of people with needs for accommodations or adjustments at times – caring, parenting, religious, cultural, or illness necessities. Disability is just one of things in that spectrum of human experiences that make us a diverse lot. But in relation to disability, in some cases the need for an adjustment or accommodation is continuous and ongoing.

Disability Awareness training includes an element of anti-bias training in an effort to eliminate bias against people with disability – because they are people with disability. But a poor understanding of a disability might be the primary problem. No doubt bias may play a role, but ignorance may be the greater problem. Ignorance can lead to discomfort and exclusion through lack of confidence.

Bias against a person with disability may not be the only issue. Bias toward a person with attributes that are responded to positively – appearance, gender, ethnicity, age – can be an added disadvantage for a person with disability. Bias toward them (negative) must be added to bias away from them (positive toward others). This is no simple matter to address.

This is one reason why positively promoting diversity is a better antidote against bias than attempts at Anti-Bias training – and growing self-awareness in decision-makers is even more important.

Making the Job Needlessly Harder

There is no doubt that all this training is well-intentioned. But running ‘awareness’ training for every member of the ‘diversity’ community is not only impractical, it may even be counter-productive by imposing a significant burden on individuals and teams – more stuff to learn and remember. This is especially so when such training is made mandatory, and there is no immediate need for it – in relation to any work-related situation. 

“Trainers tell us that people often respond to compulsory courses with anger and resistance—and many participants actually report more animosity toward other groups afterward.” (From HBR’s Why Diversity Programs Fail)

Developing awareness training seems like a rational response to an identified need. But the real need is different. The obligation upon public sector employees is not to be biased in their engagement with staff and community members in a way that unfairly advantages or disadvantages them. This means that that each employee must self-manage their own propensity for bias. Any organisation can support their staff in only 4 ways:

• Supporting and encouraging increased self-awareness by creating opportunities to grow; and facilitating access to tools to help.
• Requiring flexibility and compassion in responding to needs of staff seeking adjustments and accommodations.
• Requiring a bias toward diversity in decision-making and problem-solving situations.
• Creating and maintaining a culture of accountability to ensure compliance with requirements for staff to be unbiased, fair, and just in dealing with staff and community members.

These are the areas that require attention and investment.

Conclusion

The good intent of public sector training is beyond dispute; but misdiagnosing the problem and the challenge as one to be addressed through rational cognitive input, rather than increased self-awareness, misses the focal issue.

Public service requires a very different set of responses than private life. We are hardwired to discriminate in favour of our own (at a family, clan, or tribal level) and against others. We are hardwired to over-estimate the virtues of ourselves and those like us, and to under-estimate the virtues of those who are not like us.

Over the past 70 odd years our Australian culture has evolved into a complex pluralistic one with a far higher mixture of ‘diversity characteristics’ than previously – and that is ongoing.

The ideal of treating everyone in our community equally is a stretch challenge not everyone who is a member of the public sector will conform to without exception or consistently. It is a work in progress that must be undertaken with insight, realism, and commitment.

Achieving enduring Disability Inclusion means understanding this and working to ensure the wider Inclusion and Diversity aspiration is realised. 

Training is not a ‘silver bullet’. Cultural change and encouraging greater personal responsibility to develop enhanced self-awareness is slow; but may be the only really effective path. Training is of value in quite specific ways only.

Bias is more of a problem for people in positions to make decisions that impact a lot of other people. Managers are in this position for obvious reasons. But this does not mean they are more responsible than their staff – who, by virtue of being public servants, potentially impact many people as well. 

However, leaders do have a higher duty to model desired behaviour. This suggests that supporting leaders to increase awareness of the risks of innate bias makes more sense than anti-bias training that supposes it some form of crime for which people should be blamed.

Research supports avoiding training styles that imply blame or fault, or which seek to eradicate behaviours that are hardwired. We are left with stimulating self-awareness to promote choice-making that is inclusive within an accountable ethical framework. We must admit this is difficult – stretching individuals to match the ideals of public service.

