Disability and Local Settings:

Implementing Social Inclusion Policy

Fiona Reidy

Bachelor of Arts University of Melbourne, 1984

Bachelor of Social Work

University of Melbourne, 1986

Master of Arts, Communications Monash University, 2000

A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

School of Public Health

Faculty of Health Sciences

LaTrobe University, Bundoora, Victoria 3086

Australia

March 2011

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Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the Victorian Department of Human Services for the PhD

scholarship awarded to support this study.

My supervisors Professor Hal Swerissen and Professor Christine Bigby have provided

invaluable guidance and support and I am appreciative of their assistance.

Participants were also most generous with their ideas and time and without their input

this thesis could not have been completed.

Kelly Grigsby from Brimbank City Council granted leave that enabled me to complete

the research and my thanks also go to other friends, work colleagues and family for their

ongoing interest.

To Tony, Molly, Rory and Keeley McCaffrey - thank you for accepting the impact that

the research process has had on our daily lives. I hope that in the future the results of this

thesis will contribute to increased social inclusion for people with disabilities in their

daily lives in local settings.

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Table of Contents

Disability and Local Settings: Implementing Social Inclusion Policy ................................. i Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. ii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................ iii List of Tables ............................................................................................................ vi List of figures ........................................................................................................... vii Abstract .......................................................................................................... viii Statement of authorship ..................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 1

Disability policy in Australia and local settings ............................................................. 3 Historical trends in disability policy ............................................................................... 5 Policy directions in Victoria ........................................................................................... 9 Implementing social inclusion through policy and legislation ..................................... 11 Innovation and social change ........................................................................................ 13 Innovative elements of the State Plan ........................................................................... 14 Design and methodology .............................................................................................. 18 Structure of the thesis.................................................................................................... 18 Significance of the thesis .............................................................................................. 20

CHAPTER 2 SOCIAL INCLUSION AND DISABILITY POLICY .................................... 22 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 22 Defining social inclusion .............................................................................................. 22 The historical relationship between social inclusion and disability policy................... 26

Human rights, social justice and active citizenship .................................................. 28 Social and economic influences ................................................................................ 34

The experience of disability and social inclusion in the Australian community .......... 40 The profile of disability in Australia ............................................................................. 41 Contemporary public policy, planning and implementation responses to disability and social inclusion.............................................................................................................. 47

National government roles and responsibilities ........................................................ 48 Legislation................................................................................................................. 48 Policy and planning................................................................................................... 49 Key national government issues ............................................................................... 51 State government roles and responsibilities .............................................................. 52 Legislation................................................................................................................. 53 Policy and planning................................................................................................... 53 Local Government roles and responsibilities ............................................................ 56 Legislation................................................................................................................. 57 Policy and planning................................................................................................... 58

The effectiveness of contemporary jurisdiction and policy on structural barriers to social inclusion.............................................................................................................. 59 Chapter summary .......................................................................................................... 61

CHAPTER 3 A DISCUSSION OF POLICY IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES ..................... 62 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 62 The policy process ........................................................................................................ 63

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The policy context......................................................................................................... 66 The re-emergence of community building .................................................................... 70 Confronting structural disadvantage ............................................................................. 71 Challenges for future disability policy implementation ................................................ 74 A universal, citizen rights framework ........................................................................... 75 Embedding changes in organisations and the community ............................................ 76 Intergovernmental collaboration in local settings ......................................................... 77 Analysing the implementation of strategies for social inclusion .................................. 79 Chapter summary .......................................................................................................... 86

CHAPTER 4 METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................... 87 Methodological approach.............................................................................................. 87

Human ethics ............................................................................................................ 92 Participants .................................................................................................................... 93

Data collection boundaries ........................................................................................ 95 Study processes ......................................................................................................... 95 Data collection strategies .......................................................................................... 98 Data analysis ............................................................................................................. 99

The researcher’s role ..................................................................................................... 99 Chapter summary ........................................................................................................ 102

CHAPTER 5 STUDY RESULTS...................................................................................... 105 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 105 Relative advantage ...................................................................................................... 106 Compatibility .............................................................................................................. 112 Complexity .................................................................................................................. 121 Trialability................................................................................................................... 131 Observability ............................................................................................................... 162 Chapter summary ........................................................................................................ 172

CHAPTER 6 DISCUSSION ............................................................................................ 177 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 177 The factors that assist or impede the implementation of social inclusion for people with disabilities in local settings ......................................................................................... 178

State Plan Values and Principles............................................................................. 179 Continuity and leadership ....................................................................................... 180

Complexity .................................................................................................................. 184 Trialability................................................................................................................... 185 Observability ............................................................................................................... 188 Comparisons and implications .................................................................................... 189 Future research ............................................................................................................ 199 Chapter summary ........................................................................................................ 203

CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................ 205 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 205 Literature review outcomes ......................................................................................... 205 Research questions ...................................................................................................... 208 Major findings ............................................................................................................. 209 Elements of a social inclusion implementation model ............................................... 210 Strengths and limitations............................................................................................. 214

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Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 215 References ......................................................................................................... 217 Appendices ......................................................................................................... 228 Appendix A Local Government Act 1989 – Council roles .................................. 228 Appendix B Samples of invitation to participate ................................................ 229 Appendix C Samples of informed consent .......................................................... 238 Appendix D Schedule of interview questions ...................................................... 253 Appendix E Elements of a social inclusion implementation model ................... 260

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List of Tables

Table 1. Participant roles and sample size ……………………………………... 94

Table 2. Participant views on the factors that assist or impede the implementation

of strategies to increase social inclusion for people with disabilities in

local settings ………………………….……………………….………... 190

Table 3. Future research needs ………………………………………………… 201

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List of figures Figure 1. Distribution of people with disabilities in Australia …………………… 43

Figure 2. Participant views and the characteristics of innovations.....…….……...173

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Abstract

This thesis identified and analysed the factors that have assisted or impeded the

implementation of social inclusion policy for people with disabilities in local settings.

An original application of Rogers’ diffusion of innovation theory (2003) was developed

for this purpose. It explored the extent to which broader planning and policy, in this case

the Victorian State Disability Plan 2002 – 2012 (the State Plan) (Department of Human

Services, 2002), impacted on the success of local planning initiatives, supported

intergovernmental partnership and effected social change. The State Plan goal of

“Building Inclusive Communities” (p. 9) and the priority strategy to “Strengthen Local

Communities” (p. 11) directly refer to social inclusion and introduced a new and

innovative element to State Government disability policy.

The theoretical framework for this thesis draws on a social model of disability. This

model proposes that people with disabilities should be active citizens and entitled to the

same access to participation and opportunities as any other people in local communities.

It argues that they should not be marginalised simply as service recipients. In particular,

the thesis recognised that the social model of disability has significant implications for

the development of disability policy and strategy that promotes and implements social

inclusion (Priestley, 2001).

Rogers’ theory was used to identify the factors that assist or impede the implementation

of social inclusion policy for people with disabilities (Rogers, 2003). Rogers proposed a

set of key characteristics which need to be present to accelerate the adoption and

implementation of innovations. These include that the innovation provides relative

advantage for those involved in implementation, is compatible with past and present

policy, is not too complex, is trialable and produces observable outcomes. A qualitative

methodology using a case study method based on interviews with state and local

government representatives and people with disabilities was adopted to analyse the

application of Rogers’ theory.

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The thesis found that the State Plan’s vision to implement social inclusion policy by

building inclusive and strong local communities was strongly supported by state and local

government participants. They identified that this specific goal and priority provided

relative value by building on an existing policy base and promoting a human rights

position. However, some state government participants found inconsistency with the

implementation of past and current policy. This was because some participants viewed

the implementation of social inclusion policy as a primary social policy goal while others

viewed it as a policy mechanism for reducing service costs.

All by state and local government participants found the central concept of social

inclusion to be complex and therefore difficult to implement consistently at state and

local government levels. The absence of specific definitions of social inclusion within

the State Plan created barriers to trialling and observing the effects of specific strategies.

Study data supported the view that, with the exception of relative advantage, Rogers’

characteristics of innovations were not comprehensively observable in the

implementation of the State Plan. This diminished the capacity to implement social

inclusion policy for people with disabilities in a consistent or comprehensive manner in

local settings or at a state wide level.

