CAIRNGORMS

NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

UGH­DAR­RAS PAIRC NAISEANTA Α’

MHON­AIDH RUAIDH

Cairngorms Equal­ity Advis­ory Panel

Tues­day 1^st Decem­ber 2020

5:00pm — 6:30pm — Held virtually

Minutes

Present:

Fiona Maclean (Chair)	Kirsteen Allis­on
Vanessa Alt­weck	Kev­in Hutchens
Heath­er Earnshaw	Stu­art Hall
Wil­low May	Linda Bam­ford
Celia Sweeny	Bo Hickey
Anita Howard	Anna Phil­brick
Patryjca Kupiec	Peter Kennedy

In Attend­ance:

Dav­id Clyne (CNPA)	Kath­er­ine Will­ing (CNPA, Notes)
Kate Christie (CNPA)	Louisa McDaid (Cap­tion­er)
Vicky Walk­er (CNPA)	Gail Richard­son (Cap­tion­er)

Apo­lo­gies: Pammy Johal

1. Wel­come and Introduction

1.1. Fiona wel­comed every­one to the meeting.

1.2. Fiona asked if any indi­vidu­als would like to give a short intro­duc­tion on their per­son­al exper­i­ence, it would be wel­comed to help the group on our learn­ing jour­ney. Please use the equal­it­ies email to express interest.

1.3. The first speak­er was then intro­duced who gave a short intro­duc­tion on Aut­ism and Communication.

2. Aut­ism and Communication

2.1. It is import­ant to under­stand what lan­guage is appro­pri­ate. Terms such as low func­tion­ing and high func­tion­ing are no longer used. These terms have unhelp­ful per­ceived con­nota­tions and can have a big impact on the indi­vidu­al. The use of the word ​‘dis­order’ is also no longer an appro­pri­ate term to use when refer­ring to Aut­ism. Dia­gnos­is now refers to the term ​‘Aut­ism Spec­trum Condition’.

2.2. Dia­gnos­is is import­ant no mat­ter what age this is obtained at. Dia­gnos­is can be a dif­fi­cult pro­cess and is often mis­dia­gnosed as men­tal health con­di­tions. Many women struggle to get a timely dia­gnos­is or are missed due to dia­gnos­is cri­ter­ia ori­gin­ally being built around males.

2.3. When an indi­vidu­al is strug­gling with their men­tal health it is import­ant that there are aut­ism appro­pri­ate resources.

2.4. Com­mu­nic­a­tion dif­fer­ences are not always imme­di­ately obvi­ous and are often only seen after some time. For those who are aut­ist­ic, when put in a high sens­ory envir­on­ment this can cause sens­ory over­load. This may mean oth­ers miss import­ant inform­a­tion as com­mu­nic­a­tion then becomes dif­fi­cult. Care­fully man­aging the sens­ory envir­on­ment and con­sult­ing with someone who is aut­ist­ic can help to cre­ate a bet­ter envir­on­ment which is not going to cause sens­ory overload.

2.5. As an organ­isa­tion it is import­ant to learn how to make envir­on­ments more access­ible for those who are Aut­ist­ic. It is frus­trat­ing for those who are Aut­ist­ic when non-aut­ist­ic people’s ser­vices are engaged to give advice.

2.6. It is import­ant to remem­ber every per­son who is Aut­ist­ic is dif­fer­ent, Aut­ism is some­thing which should be celebrated.

Response from Panel:

2.7. The group was asked to send any ques­tions to the equal­it­ies email which would then be for­war­ded on.

2.8. Kate explained that silence is not being inter­preted as dis­en­gage­ment. All input provided is val­ued. If an indi­vidu­al is not com­fort­able speak­ing at the meet­ing that is fine, the equal­it­ies email address can be used to provide feed­back as well.

3. Notes from the last meeting

3.1. Every­one was in agree­ment about the notes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing. The notes do not attrib­ute what was said to indi­vidu­als as this is pub­lished on the web­site. The action log does and this is for use of the pan­el only, to remind the group of what actions they have taken on.