Resources

Below are some resources that may be useful:

CBC Ideas Podcasts

B is for Bias was broadcast on 07.09.2021 if you are looking for it on a podcast app, or you can go to the podcast on the CBC website

The Bias List was broadcast on 03.02.2022 if you are looking for it on a podcast app, or you can go to the podcast on the CBC website

HBR Articles – downloadable PDFs – individual access may vary

Why Diversity Programs Fail – from July-August 2016

Diversity as a Strategy – September 2004

Diversity Council Australia

BIAS Unconscious Bias: Unplugged – a downloadable PDF

Wharton – U Penn

 Gender Equity by Design – a review of What Works by Iris Bohnet

Introduction

The curse of government is that good ideas can turn to mere ghosts of their former selves as re-conception of the original idea is matched by constraints on resources and changing realities.

The field of Disability Inclusion is no exception. The genuine commitment to Disability Inclusion expressed by the NSW government does not form an inoculation against good ideas becoming neutered by a loss of fidelity to the original intent.

Disability Inclusion has not been looked at with an informed critical eye. We can be too close or too distant to see clearly. The bureaucrats who continue to deliver invaluable work in promoting Disability Inclusion are hampered by a situational myopia. This isn’t a criticism. It’s the reality of working under time pressures and resource limitations. The luxury of deep review is not available, which is why consultants are used – and, despite their best skills, they can be too much the outsider. 

Activists outside bureaucracy may chafe against the constraints of the system with good cause, but unless there is a sympathetic engagement with the bureaucratic perspective, criticisms can come across as a churlish lack of appreciation for the work that is being done. It is rare that such an engagement happens.

The NSW Disability Council merits a closer critical look in this context. I will look at it in the context of a report – Review of the NSW Disability Inclusion Plan 2018 prepared by the Sax Institute and delivered in June 2019. Never heard of it? Me neither, until I found it by accident.

Disclosures

• Until 10 June 2021 I worked in the Department of Communities and Justice’s Disability Inclusion Team which provided secretariat services to the NSW Disability Council.
• I have presented before the Council, and I have attended an International Day of People with Disability event hosted by the Council.
• I was sent information about applying to become a Council member in 2021, which I completed and submitted with reservations about losing my independence to comment. I was not successful, fortunately. Looking at the new membership, I would have been a very bad fit.
• It was the process of applying for membership that spurred me to take a closer look at the Council. It was previously just something in the background I was too busy to put time into thinking about.
• I have also been chatting with a former Council member

When Things Don’t Work as Envisioned

Good ideas degrade progressively from conception to implementation – and if they are not cherished and nourished, they degrade further. Eventually they are discarded as flawed and failed or they survive in zombie form.

The NSW Disability Council was established in 1987 under the Community Welfare Act (1987). It was continued in the Disability Inclusion Act (2014) – see Part 3. Something that was a great idea 30+ years ago may not be such a good idea now.

I don’t have the mission of the Council from 1987, but the current mission is in the current Disability Inclusion Act at 3:17. It is to:

(a) to monitor the implementation of government policy in relation to people with disability and their families, 

(b) to advise the Minister on emerging issues relating to people with disability, 

(c) to advise public authorities about the content and implementation of disability inclusion action plans, 

(d) to advise the Minister about the content and implementation of the State Disability Inclusion Plan and disability inclusion action plans, 

(e) to promote the inclusion of people with disability in the community, 

(f) to promote community awareness of matters concerning the interests of people with disability and their families, 

(g) to consult with the National People with Disabilities and Carer Council and other similar bodies, 

(h) to consult with people with disability and undertake research about matters relating to people with disability, 

(i) any other functions prescribed by the regulations. 

These are all good things to do, but who is going to do this? The Council comprises no less than 8 and no more than 12 members who are:

a) members of, or persons employed by, organisations concerned especially with the interests of people with disability, and 

(b) other persons with appropriate skills and experience in matters relevant to the interests of people with disability. 

These attributes are fine as they are. There is also a requirement that “The majority of members of the Disability Council must be people with disability.” That means 7 of the 12.

The members are appointed by the Governor. This is an immediate concern for me. Back in 1987, when Disability Inclusion was in its infancy, and our social structure was very different, that would have been fine. But now, in 2022, that level of formality seems to be anachronistic. It’s too much like the respectable middle class still congratulating itself long after the Disability Inclusion horse has left its stable.