The study concluded that while the State Plan’s policy vision was aligned to

contemporary literature, current mechanisms were not systematic enough to result in

comprehensive implementation of social inclusion policy for people with disabilities.

Strategies to promote social inclusion policy varied across local settings depending on

perceived or real policy drivers, implementation partners and resources. This is

consistent with recent national consultation that found people with disabilities are still not

routinely engaged as active citizens or in a structured dialogue regarding improvements

in their local settings (National People with Disabilities and Carer Council, 2009).

The thesis concluded that Rogers’ theory provided a mechanism for examining the

factors that have assisted and impeded the implementation of disability policy. It enabled

exploration of the extent to which local planning initiatives, intergovernmental

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partnership and social change were accelerated by the State Plan. It provided a relevant

theoretical framework for identifying and understanding implementation impediments.

The thesis also concluded that key policy objectives, such as implementing increased

social inclusion, should be less complex, more clearly defined and aligned to state and

local government policy priorities. As Rogers’ model suggests, this would increase the

relative advantage and compatibility of policy implementation and increase the capacity

to trial and observe measurable outcomes. In relation to the Victorian State Plan,

implementation would be assisted by the introduction of a definition of social inclusion,

development of an implementation model encompassing agreed roles for all levels of

government and a focus on clearly measurable outcomes.

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Statement of authorship

Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains no material

published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis submitted for the award

of any other degree or diploma. No other person’s work has been used without due

acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for

the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution.

Signed:

Date:

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

This thesis identified and analysed the factors that have assisted or impeded the

implementation of social inclusion policy for people with disabilities in local settings.

An original application of Rogers’ (2003) diffusion of innovations theory was developed

for this purpose. It explored the extent to which the State Plan1 (Department of Human

Services, 2002) had enabled successful local planning initiatives, supported

intergovernmental partnership and effected social change. The State Plan goal for

“Building Inclusive Communities” (p. 9) and priority strategy to “Strengthen Local

Communities” (p. 11) directly referred to social inclusion and introduced a new and

innovative element to state government disability policy.

Over the past four decades, disability policy in Australia has progressively shifted from a

focus on segregated, institutional care to integrated community based care. This has

included the removal of discrimination and, more recently, the promotion of social

inclusion for people with disabilities (Department of Human Services, 2002; Office of

Disability, 2000). As a result, wide spread deinstitutionalisation, the introduction of anti

discrimination and disability rights legislation and the development of community based

accommodation, employment and support services have been implemented. These trends

were consistent with international changes in disability policy over the same time period

(Social Development Canada, 2004, 2008; United Kingdom Prime Minister’s Strategy

Unit, 2005).

1 The Victorian State Disability Plan outlines the state government’s policy for disability from 2002-2012. It was developed in consultation with national, state and local governments, service organisations, people with disabilities and their carers. The Plan established a vision and key strategies to increase social inclusion and improve services for people with disabilities. Continuance of a RuralAccess and Access for All Abilities Programs, and introduction of a MetroAccess Program, were identified as key initiatives to increase social inclusion. The Plan included service recipient data but no population data. Given the change of Victorian Government in 2011, the Plan is due for redevelopment.

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More recently there has been a greater focus on social inclusion. The focus on social

inclusion broadened the disability policy agenda beyond the provision of disability

services as a primary foundation (Van de Ven, Post, Witte & Heuvel, 2005). Policy

implementation strategies initially focused on the elimination of barriers which

discriminated against people with disability. This included discrimination in

employment, accommodation and community life and the physical integration of people

with disabilities into local settings and particularly through community housing (Bigby &

Fyffe, 2006; Mansell & Ericsson, 1996). However, over time, it has become clear that

more active and engaged strategies are required if people with disabilities are to be

included in the range of settings and activities that make up everyday life. Consequently,

legislation, regulation, funding and planning were used by government to pursue the

policy objective of social inclusion policy for people with disabilities across a wider

sphere of activities (Bostock & Gleeson, 2004; Castellani, 1996; Drake, 1999). This

study focussed on the use of these planning and implementation mechanisms and their

effectiveness for developing strategies to support social inclusion policy in local settings.

Interventions which promote the direct involvement of people with disabilities in

planning and change processes have been included in current national, state and local

government policy. Increasingly, the importance of social networks and locality has been

recognised as pivotal for a more active approach to the implementation of social

inclusion. Integrated local planning is becoming a critical innovation in this new policy

environment (Cuthill, 2001). The State Plan (2002) is an example of a government

initiative that aimed to implement social inclusion policy for people with disabilities

through more active local engagement and planning in community accommodation,

recreational and employment settings. Critically, its success has depended on the

implementation of priority strategies in collaboration with local government, people with

disabilities and other partner organisations.

It will be argued that although social inclusion is a goal of disability policy and planning

in Australia at national, state and local government levels, little evaluation has focussed

on the experience and effectiveness of its implementation or the factors that have assisted

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or impeded policy implementation. Nor are there any established, integrated models of

social inclusion to guide an intergovernmental approach to this aspect of disability policy

implementation.

Disability policy in Australia and local settings

Approximately 20 per cent of the Australian community has a self identified intellectual,

psychiatric, sensory/speech, acquired brain injury or physical impairment (Australian

Bureau of Statistics, 2003). The majority of people with disabilities live in the

community and successive national and state governments in Australia have adopted and

implemented policy based on the benefits that community living is seen to have over

institutional care. Notwithstanding the very significant shift from institutional care to

community settings, some have argued that people with disabilities continue to be

socially excluded (Goggin & Newell, 2005; Productivity Commission, 2004; Van de Ven

et al., 2005). It is also argued that exclusion is impacted by considerations such as

impairment type and complexity, stage of life, gender and culture (Bates & Davis, 2004;

Carter, Hughes, Guth & Copeland, 2005; Harris, 2003; Howell, Hauser-Cram & Kersh,

2007; LeRoy, Noonan Walsh, Kulik & Rooney, 2004; Stainton, 2005).

The extent of this social exclusion has been documented in a recent national consultation

report completed by the National People with Disabilities and Carer Council (2009). It

identified specific examples of systematic social exclusion. This exclusion was found in

the service system, education and employment, built environment and social systems and

supports. These findings support earlier contributions to the literature that have argued

for more comprehensive implementation of social inclusion for people with disabilities

(Priestley, 2001; Shakespeare, 2000; Swain, French, Barnes & Thomas, 2004; Tregaskis,

2004).

Based on this national consultation the Chair of the National People with Disabilities and

Carer Council, Rhonda Galbally, asserted the ongoing existence of social exclusion in

Australia:

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We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world and yet all too often people with disabilities struggle to access the very necessities of life – somewhere to live, somewhere to work. All too often they are unable to access education, health care, recreation and sport – the very things that most people in the community take for granted. They are denied access to kindergartens, schools, shopping centres and participation in community groups. They are often isolated and alone. Their lives are a constant struggle for resources and support. (National People with Disabilities and Carer Council, 2009, p. vi)

This comment illustrated that although the implementation of social inclusion policy is a

policy for all levels of government and all population groups in Australia, positive

outcomes are not routinely experienced by people with disabilities in local settings. This

is in spite of current national and state government production of policy papers and

toolkits to support implementation of this policy agenda (Department of Human Services

2002, 2002a, 2006; Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2009; Whiteford,

Peter, 2009; Hayes, Gray & Edwards, 2008).

According to the national government:

Being socially included means that people have the resources (skills and assets, including good health), opportunities and capabilities they need to: learn participate in education and training; work participate in employment, unpaid or voluntary work including family and carer responsibilities; engage connect with people, use local services and participate in local, cultural, civic and recreational activities; and have a voice influence decisions that affect them. (Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2009, p.3)

Social inclusion for people with disabilities has been a national government policy

priority as evidenced by references in the public policy documents cited above. It has

also formed the basis of the State Plan’s vision. The challenge for contemporary policy

implementation, however, is that achieving social inclusion for people with disabilities

requires a significant shift in emphasis and practice. It involves change from relatively

passive and programmatic strategies that focus on physical integration, the provision of

support services and the removal of formal discrimination to active strategies that

promote participation and inclusion. Community education and training, advocacy and

social networking are examples of such strategies. It also involves changing specific

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local cultural practices. This has requires a move to increased local planning and

implementation. It has highlighted the role of local government in participating in

appropriate partnerships, facilitating and advocating for change and creating

opportunities for people with disabilities to experience increased civic participation.

