Building government capacity involves:

• Fostering an aware and responsive public service (objective 6).
• Collecting and using relevant information about disabled people and disability issues (objective 10).

The purpose of these objectives is to enable a disability perspective to be built into the work of government agencies, particularly in areas which impact on the life experiences of disabled people. These effects are felt through the accessibility of government information and service provision, access to buildings and the employment practices of the public sector. As well, a disability perspective is required to inform the development of new policy, legislation and regulation to ensure no adverse effects are created for disabled people.

Disability perspective

In August 2001, Cabinet directed that:

• Chief Executives of public service departments must ensure their staff are familiar with the vision, objectives and actions in the Disability Strategy.
• Papers submitted to the Cabinet Social Development Committee, and other Cabinet committees as appropriate, must include a disability perspective.

Office for Disability Issues

• In July 2002, the Office for Disability Issues was established with three key functions: leading the Disability Strategy implementation and monitoring; policy advice, and; supporting the Minister for Disability Issues.
• Since 2001, the annual round of planning and reporting against the Disability Strategy has included seminars and discussions with agency officials about disability issues and what they might do to implement the Disability Strategy.
• In 2003, the Office for Disability Issues’ developed a Disability Perspective Toolkit, designed to help government policy makers incorporate a disability perspective in government policy. This has been on their web site since 2005.

Accessibility of government

Government agencies increasingly make information available in formats that are accessible to a wide range of disabled people:

• In 2003, Cabinet directed that all Public Service websites must comply with the government Web Guidelines to help ensure all New Zealanders could access these regardless of impairments or other circumstances.
• In 2005 and 2006, the Office for Disability Issues commissioned an indicative survey of government websites to measure their accessibility to disabled people. This survey included testing by people with a range of impairments.
• From 2005, the Office for Disability Issues introduced a three-tiered approach for government agencies implementing the Disability Strategy. The first tier consisted of a template to be filled in, by all agencies, on the accessibility of their information (including web sites), buildings, services and employment practices. Agencies were reporting that by June 2007:
  • 95% of government agency websites are expected to meet e-government web guidelines, and be tested and adapted for increased accessibility by disabled people.
  • 75% of agencies plan to have staff familiar with the New Zealand Relay service.
  • 60% of central government agencies plan to have their staff directly involved in service delivery receive disability responsiveness training.
  • 95% of crown agencies plan to have buildings and sites meet statutory and regulatory access requirements and have Building Code (1992) compliance certification (55% of agencies plan to use Barrier Free New Zealand Trust for the audits).
  • 95% of agencies plan for recruitment practices that are non-discriminatory and responsive to disabled people.
• In September 2006, government introduced a voluntary code for captioning government television advertising. In the 2006/07 Disability Strategy progress report government agencies stated that 13% of television advertising done by agencies used either captions or New Zealand Sign Language, and 16% of DVDs or videos used captions or New Zealand Sign Language.
• Agencies also noted in the 2006/07 Disability Strategy progress report that 71% provide hardcopy information in plain English, 3% in New Zealand Sign Language, 8% in Braille, and 10% in audio format. Eighty-two per cent of responding agencies inform people about the different ways that the agencies can be contacted.
• In June 2003, schools were added to the list of eligible employers for the Mainstream Programme. Since 1975, the Mainstream Programme has been run by the State Services Commission to create opportunities for employment for disabled people within the state sector.
• In 2005, state sector agencies became eligible work places for Ministry of Social Development support funds, through Workbridge. These funds were previously only available to disabled employees in the private and not-for-profit sectors, and are designed to help remove barriers to employment.

Research about disabled people

• In September 2003, the National Health Committee released its report To have an ‘Ordinary’ Life. This reported that the move away from institutional-based services had not been accompanied by sufficient measures to provide adequate support to people with intellectual/learning disabilities living in the community. The report sets out a blueprint to promote their participation and inclusion within the community.
• In 2004, the Health Research Council and the Ministry of Health formed a partnership to address the paucity of New Zealand research with a specific focus on disabled people. The Council now specifically prioritises research of relevance and benefit to disabled people. Two projects have been funded to date: to evaluate different methods of needs assessment and service coordination, and to evaluate the outcomes of the process of deinstitutionalisation from the Kimberley Centre.
• In 2004/2005, the Health Research Centre secured funding for a Disability Research Placement Programme, allowing them to offer scholarships, and placements with leading research teams, to students wanting to work in the area of disability research.
• In 2005, the Health Research Council and Ministry of Social Development funded research into the cost of disability, which is being conducted by the Auckland Disability Resource Centre and the University of Auckland (not yet concluded).
• In 2005, the State Services Commission repeated its 2000 Career Progression and Development Survey, allowing a comparison of the reported experiences of disabled employees within the public sector.
• The New Zealand post-census disability survey was conducted by Statistics New Zealand, for the third time, in 2006.
• In February 2007, Statistics New Zealand conducted a stocktake of government administrative data on disability, to gain a better understanding of, and help to identify gaps in, the available data.
• In May 2007, a research report Housing and Disability: Future Proofing New Zealand’s Housing Stock for an Inclusive Society was released by the Centre for Housing Research Aotearoa New Zealand and the Office for Disability Issues.

Partnership with disabled people

Since 2001 there has been a significant increase in the use of disability sector advisory groups and the inclusion of disabled people in government sector consultation processes. Recent examples include:

• The Department of Building and Housing’s Access Advisory Panel began meeting in November 2004 to advise the Department on access issues for disabled people.
• The establishment in 2005 of the Disability Advisory Council to advise the Office for Disability Issues on implementation of the Disability Strategy.
• The Consumer Consortium of disabled people and their families who provide advice and input to the Ministry of Health.

Score card for building government capacity

The outcomes framework developed for this review has been used to measure progress in building government capacity: a significant level of activity focused on increasing understanding of disability issues; a moderate level of activity focussed on involving disabled people and removing barriers to accessibility; and there was more limited activity directed at maximising opportunities for disabled people.