Similarly, the Council meets at the NSW Parliament House. It’s a great venue, but it’s also rather grand in today’s context. Let me be more specific about that context. Relative to 1987 there’s vastly more Disability Inclusion activity. Its no longer a respectable middleclass struggle, as it was way back when families banded together to make decent lives for their kids. That struggle led to the creation of what became significant disability service providers running group homes, enterprise and employment programs, and day programs. Back then there was very little by way of support in the community. There was very little awareness of disability, and Disability Inclusion wasn’t even a thing.

Things are very different today. I will use myself as an example here – as a contemporary disability activist. As well as chairing my department’s Disability Employee Network for 3¼ years; and designing its current Disability Inclusion Action Plan, I am a member of my local governments Access Committee, and I participate in the Blue Mountains Disability Forum (as an observer). This is a group of service providers from the Blue Mountains and Western Sydney. I also have ongoing relations with the Australian Network on Disability and the UK-based PurpleSpace, as well as Disability Inclusion activists in the NSW public sector and the Centre for Inclusive Design.

The Disability Inclusion scene in 2022 is vastly more vibrant and complex than it was in 1987. The idea that this scrappier community would want to meet at Parliament House or want have their membership of any group sanctioned by the Governor is hard to imagine.

Whatever the function of the Council was at its inception scarcely applies now. It can’t do what its charter says it does simply because the disability landscape is so much more complex and dynamic. And, it has neither the expertise nor the time nor resources to fulfill its job description.

The Limits of Reality

The Council meets bi-monthly – 6 times a year. The meetings are from 10.00am to 04.00pm with breaks for lunch (30mins) and morning and afternoon tea breaks (15 mins is usually allowed). That’s 5 hours per meeting for business. That’s 30 hours a year – 360 person hours all up. That’s a shade over 10 working weeks for a single NSW public sector employee.

So, let’s refresh our memories on the Council’s tasks:

1. to monitor the implementation of government policy in relation to people with disability and their families, 
2.  to advise the Minister on emerging issues relating to people with disability, 
3.  to advise public authorities about the content and implementation of disability inclusion action plans, 
4.  to advise the Minister about the content and implementation of the State Disability Inclusion Plan and disability inclusion action plans, 
5.  to promote the inclusion of people with disability in the community, 
6.  to promote community awareness of matters concerning the interests of people with disability and their families, 
7.  to consult with the National People with Disabilities and Carer Council and other similar bodies, 
8.  to consult with people with disability and undertake research about matters relating to people with disability, 
9. any other functions prescribed by the regulations. 

That’s not doable. I spent 21.5 years working in disability related matters in the NSW public sector. I had a pretty decent output rate. Could I do that in 2 ½ months? Not a chance. This would be a full workload for a fulltime worker over 12 months.

Let’s just look at points 3 and 4. In NSW there are 128 local government areas. There are currently 9 departments and an array of statutory authorities and other bodies. Let’s leave the other bodies out and focus just on the departments and local governments. That’s 137 in all. The NSW Disability Inclusion Act requires that all public authorities must provide copies of their Disability Inclusion Action Plans (DIAPs) to the Council, which must read, discuss, and advise the public authority and the Minister on the content. 

If the Council did nothing else, it would have to process one DIAP in under 15 minutes – 4 for every hour it met for a whole year. Plainly that’s not possible. Council members get paid a small fee for attending meetings, but they are volunteers, so expecting them to put in many hours of unpaid work to fulfill the Council’s brief is not reasonable. Though this happens only every 4 years, there isn’t a year’s grace to do this. It would be more like 6 months, or less, more likely. 

But, of course, the Council does not review all DIAPs, only a selection provided by the Department of Communities and Justice. This means there is no comprehensive overview of the DIAPs, which are the operational edge of the state’s Disability Inclusion Plan (DIP).

Points 7 and 8 are important functions; but expecting them to be performed in the available time is not reasonable, especially when point 8 includes conducting research.

Likewise points 5 and 6 require promotional activity. How would the Council deliver on that on top of all other tasks? These days promotional activity is a professional activity, and would require a budget, plus the time to design and develop any promotional activity. 

The Council does not have such resources. The Department of Communities and Justice provides a secretariate service to the Council and is, as such, the body most likely to act to meet the Council’s scope of activity – which begs the question as to why the Council should be involved, in name only, in work conducted by a government department. This becomes problematic when we look at point 1: to monitor the implementation of government policy in relation to people with disability and their families.