The innovation in contemporary policy that has emphasised social inclusion for people

with disabilities is that it extended the earlier arguments of deinstitutionalisation

advocates. It has contended that implementing social inclusion policy requires a move

from a moral right to a human rights perspective that intrinsically values citizen

participation and contributions. The contemporary challenge is less about the adoption of

a philosophical policy commitment to social inclusion policy. It is more about systematic

implementation processes to ensure that the policy is comprehensively put into practice.

This latter point was the focus of the current study.

Historical trends in disability policy

Social inclusion has been a key objective for disability policy proposals from the early

work of Wolfensberger (1972) to current theorists articulating a social model of

disability. Social model supporters have focussed on civic involvement in all aspects of

local community life (Barton, 2004; Bostock & Gleeson, 2004; Finklestein, 2004; Oliver,

2004). Since the 1970s, public policy has adopted different implementation strategies to

achieve social inclusion.

In Australia, this approach was exemplified by individual support and service access

regulated through the Commonwealth Disability Services Act 1986 and the National

Disability Agreement which commenced in 1991. This Agreement was formerly known

as the Commonwealth State and Territory Disability Agreement. The disability support

pension, carer’s payment and allowance, sickness and mobility allowances and wife’s

pension were sources of income support available to people with disabilities and their

carers. Disability specific rehabilitation and employment services, therapy,

accommodation support, respite, independent living and recreation services were put in

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place along with access to specific aids and appliances, home and personal care.

Advocacy and information services were also funded to address individual issues.

The provision of income support and services primarily focused on assisting individuals

to overcome perceived deficits in order to participate in social, vocational and

recreational settings. Legislation, regulation and funding focused on helping people to

improve their ability to conduct activities of daily living as a means to increasing

independence and the capacity of individuals to achieve social inclusion (Australian

Senate Community Affairs Committee, 2007; Department of Human Services 2002;

Office of Disability, 2000).

During the same period there was significant government implementation of

deinstitutionalisation, integration and mainstreaming. As a result of these policies, large

residential facilities were progressively closed in favour of community based

accommodation and service delivery. Vocational training centres and special schools

were maintained but access to community based vocational and education institutions

increased. People with disabilities were redirected to more mainstream residential,

educational and employment settings through the adoption of policy and legislative

initiatives (Department of Human Services, 2002, 2002a, 2006; Department of Premier

and Cabinet, 2005, 2008; Disability Act 2006; Ministerial Advisory Committee for

Victorian Communities, 2007; Office of Disability, 2000).

However, this extension of income support, community based services and

deinstitutionalisation did not specifically identify how structural and systemic barriers to

participation would be removed. It has become increasingly clear that these barriers have

needed to be addressed to implement social inclusion policy (Gleeson, 1999; Finkelstein,

2004). It has also become apparent that closing institutions, providing income support

and putting in place community services has not necessarily resulted in social inclusion

for people with disabilities. As a result, contemporary policy has shifted to recognise the

need to remove systemic and structural barriers which have physical, social and cultural

dimensions.

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Physical barriers have resulted in the exclusion of many people from community life

because the built environment, including buildings, vehicles and transport systems make

it difficult or impossible for them to participate. As a result, a range of policy measures

to remove physical barriers have been developed. For example, arising from the previous

Victorian Government policy paper, “A Fairer Victoria” (Department of Premier and

Cabinet, 2005), a Regulatory Impact Statement was prepared to examine approaches to

increase the supply of accessible housing in Victoria and recommend changes to the

building code (Department of Planning and Community Development, 2010).

Similarly, in response to specific issues, a report was commissioned for example to

identify solutions and actions to improve safety for people with a disability at rail

crossings (Department of Transport, 2003). An action plan was developed to provide a

framework for achieving accessible public transport in Victoria for people with

disabilities. The plan addressed improvements to mainstream public transport including

rail, tram and train services, regional rail, coach and bus services and taxis (Department

of Transport, 2006).

Social barriers have been more subtle and difficult to identify. People with disabilities

were often discriminated against and excluded from social, recreational and vocational

activities. This prompted legislative and program measures to remove social barriers.

Following the release of “A Fairer Victoria” (Department of Premier and Cabinet, 2005)

the then state government introduced a new Disability Act 2006 and a Victorian Charter

of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006. Programs to support social inclusion

policy for people with disabilities, such as Metro and RuralAccess2 and the Access All

Abilities3, were continued and expanded (Department of Human Services, 2002a). A

Victorian Disability Advisory Council was established in 2007 following the adoption of

2 Metro and RuralAccess programs provide funds for officers who are generally employed by local governments, or in community service organisations. These funds are allocated by the Department of Human Services. They support communities to develop new ways of including people with a disability in local community life. 3 The Access for All Abilities (AAA) Program builds the capacity of the sport and recreation sector to provide active participation opportunities for people with a disability.

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the Disability Act 2006 to elevate the voice of people with disabilities. The Council

provided advice on whole of government policies and strategies to increase the

participation of people with a disability in the Victorian community.

Cultural barriers have developed through local organisations with activities being geared

to people without disabilities. As such, social inclusion policy implementation has been

more complex and difficult to address in local communities when disability is viewed as

the exception rather than the rule. From a cultural perspective, the attitudes and

willingness of people in local communities to welcome people with disabilities in all

aspects of community life has been a key factor. The strengthening of a human rights

perspective through disability policy has emerged as a new way of conceptualising and

partially progressing these issues as cultural change has required changes in attitudes and

resources (Albrecht, 2004).

However, in spite of the implementation of numerous legislative, policy and program

initiatives that have reduced discrimination and clearly defined the rights of people with

disabilities, current disability policy has retained a significant focus on income support

and service delivery. It is arguable that specific strategies to remove the physical, social

and cultural barriers that have impeded social inclusion implementation are required.

Past measures have largely focused on creating a legislative and regulatory environment

to remove physical, social and cultural barriers to inclusion. There has been less

emphasis on social and cultural barriers. In the 2008-09 Australian Human Rights

Commission Annual Report (2009), the Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme

Innes noted that:

Substantial progress has also been made in a number of other areas as detailed in this report. However, it remains all too clear that, for many people with disability, their experience remains one of disadvantage for them and their families; of exclusion from participation and opportunity; in many cases an experience of abuse or neglect; an experience, in short, of denial of human rights. (p. 114)

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In spite of continuing legislative and programmatic responses to implementing social

inclusion policy for people with disabilities questions regarding the effectiveness of

current strategies remain. The Australian Human Rights Commission 2008-09 Annual

Report indicated that 43per cent of complaints lodged during that period related to the

Disability Discrimination Act (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2009, p.67). Of

those lodged complaints, employment related issues accounted for 40per cent of the

complaints, followed by complaints regarding goods services and facilities (35per cent),

education (9per cent) and a variety of other complaints related to government programs,

access to premises, clubs and other services (pp.76-77).

Alternate views that challenge current implementation practices have emerged. They

focus on the process of implementation and partnership within that local setting. It is

suggested that more localised organisational and community change is required to

improve the implementation of policy to increase social inclusion for people with

disabilities. Strategies that support and join up local planning, organisational and

community change have been described as a pivotal part of supporting inclusion of

people with disabilities (Barton, 2004; Bates & Davis, 2004; Bigby & Fyffe, 2006;

Oliver, 2004; Van de Ven et al., 2005). The purpose of these strategies has been to

accelerate local cultural change in a state wide context, reduce fragmentation and

improve perceptions of people with disabilities in the broader community as having the

capacity to be active community members and promote social strategies to facilitate

inclusion (Department for Victorian Communities, 2005).

Policy directions in Victoria

Policy implementation in Victoria had remained focussed on extensions and reforms to

existing service models until the State Plan was adopted in 2002. The State Plan

acknowledged the range of dimensions that have impacted on the implementation of

social inclusion policy and the need for all government departments and other

stakeholders to be contributing to change (Department of Human Services, 2002, p.1). It

recognised that while the service system needed further reform, a stronger connection

10

between services and local environments was needed to result in systematic change. In

spite of the recognition that organisational and social change are needed to increase the

inclusion of people with disabilities in local settings, the scope of the State Plan’s

Implementation Plan has remained limited because it is heavily focussed on service

recipients and service reform (Department of Human Services, 2002, 2006).

