£2.2m card system to aid bus passengers

This article is published in today's Leicester Mercury:

£2.2m card system to aid bus passengers

Their existing bus passes have electronic chips which will be activated in late September and from that point they will swipe their cards on scanners in Arriva buses to register their journeys rather than just show their passes to the drivers.

They will ultimately be rolled out to enable people to access all commercial public transport by topping up cash on them.

Council bosses said the scheme was being introduced to make travelling on public transport quicker and easier, as well as cutting the risk of fraud.

The OneCard was officially launched by City Mayor Peter Soulsby and deputy mayor Councillor Rory Palmer yesterday.

Sir Peter said: "The OneCards are absolutely brilliant. I know in London people say they would not want to be without their Oyster Cards.

"I hope people in Leicester will be saying the same of OneCards before too long.

"They will make it easy for people to travel by bus so they won't have to dig around for change in their pockets.

"Initially this will be used by existing concessionary bus passengers.

"However, the potential to expand this technology to enable people to access all sorts of services in enormous."

Longer term there are proposals to extend the uses of the OneCard, which is funded by the Government, to allow access to public libraries, leisure centres, universities and school transport and more.

Leicester Deputy City Mayor, with responsibility for transport, Councillor Rory Palmer, said: "Residents are often frustrated the different bus companies operate their own ticketing systems with little or no integration, so the launch of the OneCard is one step to resolving this.

"Smart ticketing is one way we can get more people using public transport in the city and eventually we will link the card technology with other services as well."

City council OneCard project officer Adele Wearing said swiping the cards would register which journeys were made but not who made them to protect passenger privacy.

She also said lost cards could be quickly deactivated and replaced.

She said: "It will help us prevent fraud where people get fake bus passes made and flash them at our drivers. We know it is a problem in Leicester but we don't know the scale of it."

Arriva spokesman Keith Myatt said: "We are delighted to have been chosen as the first bus operator to run the OneCards. It should make loading passengers much quicker."

Bus passenger Keith Sperrey, 62, from Leicester, said: "It's a good idea but I don't think I'd use the other services more though.

"It's about time. Have you not been on the continent? They've got them all there."

For more information, visit: www.leicester.gov.uk/onecard

Meeting with One East Midlands

This morning some of us from REDP meet with Rachel Quinn and Leann Leverton from One East Midlands. It's not anything formal, no set agenda; but we've been trying to find the time to get together and mull over a few things where our interests intersect.

We meet in Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living (LCIL): Round the table are Iris Lightfoote from The Race Equality Centre (TREC) and Chair of REDP; Dee Martin of LCIL; George Ballentyne from Leicester Council of Faiths; and Laura Horton, REDP Project Manager.

We talk about the new Transforming Local Infrastructure programme from The Big Lottery; the Localism Bill currently going through Parliament; the White Papers on Open Public Services and on Giving. These all have major implications for equalities.

REDP had been intending to hold a regional event on the Localism Bill in October. Public consultation on the Bill ends in September and it's going to be published in November, which makes October too late to be a consultation event and too early for an information event. We're planning three other regional events at two-month intervals, so we've decided to swap Localism's place in the schedule for one of the others. We'll make arrangements for a special meeting of REDP's Core Reference Group in time to get their views on the Bill so we can compile them into a collective response.

Civil Contingencies Act 2004

This is a link to an article of clear interest to all those concerned with issues related to equality and human rights in the current climate. This comes from "liberty central", the Guardian's Comment is free civil liberties and human rights site.

A-Z of legislation: Civil Contingencies Act 2004 | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Misery on the buses for the blind

This article is published in today's Leicester Mercury:

Misery on the buses for the blind

Rude and unhelpful bus drivers are causing misery for blind and visually impaired people, according to a survey.

Hundreds of people reported problems with bus services in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland as they responded to a survey carried out by Leicester charity Vista, which helps those with sight loss.

Many described particularly bad experiences of drivers failing to stop to let them on board or even verbally abusing them.

Hazel Mayles, of Coalville, reported an instance of having the door shut on one bus while her guide dog was on board but she was not.

She said: "I was left alone, disorientated and holding the lead. If I hadn't have let go of the lead I would have been pulled under the bus.

"I went back a few days later only to find the same bus driver driving past hurling a load of abuse at me.

"Since this I have been afraid to use any bus services."

This was the first survey carried out by Vista into public services, such as transport.

Some 43 per cent of the 2,800 respondents reported problems with bus services.

A woman from Scraptoft, who did not want to be named, described how what should have been a 30-minute journey to Kibworth took more than two hours when buses refused to stop for her.

Sue Allen, sensory impairment trainer at Vista, commissioned the survey.

She said: "It's a pretty big problem and there are a lot of different problems too."It takes long enough for visually impaired people to get from A to B without buses not stopping for them, so it's not very good at all. Once someone's confidence in using public transport is shot it takes a lot of work to get them to do that kind of thing again.

"It only takes one incident to have that effect – it's just absolutely appalling."In her role, Sue said she had rarely had a positive experience of taking a blind person on a bus.

She has contacted numerous companies including Arriva and Centrebus, but says she has had no response.

She added: "The way to go is for us to get bus companies to train their staff."

David Shelley, commercial director at Centrebus, said he was personally unaware of any contact from Vista.

He said: "We provide good training for our drivers and I've not seen anything relating to blind people with regards to the conduct of our staff.

"I absolutely insist all customers' comments come into my office and are reported by myself to our board of directors on a monthly basis."