One might expect that such a monitoring function should be at arm’s length from especially the department with a particular brief to implement policy “in relation to people with disability and their families.” But given, now, other departments have particular briefs as well – think Health, Customer Service, Transport and Education – the task is complex and large.

Let me be clear. I have no critical comments to make about implementation of policy and the role out of disability related services in NSW – other than the obvious one. This is that it’s still not ideal and not enough resources are being applied. Agitating for more isn’t criticism – it’s just necessary to keep focus on the intent in the face of strong competition for resources and attention.

So, in sum, the NSW Disability Council can’t deliver on what’s on its plate. So why not rethink what it is about? The obvious question to ask is: What would we lose if the Council, as it currently is, ceased to exist?

I don’t know what the answer is. But this is what I do think I know. Having a government department effectively subbing for you, and most of what you do is provide a brand, really isn’t a good use of resources. Also, it’s kind of misleading.

An Alternative?

I think the Council is an archaic concept wrapped in a form of respectability that is past its use by date. Having a suite of functions that it cannot meet is an echo of an earlier conception. Even though 2014 is not that long ago in some respects, Disability Inclusion has moved at a cracking pace – as we’d hope. The NDIS has altered the landscape as well. With so much more happening, staying abreast of what has been achieved, and where the blockages are, is hard work – even for a fulltime effort, let alone a group that meets for 30 hours a year.

The NSW Disability Inclusion Plan (DIP) 2021-2025 says, on page 21:

DCJ will convene the NSW Stakeholder Disability Forum. Members will be drawn from people with lived experience of disability, the Disability Council NSW, the community and government sector.

This could be a good idea, but I have reservations. It can be reduced to an almost tokenistic effort to comply with the fact that it’s in the DIP; and must be done. I am not exactly sure why the Council is included, except it might seem rude to exclude it. Stakeholder groups will have a hierarchy, and I could imagine the Council wanting to be seen as the top dog, and others disagreeing. The reason for this is explored later.

On top of this, there is the NSW Disability Inclusion Action Plan – a state-wide version of what state agencies are doing. I was surprised to discover this. At present I have no idea how this state-wide DIAP is going to operate. I don’t know who created it. There is nothing evidently available on its governance. I don’t know if there has been buy-in from the departments mentioned in it. There was one section that suggested to me that some things may be good ideas developed without consultation with the agencies nominated as players.

The Review of the Disability Inclusion Plan

The Sax Institute’s June 2019 Review of the NSW Disability Inclusion Plan 2018 has some useful thoughts about what needed to be done to improve outcomes from the first NSW Disability Inclusion Plan. I have selected parts of the Key Findings which talk about what more can be done. The full Key Findings are below, at the end of this essay, as an appendix. I have omitted the good news as not relevant to my point. However, for the sake of balance I will quote the last few lines of the Key Findings – Despite this, many narratives of success have been gathered demonstrating the breadth of the groundswell towards inclusion. 

2014 to 2018 DIP Sax Review Key findings 

• DIAPs: The documents provide evidence of significant activity in the inclusion space, both in terms of the processes undertaken to develop the DIAPs and the volume of actions documented by agencies. Many stakeholders also noted that inclusion work within their agencies extended well beyond what could be articulated in their DIAP. However, there was also a sense that some DIAPs were not ambitious enough and had recorded activities that may have already been planned in other contexts. 
• Resourcing: Lack of resources was cited frequently as a challenge for agencies in both developing and implementing their DIAPs. Regional local government areas in particular struggled with the process citing limited staff capacity to support consultation, engagement and planning and fewer financial resources to support the realisation of the initiatives. The Liveable Communities grants helped some local government areas implement smaller scale initiatives, such as installing ‘lift and change’ facilities. 
• DIAP implementation: Critical to successful implementation were good governance, inclusion champions (including at the executive level), and drawing on the organisation’s internal resources including human resources divisions and employees with lived experience. Another success factor was embedding responsibility for actions within and across agencies. For local councils, this often involved including DIAP actions in their Integrated Planning and Reporting (IP&R) structures.
• Disability Employee Networks (DENs): Several NSW Government clusters had DENs actively championing and driving positive initiatives internally. These DENs represent some of the key work being done towards the employment target; however, members reported that the workload could be a significant addition to their substantive positions.
• Impacts: Most agencies were not actively monitoring or collecting data that could demonstrate meaningful outcomes making it difficult to quantify the tangible impacts of their DIAP. Despite this, many narratives of success have been gathered demonstrating the breadth of the groundswell towards inclusion. 

