Guide to User-Led Reviews
11. Background information
For the first time, comprehensive Standards for Disability Information and Advice Provision in Scotland were published in 1999. Because of higher than expected demand, they were reprinted in 2001 and 2003, and revised and reprinted in 2004 and 2007. Copies continue to be available free from the Scottish Accessible Information Forum (SAIF). Alternatively they can be downloaded from the SAIF website at www.saifscotland.org.uk.
This Guide to User-Led Reviews is designed to:
- assist agencies to get feedback from disabled people about the accessibility of their services,
- assist agencies to test the success of their implementation of the SAIF Standards.
Like the SAIF Standards, this guide:
- stresses the requirement to involve disabled people in the review, planning and development of services,
- is designed to encourage disabled people to make demands upon service providers, and to participate in creating improvements to services.
There is no substitute for the involvement of disabled people themselves, and this guide reflects that assertion.
The implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act, the establishment of the Disability Rights Commission, and more recently the introduction of the Disability Equality Duty encourage greater accessibility. The Care Commission now asks for accessible information policies and practices, and the SAIF Standards continue to have a key role in all these developments.
The Standards are intended to assist agencies in the voluntary, private and statutory sectors to ensure that disabled people can access effective information and advice services. They remain innovative and unique in the field and were developed following extensive consultation with service providers and disabled people.
The Standards are written to be relevant to all agencies, large and small, urban and rural, specialist and general. In addition, limited resources should not be seen as a reason for not striving to meet high standards. Innovative practices can achieve a great deal, many of the standards requiring only the will of the agency.
SAIF recognises that disabled people access information and advice from a range of types of agency. This includes those that specialise in impairment issues, generalist information and advice agencies, and those where information or advice is only part of their work. The SAIF Standards are designed to be applicable to all, and so is this guide.
It is important that the Standards are not seen as providing a maximum level of service, but a framework for continual improvement. Future developments in agencies need to be informed by the aspirations of disabled people themselves.
This guide suggests a process which should achieve exactly that if implemented on a regular basis such as every three to five years, and one which can easily be incorporated into broader accreditation and quality management systems.
Page updated 08.10.2007