Three fundamental problems have arisen given the ongoing significance placed on

individual support and service interventions to achieve state government implementation

of social inclusion policy. The first is that the State Plan’s Implementation Plan 2006-08

primarily focused on those who receive services, rather than the broader inclusion of all

people with disabilities. Although 20 per cent (3,958,300) of the Australian population

has a disability (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2003), in 2001 prior to the State Plan’s

development, only 14,382 people were service recipients (Department of Human

Services, 2002, Appendix 1). As service recipients were the focus of interventions to

increase social inclusion for people with disabilities then the focus of social inclusion was

narrowed. Secondly, government demand management has artificially restricted service

access. Consequently the need for services is under estimated and it is not possible to

measure true unmet demand. Many people who would benefit from services and

supports are deemed ineligible or not allocated the levels of service that would better

support their inclusion in the community. Thirdly, service provision has not guaranteed

the implementation of policy and programs to enable access to all aspects of community

life. Often this has required a range of measures to promote structural change to remove

physical, social and cultural barriers to participation.

In summary, the evolutionary approach to implementing social inclusion policy through

interventions such as deinstitutionalisation, service system changes, anti-discrimination

legislation and the provision of income support have not provided a comprehensive

solution. This is understandable as there are long established social and cultural practices

at play in local settings that continue to make accessing organisations and conducting the

activities of daily living, such as access to sporting clubs, schools, banks, shops and

social networks difficult.

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While it might be argued that formal and overt discrimination has been mitigated by the

identified legislative interventions, significant organisational and interpersonal changes

are needed to establish pathways, practices and structures that pro-actively enable people

with disabilities to participate. At a minimum this requires resource re-allocation and

process improvements. It requires changes of this scale across all aspects of local

community life, with significant leadership, negotiation, resources and long term

commitment by many partners (Barton, 2004; Bates & Davis, 2004; Bigby & Fyffe,

2006; Oliver, 2004; Van de Ven et al., 2005; Wiseman, 2006).

Implementing social inclusion through policy and legislation

In Victoria, the State Plan (2002) brought historic and contemporary approaches to social

inclusion policy together by identifying strategies for “improving individual lifestyles”

(p. 9) and “building inclusive communities” (p. 11). The strategies about individual

lifestyle addressed disability supports and remain focussed on individuals, families and

carers. The strategies about community sought to address social, economic, cultural,

political and spiritual community participation and the role of partners in the planning

and implementation process to build inclusive communities. Arguably, both approaches

were necessary for successful social inclusion policy implementation. While structural

and systemic barriers have been addressed in the past through deinstitutionalisation and

the introduction of legislation aimed at protecting the rights of people with disabilities,

the State Plan took a further step. It recognised the importance of introducing a program

of localised community and organisational change to remove systemic physical, social

and cultural barriers to inclusion.

Prior to the State Plan’s adoption in 2002, modification to the service system was the

state government’s prime lever for implementing increased social inclusion in local

communities. Although disability services were not a holistic foundation for social

inclusion policy implementation, nevertheless, they significantly supported the

opportunities for social inclusion and remained an important contributor to participation

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(Bigby, Fyffe & Ozanne, 2007, p.9). Local planning for implementing social inclusion

policy can be regarded as an innovative practice which requires new ways of thinking and

acting at the local level. It is important to understand the factors that are likely to assist

or impede effective local planning for social inclusion for future policy development.

There is a considerable literature on the introduction and implementation of innovation in

a range of different settings. Contemporary interest in the process of innovation, policy

development and implementation spans diverse fields including public management,

health, environment, arts and economics (Kickbusch, 2009; Krozer & Nentjes, 2008;

Potts, 2009; Tyran & Sausgruber, 2005; Van Buuren & Loorbach, 2009), though not

necessarily in relation to disability. This thesis has developed an original application of

Rogers’ diffusion of innovation tool to respond to this gap in the literature.

Changing beliefs and values need to accompany service, policy and legislative change

and are a key part of an implementation process. Opportunities for participation have to

be negotiated, activities adapted and planned and social interaction facilitated in local

settings. This takes time, effort, resources and coordination. This approach can be

described as innovative (Castellani, 1996; Cuthill & Fien, 2005; Australian Public

Service Commission, 2007) although to date there has been little research on the factors

that might assist or impede its success.

This thesis has a particular focus on whether the social inclusion strategies outlined in the

State Plan, and the identification of local government as a partner in policy

implementation, provided an effective approach for increasing social inclusion policy

implementation for people with disabilities. It highlights the capacity of mechanisms

such as the State Plan to implement social inclusion policy for people with disabilities by

forming a bridge between broad planning for disability and local community planning,

advocacy, action and change. In order to do so, it focussed on how the process of policy

implementation and diffusion has previously been conceptualised.

13

Innovation and social change

The study of the introduction, implementation and diffusion of innovation emerged in the

early twentieth century in tandem with the new social sciences of sociology and

anthropology. Consequently, diffusion research traditions clustered around disciplines

such as education, public health and medical sociology, communication, marketing and

social marketing (Burt, 1999; Fox & Kotler, 1980; Mort, 1957, Shannon & Weaver,

1949).

In the anthropological tradition, rural sociologists studied the diffusion of agricultural

innovations, (Ryan & Gross, 1943), while sociologists studied diffusion of single

innovations over geographical locations to understand social change (Bowers, 1938).

Educational diffusion studies were generally completed at one institution as the unit of

analysis (Mort, 1957). Public health and medical sociology studies have addressed health

promotion and mechanisms for spreading health messages and treatment uptake (Burt,

1999) whilst communication also represents a large contribution to the diffusion research

tradition (Shannon & Weaver, 1949).

Marketing diffusion studies have focused on worldwide technologies, such as mobile

phone take up and social marketing studies emerged in response to the need to invoke

behavioural change for the public good (Fox & Kotler, 1980). As such, diffusion theory

has proved to be a flexible and relevant framework across a number of disciplines within

which questions of implementation can be explored.

The most widely used theory to explain the factors that affect the success and failure of

innovation was developed by Rogers in 1962 and refined over the following four

decades. Rogers proposed that successful diffusion of innovation follows a path from

initial awareness and interest through evaluation, trial, adoption and widespread

diffusion. He argued that innovation is more or less likely to be adopted depending on

the presence of five characteristics in the implementation process. These characteristics

include the extent to which an innovation has perceived relative advantage over

14

preceding approaches; compatibility with existing values, experiences and needs;

complexity in its meaning and use; trialability to enable experimentation on a limited

basis, and observability through visible results (Rogers, 2003).

Rogers argued that new ideas, even when advantageous, can take a long time to be

adopted and that speeding up the rate of diffusing innovations is a challenge for many

individuals and organisations. The diffusion of innovations theory describes diffusion as

a type of social change in which the structure and function of a social system are altered.

This theory is relevant for studying the implementation of social inclusion policy for

people with disabilities in two respects. Firstly, implementation of the State Plan

required significant, coordinated change at social, organisational and personal levels.

Secondly, it sought to engender social change and increases in social inclusion

consistently across the state.

Rogers’ theory of the diffusion of innovation provides a framework to examine the extent

to which the State Plan has assisted or impeded planning for implementing social

inclusion policy for people with disabilities in local settings. It also enables an

exploration of the extent to which broader planning frameworks such as the State Plan

impact on the success of local planning initiatives and intergovernmental work.

Innovative elements of the State Plan

The State Plan adopted a more proactive and structured approach to facilitating social

inclusion policy implementation for people with disabilities than previously. It purported

to be:

… the first disability plan in the history of Victoria to take a whole-of-government and whole-of-community approach to disability. It is the first Plan that looks at all aspects of life for people with a disability - including disability supports, health and community services, recreation, education, employment, transport and housing. (Department of Human Services, 2002, p.1)

15

However, the innovation in this State Plan was not that it promoted inclusion. As

demonstrated earlier in this chapter inclusion had been a fundamental element in

disability policy for over four decades. The innovation was that it identified the need for

all state government departments to play a role in planning for structural change to

implement the policy of social inclusion of people with disabilities in areas beyond

disability specific services. It recognised that many partners should be involved in a

social inclusion policy implementation model and that disability supports, health and

community services, recreation, education, employment, transport and housing should be

incorporated in this approach. It identified whole of government partnerships at state and

local government levels and emphasised the significance of the local community context.