What Happened to the Report? 

In June 2019, I was working in the Disability Inclusion Team in Communities and Justice; and was not aware of it. It was a turbulent time. The department was in the process of forming through the merging of Justice and FACS, and I was busy. Its presence may have been notified, but it would not have been a priority for me – as a review of the DIP. I will only note that given it contained a lot of comments on DIAPs, it would have been a handy resource for me.

The Disability Council read the review and did not like it, apparently. I can see why. From its perspective it would have lacked specifics and clarity. Now I have designing and implementing a DIAP under my belt, with my other background, the review makes a lot of sense to me. But, I’d have to ask how many people back in June 2019 would have had the experience and knowledge to make full use of the report? As a guess, I’d say I could have counted them on one hand, and would have had fingers left over. In June 2019, I would not have been one of those people.

The problem is that report written by an outsider covering a comprehensive array of themes is useful to insiders who have the background to get the best out of it, but not to insiders who do not have that background. This is a common problem – because the insiders who have the background are often considered to be biased, or hold views that do not sit comfortably with the politics of the governing agency. Also, outsiders don’t know what questions insiders want answered. Even good project briefs don’t provide that guidance, because they are written with presumptions that are not spelled out.

In this case the Disability Council was not the client, so it did not have an effective say in how it wanted evidence to be presented. But the Disability Council was a stakeholder in a very important way. The Disability Inclusion Act specifies that Disability Inclusion Action Plans are to be reviewed by the Council, not a government agency. And these plans are the operational expression of the Disability Inclusion Plan. So, I think it could be fairly argued that the Council should have been the client, or at least a partner with a say in what it wanted to know.

Though this essay is about the Disability Council, I wanted to look at the key findings of the report, and the report itself because they help frame a context for understanding the Council’s role and purpose.

A Place for the Disability Council the Disability Inclusion Landscape in NSW

The Sax report has some very clear messages from the coalface, and it does seem to me that a coordinated response with buy-in at Board level across all public sector agencies is essential to address the issues identified. Resourcing is a key concern across the spectrum of Disability Inclusion activity, and there must be effective advocacy for those resources.

I am concerned that, between the Council, the DIP and the DIAPs (state and agency), as well as a stakeholder forum, several things represent a risk:

• There is no proposed resource to ensure coordination and cooperation sufficient to address the issues in the report.
• The voice of activist stakeholders – the people driving change – may be filtered through bureaucratic processes in a way that will water down insight into areas where urgent change is needed.
• The valuable and scarce resources needed to make things happen – and stay happened – will be spread too thinly across competing interests. Disability Inclusion is like any other domain – there will be competing interests.

I struggle to imagine that the NSW Disability Council is fit for purpose in 2022. I think a sector-wide Disability Inclusion Community-of-Practice, led by active and ardent practitioners is a far better option for addressing issues of NSW policy and practice. Stakeholders from DENs, DIAP governance, Executive Disability Inclusion Champions and other key areas of Disability Inclusion policy, practice and programs would be crucial participants. Support from key community stakeholders would also be essential. I’d also like to see the Australian Network on Disability and PurpleSpace bring their expertise and professionalism to the conversation.  I’d rather see such a body sit with Premier and Cabinet than anywhere else – so it has an assured whole-of-government perspective. It must be facilitated, rather than controlled, by government agencies.

If the Disability Council is to be retained, I’d radically prune its notional workload to create a body with a doable mission. This would require a major rethink.

The Council’s Idea of its Future

The Council commissioned a report – the Evaluation of options for increased NSW Government funding to support the NSW Disability Council. The final draft, prepared by the Gegis Consulting Group was completed in March 2020.

The report explored a range of options that included making the Council better resourced, so as to fulfil its range of functions independently. So far as I can see, it’s not online, which is a pity.

None of the recommendations were taken up by the NSW government. I can understand why, as a former bureaucrat. I can equally see why the Council sought to address its patent inability to fulfil its mission as specified in the NSW Disability Inclusion Act 2014. 

The Council members who drove the rethink have gone. Their terms came up in 2021, and they were not extended.

