220329-EAPMinutes-V10

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY UGH­DAR­RAS PAIRC NAISEANTA A’ MHON­AIDH RUAIDH

Cairngorms Equal­ity Advis­ory Pan­el 29^th March 2022

5:00pm — 6:30pm — Held virtually

Minutes

Present
Anita Howard	Becca Mayo
Don­ald Ross	Heath­er Earnshaw
Kev­in Hutchens	Lili­ana Corrieri
Linda Bam­ford	Peter Kennedy

Attend­ing
Adam Streeter-Smith	Anna Ronayne
Fiona McLean	Kate Christie
Kath­er­ine Willing	Vicky Walk­er

Apo­lo­gies
Lina Payne	Vanessa Alt­weck

1. Intro­duc­tion

   1. Fiona wel­comed the group, the minutes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing were agreed and the action log was reviewed.
   2. Mat­ters arising were covered; Gav­in Miles will be com­ing to the May to dis­cuss the pan­el response to the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) and feed­back was giv­en on the pro­gress of a review log.

2. Item I — E‑Bike Con­sultancy Brief

   1. Adam gave back­ground and over­view of the brief for the research con­sult­ant. The pan­el were asked to com­ment on the approach and any equal­it­ies issues that should be considered.
   2. It was felt that the brief did not con­sider non-stand­ard bike options. It was raised that the ​“Ser­vices for Sup­ply” sec­tion of the brief was not clear on the cur­rent ack of non-stand­ard bike options and how this excludes dis­abled people.
   3. It was raised by the pan­el that there are sev­er­al altern­at­ives to stand­ard bikes, such as, bi-tri­cycles or bikes where breaks have been adap­ted for indi­vidu­als who have a muscle weak­ness on one side of their body. It was felt these should be con­sidered and included in the pro­ject going forward.
   4. It was sug­ges­ted by the pan­el that when hear­ing Adam speak about the brief there was clear con­sid­er­a­tion of equal­it­ies issues how­ever the brief does not reflect this verbal com­mit­ment. It was felt the brief did not include any equal­it­ies issues. The pan­el recom­men­ded mak­ing clear­er in the brief the equal­it­ies issues faced and what the cri­ter­ia will be for the project.
   5. The pan­el raised that a key equal­ity issue was to make sure that this remained afford­able for all. Adam reas­sured the pan­el that this was a key con­sid­er­a­tion and that they hoped to man­age this with effect­ive pri­cing structures.
   6. The pan­el asked wheth­er the scheme was lim­ited to just bikes or wheth­er there would be oth­er options such as off-road wheelchairs.
   7. The pan­el explained that they liked the idea that hire points would be at trans­port hubs as cur­rent hire options are often based in remote areas mak­ing them dif­fi­cult to get to which dis­cour­ages act­ive travel.
   8. Adam reas­sured the group that this pro­ject is still at its early stages, and this is just the begin­ning of con­ver­sa­tion, the pro­ject will be brought back to the pan­el as it develops.

3. Item 2 — Pro­nouns Paper

   1. Kate intro­duced the paper and explained the back­ground. The pan­el were asked to advise on the most appro­pri­ate way to imple­ment this across the organisation.
   2. The pan­el felt very strongly that it is not pos­sible to pre­scribe one way of includ­ing pro­nouns. The pan­el re-enforced that it is an individual’s choice as to wheth­er they include their pro­nouns or not.
   3. The pan­el felt it was import­ant to com­mu­nic­ate that dis­play­ing pro­nouns helps to nor­m­al­ise the con­ver­sa­tion of ask­ing for someone’s pre­ferred pro­nouns rather than just assuming.
   4. The pan­el felt that to imple­ment the recom­mend­a­tions of the paper it is key to have a con­sist­ent mes­sage explain­ing why it is import­ant and rel­ev­ant and provide clear con­sist­ent guid­ance on the format. For example, the name of the mem­ber of staff fol­lowed by brack­ets with their pro­nouns or fol­lowed with brack­ets with my pre­ferred pro­nouns are.

4. Item 3 – Lan­guage and Terms

   1. Kate and Vicky intro­duced the item and explained the back­ground of intern­al con­ver­sa­tions that have had around this top­ic. Kate and Vicky explained to the pan­el that there is con­cern that as an organ­isa­tion we are not always using the most appro­pri­ate ter­min­o­logy and that this could cause offence. The pan­el were asked to sug­gest what approach CNPA might take in future to respond to these concerns.
   2. From the dis­cus­sion it was demon­strated that the pan­el felt very clearly the most import­ant part of any approach would be to first ask what people are com­fort­able with.
   3. The pan­el felt when using ter­min­o­logy, it was import­ant to pri­or­it­ise the human aspect.
   4. The pan­el dis­cussed that after hav­ing recent con­ver­sa­tions with vari­ous groups they had learned that some people now prefer sup­port needs as opposed spe­cial needs and refer­ring to men­tal health without labelling it as good or bad.
   5. The term ​“wheel­ing” was dis­cussed by the pan­el. It was felt in cer­tain con­texts where the back­ground to this term was under­stood it may be appro­pri­ate how­ever, in many situ­ations it was felt this may be con­fus­ing and to ambiguous.

5. Item 4 — Intern­al Equal­it­ies Group Minutes

   1. Kate explained the minutes from the intern­al equal­it­ies group.
   2. The pan­el were reminded that if any­one from the pan­el would like to volun­teer to attend the next intern­al meet­ing, they were to con­tact the equal­it­ies email address.

6. AOB

   1. Vicky gave an update that Able Adven­ture would very much like to do a present­a­tion for the EAP but can­not do the cur­rent time. It was sug­ges­ted that this could pos­sibly take place at the face-to-face meeting.
   2. A pan­el mem­ber asked the group wheth­er they knew of the report pro­duced by Ewan’s Guide on the dis­crim­in­a­tion faced by dis­abled people. Some mem­bers of the pan­el had and explained that the full report should be avail­able on their website.
   3. The rep­res­ent­at­ive from the intern­al equal­it­ies group explained their may be some space on a train­ing course they are organ­ising, if any mem­bers of the EAP are inter­ested, they are to con­tact the equal­it­ies address.
   4. Kate updated the group on equal­it­ies train­ing brief. It is now live, and the link has been for­war­ded to the pan­el. The pan­el were asked to share this with there networks.

END OF MEETING

NEXT MEET­ING 26^th April