This emphasis on local planning, and the explicit identification of local government as an

implementation partner, represented a significant shift from past policy. In the past, state

government policy was primarily concerned with the delivery of services coordinated

through the Department of Human Services. The State Plan maintained a focus on

reorienting disability support to become more responsive and more focused on people’s

individual needs and choices. However, it also identified building and strengthening

inclusive communities as a goal so that:

… people with a disability have the same opportunities as all other citizens of Victoria to participate in the life of the community - socially, economically, culturally, politically and spiritually. (Department if Human Services, 2002, p.11)

The explicit commitment to working in partnership with organisations across

government, service providers in the non-government sector, local governments,

community groups, businesses and industry leaders, the Commonwealth Government and

broader community (Department if Human Services, 2002, p.12) represented an

innovative policy shift towards building inclusive communities.

The approach adopted in the State Plan represented what Rogers has characterised as “an

idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of

adoption” (Rogers, 2003, p.12). According to Rogers, an objective definition of

16

innovation is not as relevant as the extent to which the perceived newness of the idea

affects reactions to it. Newness can refer to evolved knowledge and the expression,

persuasion or decision to adopt.

An innovation also aims to provide a policy mechanism for participants to “create and

share information with one another in order to reach a mutual understanding” (Rogers,

2003, p.17). According to Rogers, the essence of the communication process is the

information exchange through which individual participants are able to communicate a

new idea to one or several others. From this perspective, a key element in the successful

implementation of the State Plan was the extent to which the underlying vision which it

embodied could be communicated to key stakeholders.

The State Plan’s scope, and the scale of related structural change required to establish

whole of government and partnership based action has been a significant innovation in

disability policy. However, the published implementation plan did not indicate that any

inter-departmental work was planned to achieve this structural change. Individual

departments were responsible for considering disability within portfolio planning and

implementation without requirements to report back through the State Disability Plan

implementation and review process. Nor did the State Plan place any structure on

Victoria’s 79 local government authorities regarding coordinated planning or

implementation. Hence, some state government departments and some local government

authorities have been more responsive to planning and implementing actions to increase

social inclusion. A central state mechanism to identify, review, evaluate or share the

outcomes of emerging innovation or improvements for people with disability more

consistently across the state was not established.

This thesis is primarily concerned with the implementation of social inclusion policy in

local settings and the extent to which people with disabilities have been able to benefit

from this policy and participate in local communities. In identifying an effective

framework for analysing the extent to which this public policy has been systematised to

17

deliver improved access to public places, recreation, learning, services, social networks

and an ability to influence public policy, Rogers’ model was seen to be relevant.

This thesis argues that Rogers’ model of analysing innovation and diffusion provides a

useful theoretical framework for examining the experience of implementation. As a

result, the overarching question for this thesis is whether the State Plan has been the

means to implement social inclusion policy through local planning initiatives, supporting

intergovernmental partnership and effecting social change.

Specific questions have been designed to engage with those implementing social

inclusion policies in local settings. They test the extent to which local and state

government managers and officers charged with the responsibility for implementing state

government and local government policy have been able to do so. They also test the

extent to which people with disabilities leading implementation through local advisory

groups are engaged in the implementation processes. As such, the questions include:

� How have study participants experienced the relative advantage,

compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability of the State Plan’s

implementation?

� What has assisted the implementation of social inclusion policy in local

settings?

� What has impeded the implementation of social inclusion policy in local

settings?

This study applies Rogers’ diffusion theory in a case study including three local

governments to identify factors which assisted and impeded implementation of the State

Plan social inclusion policy for people with disabilities.

18

Design and methodology

This thesis adopted a qualitative methodology and used a case study method to address

the research questions (Creswell, 2003; Strauss & Corbin, 1998; Yin, 2003). Seventeen

participants were purposively selected from three Victorian metropolitan,

metropolitan/rural interface and rural local government areas.4 State and local

government managers and officers, staff and people with disabilities were interviewed.

The interview technique involved the use of a set of semi-structured questions about

disability planning in local settings to identify factors that had assisted or impeded the

implementation of social inclusion policy implementation. Rogers’ diffusion of

innovations theory, and specifically the characteristics of innovations which included

relative advantage, compatibility, manageable complexity, trialability and observability,

was used to guide data collection and provided the analytical framework.

The analysis demonstrated that there has been more rapid implementation of social

inclusion policy resulting in social change in local settings than the state wide change

described in the State Plan’s vision. It also identified the impediments that have limited

both local and state wide change and the potential for intergovernmental work to

implement comprehensive social inclusion policy implementation in local settings.

Structure of the thesis Following this introductory chapter, the structure of the thesis is as follows: Chapter 2 is a literature review which critically assesses definitions of social inclusion,

their historical significance for disability policy, the experience of disability and social

inclusion in the community and contemporary public policy, planning and

implementation. These themes are relevant as they provide the basis for analysing the

disability and policy implementation literature reviewed in Chapter 3.

4 Metropolitan local government refers to the Melbourne metropolitan area; interface local government refers to the metropolitan fringe with a rural interface and rural local government refers to country Victoria.

19

Chapter 3 addresses implementation experiences relevant to disability policy for social

inclusion, including challenges to policy implementation from philosophical and

structural perspectives. The chapter concludes by outlining an approach for analysing the

factors that are important in understanding the likelihood that disability policy will be

implemented.

Chapter 4 describes the research methodology which is based on Creswell’s view (2003)

that the choice of methodology needs to take the research problem, researcher’s

experience and audiences into account. As a result, the chapter describes how a

qualitative methodology was adopted to identify participant experiences of the State

Plan’s social inclusion policy implementation and its relationship to local planning,

intergovernmental partnership and social change.

Chapter 5 reports the study findings. It outlines how state and local government

managers, officers and people with disabilities described the State Plan’s capacity to

increase the inclusion of people with disabilities in local settings based on Rogers’

characteristics of innovations. Although the study design assumes that the views of state

and local government participants would be potentially quite different, points of

difference were relatively small. The results indicate where views are shared amongst

participants and highlight areas of difference.

Chapter 6 discusses the findings regarding the factors identified by participants as either

assisting or impeding the implementation of social inclusion policy. It addresses the

overarching question of the thesis regarding the capacity of policy mechanisms like the

State Plan to enable the implementation of social inclusion policy for people with

disabilities in local settings.

Chapter 7 outlines the major findings from the study and identifies potential topics for

future research. It concludes by proposing a model for social inclusion policy

implementation that identifies potential national, state and local government roles and

responsibilities based on Rogers’ theory.

20

Significance of the thesis

Few studies have reviewed how social inclusion policy has been implemented for people

with disabilities and the few have addressed inclusion in particular programs or

population groups (Bates & Davis, 2004; Bigby & Fyffe, 2006; Gretz, 1992; Harris,

2003; Van de Ven et al., 2005). This thesis is significant because it reduces a gap in the

literature and has produced an original analysis of the factors that have assisted or

impeded the implementation of social inclusion policy for people with disabilities in

Victoria since 2002. The conclusions are consistent with the literature (Parsons, 2004;

Randolph, 2004; Swain et al., 2004; Tregaskis, 2004; Wiseman, 2004, 2006) as they

demonstrate that comprehensive, population based approaches and intergovernmental

collaboration are required to assist the implementation of effective and systematic social

inclusion policy for people with disabilities.

The results indicate that, in spite of significant legislation, policy and service reform

initiatives, implementation of disability policy to increase the social inclusion has

remained fragmented. It has also remained weighted toward service generated

interventions and programs rather than whole of life and whole of government

interventions where service is one of many dimensions supporting social change in local

settings. The findings identify that there is potential to improve the implementation of

social inclusion policy for more than 20 per cent of the Australian population

experiencing disability and accelerate the implementation of social inclusion. The

findings also identify that significant innovation is possible if the response of society to

enabling people with impairments to participate is better coordinated. By utilising

Rogers’ theory, specific characteristics of innovations have been identified which could

increase social inclusion policy adoption.

This thesis not only contributes to the policy implementation literature with respect to

social inclusion policy for people with disabilities but also makes a relevant contribution

for many population groups within local communities experiencing social exclusion. If

Albrecht was correct that studying disability provides “… an avenue for re-examining

21

what it means to be a person and a member of society” (2004, p.598) then this thesis

provides a reference point for potential improvements in the experience of other groups

within the Australian community experiencing social exclusion. It also provides a way of

understanding how to strengthen the implementation of social inclusion policy for people

with disabilities.