4. Dav­id Clyne — Her­it­age Hori­zons Pro­ject Update

4.1. Pri­or to the meet­ing, papers were cir­cu­lated on the Her­it­age Hori­zons Pro­ject, it was also covered with­in the induc­tion ses­sion for pan­el members.

4.2. The group was spe­cific­ally asked to think about the cross-cut­ting stra­tegic prin­ciples, the range and scope of the pro­posed pro­jects out­line. With­in the meet­ing the group was also asked if any­thing that could be added to the pro­ject descriptors to make them more equal­it­ies focused. This included any poten­tial addi­tion­al part­ners that should be involved with the pro­ject. Fur­ther, the group was asked to identi­fy any ​‘Golden Threads’ which are themes which run through­out the application.

4.3. Dav­id explained that since the last meet­ing the team has con­sul­ted and taken advice from a wide range of organ­isa­tions and advis­ory boards which led to changes of the stra­tegic layout.

4.4. Three new cross-cut­ting prin­ciples were added fol­low­ing advice:

4.5. Inclu­sion and diversity – to high­light that the pro­grammes’ the­ory of change is going to be based on involve­ment and empowerment.

4.6. Sys­tem change and the well­being eco­nomy – fun­da­ment­al to the programme’s goal of a more sus­tain­able future based on that trans­form­at­ive sys­tem change, led by com­munity co-design.

4.7. Know­ledge exchange – it was pre­vi­ously stated as an over­arch­ing theme, it is now crit­ic­al to achiev­ing Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) support.

4.8. Sup­port has been final­ised from Edin­burgh Uni­ver­sity and the Centre of Under­stand­ing for Sus­tain­able Prosper­ity, col­lect­ively provid­ing a PHD stu­dent­ship as part of the project.

4.9. The papers are still text heavy, a graph­ic design com­pany has been engaged to cre­ate enga­ging visuals.

4.10. A range of pro­jects has now been cre­ated to accom­pany the people, power and place themes. Col­lect­ively ambi­tious and chal­len­ging, but achiev­able with­in the time frame.

4.11. The devel­op­ment phase has been cos­ted at £2.5 mil­lion. A num­ber of organ­isa­tions have already agreed their budget alloc­a­tions. Deliv­ery phase is cur­rently cos­ted at £40 mil­lion. Part of those sig­ni­fic­ant funds are com­ing from the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to cov­er peat­land and wood­land res­tor­a­tion. There are also applic­a­tions with Sus­trans Scot­land to cov­er act­ive travel.

4.12. With­in the next few months there will be an advis­ory pan­el meet­ing and a CNPA board meet­ing to sign off the applic­a­tion. The applic­a­tion, report to sell the aims, and three minute film to be presen­ted to the board of the nation­al lot­tery are all cur­rently being developed.

4.13. Cur­rent doc­u­ments are not pub­lic facing, they are writ­ten with the NLHF in mind. In the next few months there will be a com­mu­nic­a­tions plan for­mu­lated and designed for a broad range of audi­ences with clear­er lan­guage and graphics.

Response from Panel:

4.14. Over­all the pro­ject showed enthu­si­asm and excite­ment. It was viewed as a good oppor­tun­ity for the park to engage with a diverse range of communities.

4.15. It was iden­ti­fied that people, power and place themes could be linked to the Nation­al Per­form­ance Framework.

4.16. Sev­er­al mem­bers of the group iden­ti­fied that the golden thread run­ning through­out the pro­ject was ​‘nobody left behind’. The feed­back sug­ges­ted that the aim of inclus­iv­ity and diversity is clear but some­times it fails to run through­out the pro­ject details. Indi­vidu­al pro­jects could com­plete map­ping exer­cises to identi­fy areas where they could improve inclus­iv­ity and diversity.

4.17. This became par­tic­u­larly appar­ent with­in the e‑bike pro­ject. There is little men­tion of non-stand­ard bikes which cre­ates an accesses issue. Fur­ther, if non-stand­ard bikes were to be used work would need to be done to remove bar­ri­ers to access­ib­il­ity, for example, non-stand­ard bikes require items such as kiss­ing gates to be removed.

