Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues

In February 2009, the Government established a Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues as a first response to the Social Services Select Committee Inquiry into the Quality of Care and Services Provision for People with Disabilities. The Ministerial Committee is designed to provide visible leadership and accountability for implementing the New Zealand Disability Strategy and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and set a coherent direction for disability issues across government.

The Ministerial Committee is chaired by the Minister for Disability Issues and has other key ministers as members. By having ministers from different portfolios working closely together, government agencies will better focus their activity and policy development on what makes a real difference in disabled people's lives. The Government wants departments to be smarter and work collectively on common areas rather than separately. This will help make the best use of limited resources.

Ministers are supported by the Chief Executives' Group on Disability Issues, which is tasked to lead and co-ordinate government agencies implementation of the Ministerial Committee's priorities on disability issues. The Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development chairs the group. Other group members are from the Ministries of Health, Education, Justice, Transport, Culture and Heritage, and ACC and Housing New Zealand Corporation.

Terms of reference

The role, function and membership of the Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues is described in its Terms of Reference.

Priorities for government agencies

The Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues has prioritised three areas for government agencies to focus their action on disability issues. These areas are further broken down into subpriorities:

• Modern disability supports
  • simple, easy entry
  • self-determination
  • choice
  • early support
  • resilient families
  • community development
• Accessible New Zealand
  • accepting communities
  • accessible government (including information/communication/broadcasting)
  • accessible cities (including transport/travel, built environment/buildings)
• Contributing citizens
  • achieving at work and school
  • looking after self and family
  • equal access to justice
  • 'Nothing about us without us'.

Action under these three themes will contribute to the vision of the New Zealand Disability Strategy: "A fully inclusive New Zealand, where people with impairments can say 'we live in a society that highly values our lives and continually enhances our full participation.'"

Government activity is influenced by three key documents:

• New Zealand Disability Strategy
• UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
• Govenrment response to the Social Services Select Committee report of its Inquiry into the Quality of Care and Service Provision for People with Disabilities.

Supporting greater leadership and accountability for implementation of the vision and the priorities are:

• Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues - set direction and review progress
• Chief Executives' Group on Disability Issues - implement directions of the Ministerial Committee and report progress
• Office for Disability Issues - promote, monitor and report on implementation by government; and support the Ministerial Committee and the Chief Executives' Group
• Disabled people's organisations - promote and monitor implementation.

Meetings

The following is a summary of meetings held by the Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues.

3 June 2009

At this first meeting, Ministers agreed to administrative arrangements for the Ministerial Committee. Government agencies were asked to provide actions that could be achieved in the short-term to progress the New Zealand Disability Strategy. Progress updates were requested from government agencies on individualised funding, eligibility criteria for supports in different sectors, local area co-ordination, and leading greater co-ordination of services.

23 September 2009

At this meeting, Ministers agreed to:

• three themes setting priorities for government agencies to progress the New Zealand Disability Strategy and development of practical low cost actions by government agencies
• to the role and activities of the Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues
• to encourage efforts underway in Auckland to make accessibility a more visible goal for all and to go beyond minimum requirements for the Rugby World Cup in 2011 to make it a very accessible event
• to inform government agencies that new infrastructure spending should incorporate accessibility for disabled people 
• that the Ministry of Health investigate a new model of supporting disabled people that incorporates the key elements of Local Area Co-ordination, but also includes other features such as an emphasis on supported living and individualised funding.

28 October 2009

At this meeting, Ministers agreed:

• to endorse the Minister for Disability Issues asking the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development to establish a Chief Executives' Group on Disability Issues; and the Minister exploring options for independent monitoring of disability issues 
• to consider the issues raised by the Coalition. The coalition members are People First, Disabled Persons Assembly, Standards and Monitoring Services, Standards Plus and Parent to Parent
• that the Office for Disability Issues develop processes for ensuring all Ministerial Committee members receive communications about agencies' disability-related achievements
• that Ministers of Health and Social Development and Employment discuss further the possible transfer of vocational services from the Ministry of Health.

18 May 2010

This meeting received a report from the Chief Executives' Group on Disability Issues. The group is working to get a better co-ordinated work programme across government on disability issues. They also aim to identify where better action can be prioritised. As the Social Services Select Committee inquiry into the quality of care and service provision report noted in 2008, while there has been lots of activity by government agencies on disability issues, disabled people and their families say they are not experiencing significant improvement in their lives.

Ministers were pleased to note that Budget 2010 prioritised several initiatives supporting disabled people.

The Ministry of Health's presented on their new model for disability supports. It responds to several recommendations in the Government response to the Social Services Select Committee inquiry report, such as increasing disabled people's choice and control over disability supports, allowing more flexibility in how funding is allocated, and introducing a local area co-ordination type service. The Ministerial Committee supported implementation by the Ministry of Health of the new model approach.

Hon Heather Roy, Associate Minister of Education, presented on the Review of Special Education and noted how there has been a large number of submissions received during the consultation round. Government will consider recommendations from the Review later this year.

Disabled people's organisations who are leading a programme to monitor rights of disabled people presented on their proposed work.

20 July 2010

The Chief Executives' Group on Disability Issues reported progress with the new whole-of-government diability action plan. Instead of recording the large amount of low impact activity undertaken by government agencies, it is the Ministers' goal to have a disability action plan that focuses on a smaller number of strategic actions. This will help simplify the reporting obligations by agencies. The plan will be guided by the Ministerial Committee's three priorities of Modern Disability Supports, Accessible New Zealand and Contributing Citizens; and also the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Already underway is the Ministry of Health's new model for supporting disabled people. With the new model approach now endorsed by Cabinet, the Ministry of Health is setting up demonstration projects to put into practice such things as local area co-ordination and encouraging flexible arrangements to enable more choice and control for disabled people. Learning from these projects will inform how the new model will roll out in the future. As part of developing the action plan, the Chief Executives' Group will look at how the new model approach can be extended to other government agencies' disability supports. This will help promote consistency in how government funded disability supports are provided.

Other items discussed by the Ministerial Committee were:

- proposed recommendations from the Review of Special Education

- the Ministry of Justice plan to improve the government's system for reporting on international human rights treaties

- efforts being made in Auckland to make the Rugby World Cup accessible to disabled people.

The Association of Blind Citizens joined the meeting to present key access barriers experienced by vision impaired people. These issues will be considered by the Chief Executives' Group and reported back to Ministers.