This thesis is predicated on the assumption that people with disabilities should be active

citizens, entitled to the same access to participation and opportunities as any others in

local communities, rather than marginalised service recipients. This assumption

potentially shapes the resulting initiatives and supports quite differently in that much

more than individual service is required to implement social inclusion (Priestley, 2001).

The outcomes from this thesis support views expressed in the literature. These include

that the re-engagement of social relationships, removing the abstraction of people with

disabilities from society and establishing a practice models that seeks to include people of

all abilities can increase social inclusion policy implementation (Drake, 1999;

Finkelstein, 2004).

The next chapter reviews the literature regarding the implications of social inclusion

policy for disability policy implementation. It does this given the experience of disability

in the Australian community and contemporary approaches to public policy, planning and

implementation.

22

CHAPTER 2

SOCIAL INCLUSION AND DISABILITY POLICY

Introduction

Contemporary disability policy has been heavily influenced by concepts of social

inclusion. The purpose of this chapter is to summarise definitions of social inclusion,

their historical significance for disability policy and the experience of implementing

disability and social inclusion policy in the Australian community. These themes in the

literature are relevant as they provide context for this thesis and contribute to an analysis

of Australian disability policy implementation in the next chapter.

Defining social inclusion

Although the term social inclusion is frequently used in contemporary public policy, its

meaning has evolved over time. Social inclusion implies both an outcome for individuals

and a set of policies and strategies to achieve it. With respect to the outcomes of the

social inclusion, capacity to participate in the community has been a consistent theme.

The social model of disability perspective is that it is society’s responsibility to provide

for the rights of its citizens and recognises disability within broader cultures (Drake,

1999; Finkelstein, 2004). This perspective is reflected in contemporary public policy

where participation has been described in relation to social, economic, political and

cultural life (Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2008; Department of Human

Services, 2002; Department of Premier and Cabinet, 2008; Department of the Prime

Minister and Cabinet, 2009; Hayes et al., 2008; Ministerial Advisory Committee for

Victorian Communities, 2007; National People with Disabilities and Carer Council,

2009, Social Development Canada, 2004; United Kingdom Prime Minister’s Strategy

Unit, 2005). The experience of social inclusion is described as varying based on stage of

life (Howell et al., 2007; Carter et al., 2005; Le Roy et al., 2004), cultural and indigenous

23

background (Harris, 2003) , gender, impairment type and complexity (Barton, 2004). It

has also been interchangeably referred to in the literature as social inclusion or social

exclusion (Whiteford, 2009). The value of social inclusion has been identified as

increasing social and economic connections which reduce loneliness and providing a

protective factor in health and well being throughout the life course (Berkman, 1985;

Berkman & Syme, 1979; Marmot & Wilkinson, 2001).

Following the election of the Blair Government in the United Kingdom in 1997, an

increased academic interest in social exclusion permeated the public policy discourse and

continues to influence policies and programs. According to a report funded by the UK

Department of Communities and Local Government:

Social exclusion is a complex and multi-dimensional process. It involves the lack or denial of resources, rights, goods and services, and the inability to participate in a society, whether in economic, social, cultural or political arenas. It affects both the quality of life of individuals and the equity and cohesion of society as a whole … Deep exclusion refers to exclusion across more than one domain or dimension of disadvantage resulting in severe consequences for quality of life, well being and future life chances. (Levitas, Pantazis, Falmy, Gordon, Lloyd & Patsios, 2007, p. 9)

Similarly, following the election of the Rudd Government in Australia in 2007, social

inclusion became the subject of increased policy interest. A paper funded by the Social

Inclusion Unit, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (2009), cited the definition

outlined by Levitas et al. (2007) as well as other similar definitions from the European

Union and United States. It summarised statements made by then Deputy Prime Minister

Julia Gillard which characterised social inclusion in relation to a number of dimensions.

These included securing a job, accessing services, connecting with others in life through

family, friends, work, personal interests and local community, dealing with personal

crises, such as ill health, bereavement or the loss of a job and being heard (Hayes et al.,

2008, p. 6).

Hayes et al. also pointed out that the lack of a universally agreed definition for social

inclusion has made the definition and measurement of dimensions problematic.

24

Definitions of key terms in policy contribute to the measurement and evaluation

processes, and without them, implementation and review are difficult. Nevertheless,

Hayes et al. outlined two main frameworks used in the United Kingdom that define

social inclusion. The first focuses on the capacity to purchase goods and services,

participate in the labour market and make decisions about political process involvement.

The second contained an expanded definition of service exclusion and social

relationships which seems more relevant for the State Plan vision of implementing

increased social inclusion.

Service exclusion in the latter definition included lack of access to “public transport, play

facilities and youth clubs, and basic services inside the home (gas, electricity, water,

telephone)” (Hayes et al., 2008, p. 7) and the five dimensions of social relationships.

These dimensions referred to exclusion in common activities, the extent and quality of

social networks, support available in normal times and times of crisis, disengagement

from political and civic activity; and confinement resulting from fear of crime, disability

or other factors.

A paper prepared for the Victorian government proposing initiatives to make local

government’s role in community strengthening more systematic and aligned to best

practice has been part of this evolving policy discourse in the Australian context. It

described social inclusion, along with opportunity, integration and investment, as

practical action to foster local improvements to community strengthening. Social

inclusion is defined as “actions which aim to improve individual and group access to key

activities such as education, health, recreation and political participation” (Department of

Victorian Communities, 2005, p.4).

A more recent state government publication defined social inclusion as “… an approach

that builds social and economic participation for all individuals, groups and communities

without leaving anyone behind” (Ministerial Advisory Committee for Victorian

Communities, 2007, p.5). It argued for the development of a systematic framework

implemented through whole of government and community. It was based on a

25

commitment to a social inclusion framework, the development of intersectoral

partnership based inclusion and investment plans, intergovernmental collaboration and an

evidence and outcomes base (Ministerial Advisory Committee for Victorian

Communities, 2007, p.9). People with disabilities have been described as a population

group experiencing exclusion and for whom specific actions need to be put in place.

In May 2008, the national government formed a Social Inclusion Board and

commissioned the Australian Institute of Family Studies to prepare an overview of the

origins of the concepts of social inclusion and exclusion. This paper noted that “One of

the challenges facing social inclusion agendas is that there is no generally accepted

definition of what constitutes social exclusion”. The paper continued by defining

international approaches to social inclusion and summarised the current national

government’s approach in terms of gaining employment, accessing services, connecting

with others through family, friends, work, personal interests and local community, being

able to deal with personal crises and being heard (Australian Institute of Family Studies,

2008, pp.4-6).

Although the recent work of national and state governments on social inclusion in

Australia has not specifically focussed on people with disabilities, the thrust of this work

shares a common policy platform. Definitions of social capital and social inclusion

consistently refer to the need for whole of community access to health, education,

community care, community regeneration and employment (Bates & Davis, 2004).

These themes are of key concern in the implementation of social inclusion for people

with disabilities and are reflected in the language of the State Plan.

The other notable aspect of the evolving social inclusion definition is that it has been

interchangeably referred to as both a principle and a process. This is consistent with the

development of the disability literature where the original thinking around normalisation

and deinstitutionalisation carried some moral imperative, a sense of social justice that

was underpinned by a principle of universal access and a human rights philosophy

(Wolfensberger, 1972, 1975). Subsequent work (Parsons, 2004; Randolph, 2004;

26

Stainton, 2005; Wolfe, 2002) has built on earlier foundations and contemporary

contributions to the literature are also concerned with the processes of implementation

and change that need to accompany legislative, policy and planning directions.

For the purpose of this thesis, the definition of social inclusion outlined by the Ministerial

Advisory Committee for Victorian Communities cited above will be adopted. It is based

on the premise that social inclusion implementation is about process for individuals,

groups and communities, a systematic framework implemented through whole of

government and community and is based on a commitment to a social inclusion

framework, intersectoral partnership, intergovernmental collaboration and an evidence

and outcomes base. This definition provides scope to explore how the experiences of

implementing the State Plan varied across different communities and the characteristics

of innovation that may require strengthening.