4.18. The pro­jects with­in the well­being eco­nomy cross-sec­tion bene­fits the same groups of people, to strengthen the applic­a­tion the group felt it would be bene­fi­cial to look at how oth­er groups could also bene­fit from the projects.

4.19. Some ter­min­o­logy in the doc­u­ment was ques­tioned, in par­tic­u­lar the use of ​“unusu­al sus­pects”. It was felt that this rein­forced ste­reo­typ­ing and the oth­er­ing of those not nor­mally included. Sug­ges­tions for bet­ter word­ing included mar­gin­al­ised voices, sel­dom heard voices or less­er heard voices.

4.20. It was dis­cussed that com­munity engage­ment is import­ant but plan­ning would need to be under­taken to ensure these groups were diverse. The Nation­al Park lacks

diversity with­in loc­al com­munit­ies, thought would be needed to ensure that com­munity feed­back was com­ing from diverse groups. Access Pan­el Net­works were felt to be a net­work to engage with to encour­age diversity.

4.21. It was felt an area that could bene­fit from fur­ther devel­op­ment was under­stand­ing how to address social inequal­it­ies. This could be done through link­ing in with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ments Fairer Scot­land Scheme.

4.22. Access­ib­il­ity needs to remain a key prin­ciple through­out the pro­ject, this includes ven­ues and meet­ing rooms for post Cov­id-19. Pub­li­cising meet­ings via easy read format is import­ant. Poten­tially, the inclu­sion of elec­tric car clubs could be bene­fi­cial. This removes many bar­ri­ers which stop people from being able to own a car and there­fore access the park.

4.23. The plan lacked clar­ity on how it would man­age poverty and inequal­ity. This includes under­stand­ing trans­port for indi­vidu­als. It was sug­ges­ted that the team con­tact the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment team which con­cen­trate on poverty related concerns.

4.24. Cre­at­ing part­ner­ships is import­ant. Part­ner­ships were sug­ges­ted with day centre for the eld­erly. Part­ner­ships were also sug­ges­ted with ​“Con­tacts for Fam­il­ies with Dis­abled Children”.

4.25. Encour­age the use of green­er forms of trans­port is import­ant. Work needs to be done to make the infra­struc­ture more access­ible and safe for pro­jects such as the elec­tric buses. The cur­rent bus stops do not allow for this.

4.26. Due to the large num­bers of part­ners with­in the pro­ject it is import­ant that all part­ners have equal­it­ies training.

5. Any Oth­er Business

5.1. Equal­it­ies Training

5.1.1. CNPA wants to offer their staff new equal­it­ies train­ing. New staff com­plete a short online course dur­ing induc­tion which cov­ers the pro­tec­ted char­ac­ter­ist­ics and how this impacts their work.

5.1.2. CNPA’s last addi­tion­al equal­it­ies train­ing was in 2017. It con­sisted of two half day ses­sions cov­er­ing pro­tec­ted char­ac­ter­ist­ics, policy and equal­ity impact assess­ments (EQIA).

5.1.3. The train­ing would be online and CNPA would like to pri­or­it­ise the use of inter­act­ive training.

5.1.4. CNPA is look­ing for a num­ber of train­ing pro­viders to obtain quotes from. The pan­el were asked to give feed­back on poten­tial pro­viders and how to design train­ing to be effective.

Response from Panel:

5.1.5. The group felt that equal­ity and diversity train­ing is best delivered by those who have lived experience.

5.1.6. It was felt that the train­ing should include uncon­scious bias training.

5.1.7. It was felt by the group that it was import­ant to under­stand what change was going to come from the train­ing. A single train­ing ses­sion by itself is not going to cre­ate last­ing change. Train­ing needs to be sup­por­ted by oth­er activ­ity spe­cif­ic work with man­agers. The people strategy needs to include a fol­low up to check the train­ing has had an effect.

6. Next Meeting

The next meet­ing will be with­in the New Year. No date has cur­rently been set.

END