An Arriva spokesman said: "Our drivers are trained to look for signals from passengers, however they also receive extensive training for passengers with disabilities using our services.

"If there are incidents we would like to know so we can investigate further."

Equality briefing no. 5

At Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living (LCIL) this morning, presenting one of our region-spanning briefing events. This is the fifth in a series of six meetings held over the past few weeks. The others have been held in Derby (Wed 20 July), Wellingborough (27 July), Nottingham (28 July), Oakham (Wed 03 Aug) and one more to be held in Grantham. All in all, there are eight organisations represented here today:

• Disability Nottinghamshire
• Genesis / LAMP Direct
• Good Thinking
• Human Rights and Equalities Charnwood
• Leicester Council of Faiths
• Leicester Deaf Action Group
• Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living
• Loughborough Women's Aid
• The Race Equality Centre

Up till now the briefings have been conducted by Chino Cabon, Policy Officer at The Race Equality Centre (TREC) and Kelly Jussab, Project Officer at REDP. Kelly has a family obligation today and has asked George Ballentyne, Equality and Diversity Officer at Leicester Council of Faiths, to deputise for her.

Each of these meetings has been hosted by a member of REDP's Core Reference Group from that locality. Today's host is Leicester Deaf Action Group (with assistance from two members of Signing Network). Oas from LDAG opens the meeting, giving us a historical overview and an outline of the future prospects of their user-led organisation.

George gives the Beginners' Guide to REDP, Chino speaks about the Equality Act 2010 (concentrating on the terminology used in the Act and its relationship with previous anti-discrimination legislation) then George is back up front to present on the Localism Bill and Big Society.

The whole thing takes about three hours (including lunch) and I'm glad to say we get some positive evaluations from the attendees.

Core Partners meeting

This morning we have the monthly meeting of REDP's Core Partners:

• Leicester Council of Faiths
• Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living
• Leicester Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Centre
• The Race Equality Centre

We meet at Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living, which is the accountable body for this project.


Apologies received from George Ballentyne, representing Leicester Council of Faiths, who's taking part today in the pre-launch event for Leicester Speaks 2011 in Gallowtree Gate.

Charities fight for survival as funding slashed across country

From today's edition of The Guardian:

Charities fight for survival as funding slashed across country

Anti-cuts campaign False Economy obtained data from 265 freedom-of-information responses from local councils

By Randeep Ramesh, Social Affairs Editor

More than 2,000 charities are being forced to close services and sack staff as local authorities slash their funding, or in some cases completely withdraw it, according to research published on Tuesday.

The study – based on 265 freedom-of-information responses from local councils across England and obtained by the union-backed anti-cuts campaign False Economy – reveals the scale of the impact that cuts are having on the charitable sector. Birmingham city council has cut funding to the largest number of charities, with more than 190 organisations losing out, followed by the cross-council organisation London Councils, which has cut funding to 174 groups.

Many charities will see their funding cut by half while others will lose entire budgets. The hardest hit include children's and young-people charities, with more than 380 organisations hit. Another 150 disability, 142 elderly and more than 110 adult care charities are also affected.

The research immediately raised questions about the role of charities as a cornerstone of the government's 'big society'. Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the TUC which sponsors False Economy, said: "The big society is looking more and more like a big con … These deep cuts to voluntary groups across the UK show that government claims that charities can replace direct services currently provided by central or local government are false."

False Economy says its survey shows more than £110m this year will disappear from charities' bottom line although this analysis, the first attempt to map the extent of the cuts in England, does not include major cities such as Leeds and Manchester as well as some large shire counties such as Hampshire or Tory flagship boroughs like Westminster. These councils refused to hand over data on the grounds it would take too long to extract the information.

The final figure is also likely to be far higher given that some large authorities have not yet finalised where the cuts will hit, and only charities or voluntary groups receiving a funding cut of at least 5% are listed in the research. The calculation includes cuts to charity's grants and where they occur some increases to budgets.

Acevo, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, which represents 2,000 charity leaders in Britain, has warned previously that the sector could lose £750m this year alone if "central and local government passed on cuts proportionately". Another £250m would be lost because of VAT increases and reductions in tax breaks.

Peter Kyle, deputy director of Acevo, said that if ministers' pledges of extra funding, outlined in last month's public services white paper, were to materialise then there would be another £2bn for charities – enough to fill the gap left by the estimated £1bn shaved from their local government grants. "But charities are instead going to the wall because of the cuts and you cannot magic them back into existence again. It's short-sighted and mindless."

Experts also questioned whether the charitable sector could cover for the sharp drop in funding for local government. Tony Travers of the London School of Economics pointed out that local authorities last year had to bear more than £4bn in cuts – amounting to an 8% drop in real terms: "Ministers have created a much bigger challenge in hoping to expand the voluntary and NGO sector in the name of the big society with the size of such cuts."

The government blamed councils for "being short sighted in their approach [and] failing to recognise the importance of the sector". A spokesperson for the Department for Communities & Local Government said: "In their approach to budget setting, the best councils are showing that they understand that a strong, thriving voluntary is more important now than ever and could be the key to providing high quality, good value services to their residents. But this is not the case everywhere."

Sir Merrick Cockell, chairman of the Local Government Association, defended its decisions to cut budgets in a time of austerity. "The severity of cuts to council budgets means savings are having to be made across the board, and unfortunately funding to charities, voluntary organisations and community groups is not exempt."

Decisions to reduce financial support to the voluntary sector will never be taken lightly and local authorities have rightly carried out full and frank consultations before reducing funding to groups."