The historical relationship between social inclusion and disability policy

Australian disability policy has mirrored international trends and gone through a number

of cycles based on the philosophies of charity, education, segregation and normalisation

(Chenoweth, 2000; Culham & Nind, 2003). More recently social inclusion has been

identified as a prime policy objective. These policy cycles can be described as reflecting

dominant political philosophies of national governments and the advocacy efforts of

disability activists and their carers. The resultant shifts and changes in policy have

sought to increase the implementation of consistent, progressive and universal policies to

consistently welcome and include people with disabilities in community life

(Wolfensberger, 1975).

In the period when Wolfenberger’s concept of normalisation underpinned disability

policy, social inclusion was strongly associated with the deinstitutionalisation of large

scale congregate care facilities for people with disabilities. Wolfensberger defined the

integration of people with disabilities as “…the opposite of segregation; and the process

of integration as consisting of those practices and measures which maximise a person’s

27

(potential) participation in the mainstream of his [sic] culture” (Wolfensberger, 1972, p.

48).

He identified a number of dimensions that have been reflected in more recent definitions

of social inclusion. These included access to community housing, transportation,

communication, information regarding community resources that are age appropriate, and

offering social and recreational opportunities. He identified access to religious and health

related facilities and services as fundamental to integration as well as access to public

places and employment that support personal and community participation.

Wolfensberger’s definition of social inclusion focused on individual and service support

and community integration. It is important to note that he formulated his position when

congregate care in large scale institutions fundamentally undermined the rights of people

with disabilities. His focus was on deinstitutionalisation and physical and social

integration as a major means for achieving comprehensive social acceptance and

behaviour change. He defined physical integration as relating to location and proximity

to resources and social groups, physical context, access and size. In the normalisation

model, social integration related to integrative program features, more appropriate service

labelling and focus on redefining the relationship between individuals and the buildings

and institutional practices that shaped their lives.

Normalisation did not explicitly focus on the importance of removing the structural and

systemic barriers which prevented comprehensive social inclusion for people with

disabilities. The later reformulation of normalisation as social role valorisation went

some way toward addressing these issues. More recent formulations have placed much

greater emphasis on structural and systemic barriers to social inclusion (Clear, 2000,

Goggin & Newell, 2005). More broadly, an ethical dimension to the concept of social

inclusion has often been lost in policy formulations. Goggin and Newell argued that

“Rather than seeing disability as inherently uncivil, uncivilising and deeply distressing,

we need to encounter disability as an inevitable, normal and indeed positive aspect of

diversity of Australian society to be celebrated” (2005, p.43).

28

In a contemporary policy context, social inclusion cannot be achieved by an isolated

program of services or just by physical integration into everyday settings and activities.

Based on the Ministerial Advisory Committee for Victorian Communities definition,

implementing social inclusion implies that people with disabilities should be valued and

treated with dignity and respect in all everyday interactions across all dimensions of

community life. This thesis argues that, in spite of contemporary definitions, disability

policy has remained focused on providing services for eligible people with disabilities,

rather than on the broader systemic and structural issues that prevent social inclusion.

This has been problematic. According to some researchers (Goggin & Newell, 2005),

targeted and programmatic approaches have resulted in fragmentation and reinforced the

marginalisation of people with disabilities rather than increasing social inclusion.

The following section outlines the human rights, social justice and active citizenship

arguments that have influenced the development and implementation of more

contemporary definitions of social inclusion policy.

Human rights, social justice and active citizenship Human rights, social justice and active citizenship have been key concepts that have

explained the rationale for developing and implementing social inclusion policies for

people with disabilities. Citizenship has been described as a “way to rethink questions of

political and social justice” (Hudson & Kane, 2000, p.1) and for the maintenance of

political (Salvaris, 2000), legal (Thornton, 2000), economic (Pixley, 2000) and social

(Higgins & Ramia, 2000) inclusion. Active citizenship encompasses both the rights and

obligations of citizens and the ability of active citizens to exercise their rights and

obligations.

Structural and systemic barriers, however, often prevent people with disabilities from

assuming their citizenship rights and obligations (Clear, 2000; Drake, 1999; Goggin &

Newell, 2005; Swain, 2004). For Goggin and Newell, “… the struggle for a just and civil

29

society – the search for a world in which all belong, participate and receive their share of

resources and recognition – will have people with disability at its heart” (2005, p.196).

They have suggested that a just society rests on the ethical question “Who are the

members of our moral community and whom do we routinely exclude?” (2005, p.206).

Similarly, disability has been described as providing a vehicle for reviewing the

overarching experience of citizenship. Albrecht highlighted the relationship between

theoretical perspectives driving public sector roles and programs, the language of policy

and what successful local implementation for people with disabilities might look like

(Albrecht, 2004). He proposed that the capacity of all citizens to participate should be

strengthened in a number of dimensions and not be reliant on medical interventions or

technology driven enhancements (Barton, 2004; Oliver, 2004). His perspective would be

supported by others who have argued for the identification and removal of social,

economic, built and natural environment barriers that exclude citizen participation

(Marmot & Wilkinson, 2001).

It has been argued that only a model that “secures equal rights and equality of

opportunity for disabled people can affirm and secure their citizenship” (Drake, 1999, p.

36). Further, that the ability to make a difference hinges on policy coherence, scope,

capacity for enforcement, capacity to bring about social and environmental change. For

Drake, equal rights and equality were described as central to policy evaluation and “…the

most appropriate test to use in assessing the value of disability policies is to ask how far

such policies extend (or perhaps restrict) disabled people’s access to citizenship” (Drake

1999, p. 42). Social inclusion for people with disabilities and community engagement

itself has been reconceptualised as an expression of citizenship (Albrecht, 2004). This is

relevant for the study of disability policy where individual agency and community

environments combine to assist or impede implementation.

Active citizenship is underpinned by the idea that citizens have rights. In July 2008,

Australia was one of the first western countries to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights

30

of Persons with Disabilities. In doing so it formalised the link between human rights and

social inclusion:

Australia recognises that persons with disability enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life. Australia declares its understanding that the Convention allows for fully supported or substituted decision-making arrangements, which provide for decisions to be made on behalf of a person, only where such arrangements are necessary, as a last resort and subject to safeguards. (United Nations, 2008)

This ratification was an important step in promoting social inclusion for people with a

disability. However, key questions post ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights

of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations, 2008) remains. They centre on the extent to

which disability policy has promoted a systematic process for achieving inclusion in all

dimensions of local community life and what process for organisational and social

change have been put in place. While human rights, social justice and citizen

participation have been widely promoted as underpinning the principle of social

inclusion, significant concerns about the extent to which this principle has been

implemented for people with disabilities have also been identified (Culham & Nind,

2003; Mansell, 2006). Much of the focus of the citizenship, human rights and social

justice debate has been on declarations, definitions and legislation.

In the foreword to ”Deinstitutionalization and Community Living: Intellectual disability

services in Britain, Scandinavia and the USA”, Valerie Bradley (The then Vice Chair and

Presiding Officer of the US President’s Committee on Mental Retardation) posed critical

questions for the development of more effective and inclusive approaches for local

community planning. These questions remain relevant. While past research has focussed

on whether people are better off living in the community, it is suggested that future

research should focus on:

…whether their lives provide the same opportunities for socialization and inclusion in their communities as for the rest of the population, with all the implications for individually tailored support that that entails … their participation

31

in communities and the extent to which they are participants in the choices that affect their lives. (Mansell and Ericsson, 1996, p.x-xi)

Blackman and Woods noted that public policy often involves conflicting policy goals,

short-term and long-term trade-offs and unforeseen consequences (Blackman & Woods,

2004, pp.47-48). They asserted that the social justice rationale for policy is under threat

from individualism and social fragmentation, where newer individualistic and

managerialist approaches have recast public policy and public management. They argued

that technical improvements to services for individuals can be produced more easily than

systemic and community focused approaches. Blackburn and Woods proposed that while

one-to-one interventions and individual support are valuable, they are not sustainable.

Their point raises the question as to how comprehensively the policy of social inclusion

for people with disabilities in local communities has been implemented and how such

policy has supported comprehensive outcomes.