Conclusion

To give anybody a workload they cannot fulfill through want of knowledge and resources is unkind – and disrespectful. At best it creates an illusion that something of value is being done – when it is, in fact, not being done anywhere near the extent created by appearances. At worst, it turns Disability Inclusion into an act of charity, where the act of charity is more important than the recipient. The Council didn’t start off this way.

Disability Inclusion is no longer a matter for charity – where those who control the means dole out betterment when and as they see fit. Yet this charity model remains entrenched in how governments continue to think and act. There is a lot of talk and promise of caring, but it’s not yet backed up with action. Getting away from the charity model puts the power to drive change in the hands of people with disability. This isn’t what we have, and it’s certainly not what the Disability Council is – at the moment. I doubt it will be so in the future.

In Canada the national government has gone beyond the old Disability Inclusion battle cry of “Nothing about us without us!” to “Nothing without us!” This is a spirit of genuine inclusion. But I am yet to ascertain whether it is part of the lived experience of people with disability in Canada. That will be the subject of a later blog post.

We need a fit-for-purpose overview of the state’s expression of its commitment to Disability Inclusion. It must be driven by people with skin in the game – those with a sense of focus and urgency. It is easy to look at the good things that are happening and miss the failings because you are too far from the coalface. 

If it’s too close to government, it risks being captured by the gravity of process and culture which resists change. The instinct of government is to manage things on its own terms – and to resist being stirred up and made to move things along.

If it’s too far away from government it risks distorting the reality of government processes into being an enemy, rather than an ally who assists the community to become more responsive to Disability Inclusion.

Disability Inclusion within the NSW public sector is at a stage in its evolution where there are two areas of focus:

• Shifting organisational practice to drive Disability Inclusion in deliberate and strategic ways, 
• Changing organisational culture to make Disability Inclusion part of the normal workplace experience. 

In the wider community, similarly, the changes needed are about practice and culture. In the public sector, businesses and organisations, and in the community the persistence of discrimination, exploitation and abuse is no mystery – and neither are the solutions. The uncertainties concern our capacity and will to do what is necessary. These are not simple uncertainties to be glibly ‘solved’. 

The Disability Council has 8 specified functions – 1 of monitoring, 3 of advising, 2 of promoting, and 2 of consulting. Five of the functions are outward looking and 3 directed toward the government – advising. Three functions are ‘fact finding’ – truth seeking. The Council’s function can be described as – monitor and consult, advise and promote. That’s a good recipe for action in partnership with government. Somebody should be doing this – and resourced to do so.

The real Disability Inclusion stakeholders are impatient and demanding. They are critical, even when things look good. If you hold a stake in something it is a thing to be protected and improved in a timely manner – and not when a large cumbersome mechanism gets round to it. Such mechanisms rightly protect resources and processes. That’s their job.

This is not a criticism of government. It is an acknowledgement of what is. The role of a stakeholder is to not accept that the way to do things is set by departments. That dynamic of demand and resistance is a natural and necessary tension. That’s why we have a thing called the Disability Inclusion Act. Business as usual had to be disrupted by legislation. But once disrupted, the demand for change must be persistent.

The term stakeholder is now used too loosely. A person or agency that has an interest in blocking or slowing an action because it conflicts with budget and other priorities may be a called stakeholder, but they also have a conflict of interest which will impede innovative solutions. You can’t have a body of blockers and movers and expect effective action. Smart governments will expose themselves to impatience. The old saying that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ applies. A stakeholder group of those motivated by the necessity of change will achieve far more than one whose spirit is diluted by members driven by the need to dampen enthusiasm.

The issue of Disability Inclusion is not whether, but how. That means that constraints upon resources must always be challenged – as must the belief that reliance on those resources is a necessity. We do too little of the latter.

We must protect against Disability Inclusion being captured, turning the words of the Act into fine sounding sentiments not backed up with change spurred along by impatient demands for action. A Disability Council suited to our time would be replete with impatient and disruptive activists who are prepared to bluntly tell government what’s not working. A government genuinely committed to realising the ideals of the DIA would, you’d think, welcome frank and fearless comment.

In NSW the Disability Inclusion Plan is a great idea. Its operational expression is via the Disability Inclusion Action Plans. To get the best out of them, they should be reviewed, assessed, and supported to evolve. That can happen only via a competent and resourced body. For me that means including genuine activists who are operating at the ‘coalface’ in NSW government agencies and in the wider community in the majority of any such body. The key word here is “Action”. We need practitioners, not theorists or managers.

