Appointment Brief June 2021

Appointment Brief June 2021 Chair Welcome letter Thank you for your interest in becoming the Chair of Trustees for Disability Rights UK (DR UK). Since its foundation in 2012 DR UK has significantly grown in profile, influence and reputation. In 2022 we celebrate 10 years of our organisation working together with Disabled People leading change. Our organisation is rooted in the Social Model of Disability and takes a rights-based approach. It is made up of individual Disabled members and member organisations led by and for Disabled People. Disabled People’s lived experience drives us to speak truth to power. We are looking for an individual who shares our ambitions and values to lead the Board into the next exciting period for DR UK and further grow the organisation’s impact. This is at a time when we need to tackle the inequality faced by all Disabled People in the UK. The pandemic has shown how our hard- won rights can be easily swept away by new legislation. The Board is currently made up of eleven people with varied professional experience and lived experience of disability. Board members have personal experience in areas such as Social Care, the benefits system, grassroots activism, advocacy, charity governance, marketing, equality and diversity and finance. Our current Chair is due to step down from the Board after four years. In that time he has worked to create a robust governance structure, a stable financial platform for the future. Over the past three years, he has been working to ensure that diversity and inclusion are embedded into organisational culture. 2 Chair | June 2021 The role is for someone passionate about equality and our human rights, someone who understands the importance of the Social Model of Disability as the driving force for change. The role will be challenging, Disabled People are a broad church with differing views and opinions requiring DR UK to have consideration and care when driving a path to the inclusive society we want. The role is rewarding and brings with it public recognition, and you will be supported by a committed and skillful Board, CEO and staff team. We campaign for the rights of all Disabled People to be included in every aspect of life. We bring the lived experiences of Disabled People to everything we do. We challenge policymakers, institutions and individuals to remove the barriers that exist for us. As Chair, you will be at the heart of this aim and should be willing to defend and promote our role publicly. We are a small organisation but we punch far above our weight. In 2020/21 the Board set a new refreshed strategy which is based on delivering our recently created theory of change. We look forward to receiving your application. Kamran Mallick Chief Executive Office Disability Rights UK Appointment Brief 3 4 Chair | June 2021 Who we are Disability Rights UK is the leading charity of its kind in the UK. We are run by and for people with lived experience of disability or health conditions. We are Disabled people leading change, working for equal participation for all. We are: • Committed to The Social Model of Disability. • Led by people with lived experience of disability or long-term health conditions. 85% of our trustees have personal experience – our constitution ensures this will never fall below 75%. • A member-led charity, with Disabled people and organisations led by Disabled people having the controlling vote. • Committed to working with and for people with all types of impairment and health conditions. Our vision, mission and values To create a society where Disabled people have equal power, rights and equality of opportunity. Our Mission We campaign for the rights of all Disabled people to be included in every aspect of life. We bring the lived experiences of Disabled people to everything we do. We challenge policy makers, institutions and individuals to remove the barriers that exist for us. The values that drive us All our work is guided by 4 values: 1. Strength in difference 2. Sharing power 3. Connecting 4. Innovating Appointment Brief 5 Our impact In 2019/20 we reached more than and research carried out by the four 1.2 million people with information nation partners was published in the developed by and for Disabled people. year. DR UK focused on young Disabled people as our contribution to the four Our free factsheets attracted 1.8 million nations research. downloads and over 90% of users said our factsheets were useful to their Get Yourself Active (GYA) is a purposes. programme led by DR UK and funded by Sport England to develop, test and We had 10,000 contacts with individuals scale user led approaches to tackling through events and our independent inactivity. It is delivered through living advice line, student and members Disabled Peoples User Led Organisations helpline and information line. (DPULOs), social care, health and sport sectors. We entered into a new strategic We ran the successful EnAble Fund partnership with Sport England to build to support Disabled people looking to on the project’s achievements. stand for local elections. In partnership with UCL, Global Disability Innovation During the year we successfully Hub and Plexal we secured funding from delivered the EnAble. The fund Research England to launch the first supported individual Disabled people Innovation and Enterprise zone in the who wanted to stand for local elections Olympic Park. in England. Similar in principle to the Access to Work scheme, the fund was The 2019/20 edition of our Disability flexible in providing a wide range of Rights Handbook was very successful. support from leaflet distribution to Written by benefits specialists, this providing one of bits of equipment to guide to benefits provided explanations over come barriers. The project was and answers for both claimants and ended in March 2020 when the local advisors. elections were postponed to 2021, and we will be working to ensure the fund Delivering projects, working with is available and becomes a permanent local Disabled People’s Organisations offer to Disabled people. (DPOs) and others, to demonstrate new approaches to Disabled people’s Influencing policy and practice on the participation. basis of lived experience and good practice led by Disabled people. DRILL is now in its final year and has established an extensive body of We completed our ‘I Can Make It’ Disabled led research available online. campaign, run by and for young Projects from the final year have begun Disabled people to smash barriers to to publish and promote their findings employment. 6 Chair | June 2021 We worked to influence existing We increased our social media presence spending in local government and - up to 61,100 twitter followers. We large businesses by engaging with their exceeded our media targets for the procurement teams and supply chain year, saw our profile increase markedly managers to raise awareness of the and are progressively becoming the benefits of employing young Disabled ‘go to’ pan-disability organisation. people. Readership of our e-newsletter has doubled over the year and it now We are working with Shaping Our Lives, reaches over 19,000 people weekly. CHANGE and the National Survivor and User Network (known collectively DR UK was invited to speak to the new as the Lived Experience Alliance) to Disabilities Unit of the Cabinet Office. bring the lived experience of Disabled The new unit has been established after people to the NHS and its system years of campaigning by DR UK and partners. Some of the issues the other organisation that there must be a group has raised recently include: lack overarching strategy to support Disabled of public health information in easy people. The launch this year of the read or BSL; outbreaks of the virus in Disability Strategy comes from this Unit. mental health units and supported We have built connections to enable living accommodation; PAs entering us to influence their thinking and learn numerous people’s homes without PPE/ from the lived experience of Disabled strict hygiene protocols. people. Our fifth cohort of Disabled people During the last 12 months Covid-19 and completed our Leadership Academy its impact on Disabled people has been programme this year. 80% achieved the top priority for our policy work. This their career goals, including promotions, period has seen a dramatic reduction new jobs and opportunities to lead. One of rights to care and independent living of the benefits of this programme is that and we have raised this through every it is peer led and often gives Disabled route possible. Our fundamental policy employees the first opportunity to meet position has been to ask national and other Disabled people at work. local government to include Disabled people in policy development. Our We provide the Secretariat to the work at this time has benefited from influential All Party Parliamentary the years of building relationships with Disability Group (APPDG), which government officials and ministers and brings Disabled people’s voices into through building our links to Disabled Parliament. We also devised and co- Peoples Organisations and individual wrote the APPDG Inquiry into halving Disabled people. This has allowed us to the disability employment gap, which influence and bring the voice of lived is now influencing Government’s experience in to government. Industrial Strategy. Appointment Brief 7 Equal participation for all - Strategic priorities 2020-2023 1. Building a Movement employment and enterprise. To ensure To achieve an equal society, we will they have the money they need to meet build a movement, which strengthens the additional costs of disability, we will the collective and individual voices of campaign for a benefits system that Disabled people’s organisations and enables dignity and equality.

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