Timely Reminder to Fiona Edwards & Mighty Jo Young

Dear Jo Young and colleagues,

I would like to remind you that I am still waiting for the reply you promised below. I am also very concerned that the reply you have sent to Des Curley concerning the number of disabled people employed by Surrey and Borders NHS Partnership Trust is woefully inadequate. Basically you say that you do not know how many disabled people are employed by the trust because you do not monitor this information. Does the Trust claim itself to be an equal opportunity employer? If so how can you justify this claim if you do not monitor your own equal opportunity policies?

If this had happened in the United States in the 1980s where I studied at a Commission Against Discrimination your organisation would have been fined a great deal of money for not monitoring this basic information in order to show your
employment practices were not discriminatory and yet here we are at the end of 2006 and you are practically showing off the fact that you do not keep basic employment statistics to monitor your own equal opportunity practises. I find this situation quite archaic.

Bearing this appalling situation in mind perhaps we can make some sense of the information you do keep. You say that you only know if those employed by the trust are disabled if they mention this in their application forms. Well then please tell us exactly how many people employed by the trust have mentioned they are disabled in their application forms and in what positions they are employed? Then also please tell us how many people are employed by the trust in total. From these figures we will then be able to work out the percentage of disabled people employed by the trust and compare this with the percentage of disabled people in society. This will give us a basis for judging SABPTs record in employment for disabled people but considering you and the PCT have just awarded a 5 year contract to the Richmond Fellowship who have no intention of creating any new jobs for the disabled I doubt that your record can stand up to any scutiny.

Please give us this information immediately because we have waited long enough being fobbed off and we are tired of SABPT hiding behind these prevarications and excuses. Especially now with the new Disability Equality Duty it is time your policies and practises are open and accountable.

I will be waiting for your reply which under the Freedom of Information Act rules is already way overdue.

Yours Sincerely

Jill Goble