You can make up your own mind whether that’s what we have by checking out the Disability Council’s new membership.

This is an important matter. There is not a lavish supply of resources these days, so getting best value from what is available is essential. With the prospect of more ‘consultative’ mechanisms being set up, there is a risk that the opportunity to provide real support and guidance will be squandered in talk fests that create an illusion of action only.

Appendix

2014 to 2018 Sax DIAP Review Key findings 

Key findings 

• Compliance: All 10 NSW Government clusters and 128 local councils had DIAPs in place, although two local councils had incorporated a short section into their existing operating plans rather than producing a discrete DIAP. 
• Legislation: The legislation was seen by most as highly effective in driving the prioritisation of inclusion, increasing awareness of disability and complementing the work of the NDIS. Many stakeholders recognised the confluence of factors that were contributing to great shifts in the inclusion space. 
• NSW DIP: The NSW DIP was implemented as planned. Additional funding was available early in its rollout to deliver specific initiatives including media campaigns, human rights training, cross-sector partnerships and the Live Work Play conference, and to create positions in Local Government NSW to support local councils in their planning. These initiatives were perceived to add significant value to implementation and were recognised as creating a snowball effect. 
• DIAPs: The documents provide evidence of significant activity in the inclusion space, both in terms of the processes undertaken to develop the DIAPs and the volume of actions documented by agencies. Many stakeholders also noted that inclusion work within their agencies extended well beyond what could be articulated in their DIAP. However, there was also a sense that some DIAPs were not ambitious enough and had recorded activities that may have already been planned in other contexts. 
• Consultation with people with disability: This was done across clusters and local government, although lack of resources made it a challenge to do well in some cases. Disability sector agencies and people with lived experience perceived the consultations to be meaningful; although they also reported feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the level of requests to participate in these processes. 
• Ongoing engagement: As the process continued, engagement with the sector and people with disability was not always achieved, although several agencies had processes in place to gather feedback and respond to complaints. There were some observations that local government was better at this, particularly if they already had a community access committee to provide input and oversight into the development and implementation of council planning. 
• Resourcing: Lack of resources was cited frequently as a challenge for agencies in both developing and implementing their DIAPs. Regional local government areas in particular struggled with the process citing limited staff capacity to support consultation, engagement and planning and fewer financial resources to support the realisation of the initiatives. The Liveable Communities grants helped some local government areas implement smaller scale initiatives, such as installing ‘lift and change’ facilities. 
• DIAP implementation: Critical to successful implementation were good governance, inclusion champions (including at the executive level), and drawing on the organisation’s internal resources including human resources divisions and employees with lived experience. Another success factor was embedding responsibility for actions within and across agencies. For local councils, this often involved including DIAP actions in their Integrated Planning and Reporting (IP&R) structures. 
• DIAP reporting: Reporting was widely recognised as problematic. With little guidance provided, stakeholders agreed that reporting was largely anecdotal, giving little sense of impact or outcomes. Stakeholders commented that agencies had not reflected on their DIAP enough, particularly in terms of areas for further work, and there were concerns that there was little documentation of the challenges and limitations they faced. The need to carefully design and manage reporting requirements so as not to overburden agencies was also identified. 
• Supporting structures: FACS, Local Government NSW, and the DIPIC were seen as useful resources and facilitators for planning and implementation. Some stakeholders felt they would have benefitted from more support, whereas others felt they required less as they were already leaders in the inclusion space. Some stakeholders said they would have liked the Disability Council to play a greater role in reviewing and monitoring DIAPs and holding agencies accountable; however, it was also recognised that the workload associated with this role meant that without additional resourcing this would not likely be feasible. 
• Disability Employee Networks (DENs): Several NSW Government clusters had DENs actively championing and driving positive initiatives internally. These DENs represent some of the key work being done towards the employment target; however, members reported that the workload could be a significant addition to their substantive positions. 
• Impacts: Most agencies were not actively monitoring or collecting data that could demonstrate meaningful outcomes making it difficult to quantify the tangible impacts of their DIAP. Despite this, many narratives of success have been gathered demonstrating the breadth of the groundswell towards inclusion. 

The full report can be found here