For the inclusion of people with disabilities in local communities to be a sustainable

policy outcome, a more systematic approach to embedding human rights and social

justice principles and practices in everyday, local settings is required. As Bates and

Davis note, “As long as many learning disabled people lack a decent home, satisfactory

income, good health, meaningful employment and freedom from discrimination and

abuse they are unlikely to view or be viewed as an asset to their neighbourhoods” (Bates

& Davis, 2004, p.205).

The significant implication of adopting social inclusion as a disability policy objective is

that the changes required necessarily go beyond service system reform. They need to be

applied through change programs in all the dimensions of community settings so that

social, economic, built and natural aspects are redesigned to include people of all abilities

as a matter of course (Bigby & Fyffe, 2006). This challenge was summarised as follows

“…disability is not simply about diversity. It is also about commonality – not a

commonality of embodied experiences but a commonality of purpose, in the struggle for

a more inclusive society” (Priestley, 2001, p.240).

32

A study conducted by Gretz (1992) highlighted the importance of services supporting

participation opportunities and the benefits of those opportunities being open to people of

all abilities and common interests. Gretz analysed the experience of eight people with

severe disabilities who left an institution to live in a community near Pittsburgh. The

arrangements for staff support, training and personal care were reviewed. It was found

that while these people were able to continue living in the community, the question of

whether people were living in the client world or the citizen world remained. Through a

series of case studies, she established that citizen participation cannot happen without a

supportive backdrop, service provider change and genuine welcome and invitations to

participate in the local community.

Gretz found that where disabled and non-disabled people were engaged in a common

activity, bodily differences were not important. This contrasted the situation where

groups of disabled people visited the centre together as a segregated group. It was argued

that the social model of disability provided language and ideas that helped develop more

inclusive policies whereas the normalisation approach was limited. Limitations included

that disability professionals were unchallenged by leisure centre staff and that

assimilation would not guard against oppression. On the other hand it is arguable that

structural and systemic change could take account of the diversity of circumstances

experienced by people with disabilities. There are, for example, significant differences

between the needs of people with physical impairments compared with those who have

an intellectual disability.

The study found that systematic and increased attention needed to be given to the

impairment type and complexity, life stage, gender, cultural and indigenous backgrounds

of people with disabilities in local settings (Barton, 2004, p.288). If this were a normal

part of planning for local settings, then Finkelstein’s (2004) contention that disability is a

socially caused phenomenon, and that people with disabilities have experienced

disadvantage and exclusion in employment, housing, education, civil rights,

transportation and negotiation of the built environment, could be addressed.

33

Similarly, Van de Ven et al. (2005) critiqued earlier work on integration as being too

focussed on the adaption of people with disabilities into community settings such as

community based accommodation, social networks or “productive” activities. They

referred instead to Dijkers’ typology of community integration. This typology defined

inclusion in terms of access to age, gender and culturally appropriate roles, status and

activities, interdependence in decision making, productive behaviours and multivariate

relationships with family friends and others in natural community settings (Van de Ven et

al., 2004, p.312).

This symbiotic relationship between individual and community supported change was

identified in Bigby and Fyffe’s (2006) analysis of the tensions between institutional

closure and deinstitutionalisation for people with intellectual disabilities. They

highlighted the need to deliberately link individual support and social change. The

experience of deinstitutionalisation in Victoria demonstrated that there needed to be

equitable access to facilities, activities, social roles and relationships on a par with those

available to other citizens to fully achieve human rights and social justice. Researching

the experiences from two institutional closures demonstrated the need for both micro and

macro strategies to implement community inclusion.

While legislation has defined the extent of citizenship, material conditions and prevailing

political ideologies have been influential in determining its realisation. In this respect,

the more recent reconceptualisation of people with disabilities as consumers has the

potential to have produced exclusive rather than inclusive outcomes (Drake, 1999).

When people with disabilities became consumers, even if they were directing their own

funding, emphasis has been placed on individual change, therapy and compensatory

service provision, rather than changing the social conditions that have defined disability

and affected social inclusion.

Addressing broader structural and systemic barriers is critical for active citizenship to be

achieved for people with disabilities. It is arguable that when exclusion for people with

disability has been normalised through social, cultural, legislative, educational, economic

34

and legal contexts, significant adverse outcomes have been experienced. These have

included the likelihood of poverty, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, dependence on

paid carers for assistance in the tasks of daily living, difficulties in obtaining education,

employment and access to affordable accommodation. It has reduced access to public

transport, public buildings, information, home ownership, and opportunities for getting

married or having children (Goggin & Newell, 2005). In the next section the social and

economic influences associated with social inclusion for people with disabilities and the

broader community are reviewed.

Social and economic influences

Social inclusion has been identified as beneficial to people of all abilities in the

community and as a key element in achieving health and well being on both an individual

and community wide basis. Marmot and Wilkinson (1998, 2001) outlined ten different

but interrelated aspects of the social determinants of health linked to concepts of social

inclusion and community participation. These included the need for policies to prevent

people from falling into long term disadvantage, the social and psychological

environment’s impact on health, the importance of a good early childhood environment,

the impact of work on health, problems of unemployment and job insecurity, the role of

friendship and social cohesion, the effects of alcohol and other drugs, the need to ensure

access to supplies of healthy food and the need for healthier transport systems.

Based on the premise that people’s social and economic circumstances strongly impact

on their health, Marmot and Wilkinson argued that health at home, work and the

community is improved by friendship, good social relations and strong supportive

networks. They also argued that there are protective impacts on health and identified the

significant impact that economic status has had on access to emotional and practical

social support. They noted that poverty can contribute to social exclusion and isolation.

Given the connection between disability and poverty, their comments are relevant.

35

The literature has suggested that supportive environments work by providing mechanisms

that result in an increased sense of control and lead to protective buffers that improve

physical and mental well-being (Bondevik & Skogstad, 1996; Department of Human

Services, 2001; Emerson & Hatton, 2008; Marmot & Wilkinson, 2001; Pearlin, 1985;

Putnam, 2000). Premature mortality is decreased through the exchange of mutual

benefits and a facilitated sense of identity and access to information and services. It is

also argued that these individual benefits flow on to a broader social level through the

creation of interconnections. These connections create a civil society that in turn gives

policy makers and program developers a greater capacity to advance social agendas

(Farrar & Inglis, 1996).

The link between social support and well being was also identified by Bondevik and

Skogstad (1996) who argued that “…social relationships contribute to well-being by

providing a sense of security and opportunities for companionship and intimacy. People

who lack social relationships have frequently been found to be vulnerable to a variety of

emotional problems” (pp.181-182). Their study compared two groups of individuals (80

years and over) with respect to the experience of loneliness. One group was in residential

care and the other in the community. They highlighted the distinction between social

isolation and loneliness. In their study, the former reflected few contacts with family and

community while the latter indicated unwelcome feelings of the lack or loss of

companionship. They found that there were no significant differences in loneliness

between the two groups, except that residents of residential care reported lower feelings

of loneliness where contacts were ongoing with former neighbours and frequency of

contact did not vary the feelings. For community based older people the frequency of

contact with family and neighbours was a significant differentiator of feelings.

Similarly, Emerson and Hattons (2008) compared 169 adults with intellectual disabilities

living in cluster housing with 741 adults with intellectual disabilities living in dispersed

housing. They found that participants supported in cluster housing were more likely to

live in larger settings, be supported by fewer staff, be exposed to greater

changes/inconsistencies in living arrangements and more seclusion, sedation, physical

36

restraint and polypharmacy and participate in fewer and a more restricted range of

leisure, social and friendship activities. The study concluded that there were few

potential benefits associated with living in cluster housing and that cluster housing

schemes offer a poorer quality of care and quality of life than dispersed housing schemes.

In a related study, Goggin and Newell (2005) questioned whether there is any significant

difference between the old style large institutions and smaller group homes in

circumstances where people are not necessarily accepted as members of the local

community and where the health and well being benefits of community based living were

not clear.

Through a review of the epidemiological literature Berkman (1985) identified evidence

that social support is beneficial to health and that social isolation leads to physical and

mental ill health. Similarly, Stansfeld (2001) asserted that the theoretical underpinnings

of social support are derived from Bowlby’s study of attachment and separation in early

life in 1969 and the quality and type of support provided by the network members was

particularly important. Defined in this way, social support involves interactions and

transactions between people and reciprocity which is good for their health. He argued

that underlying personality factors influenced the ability to maintain, nurture and develop

relationships, but that where it exists; social support has a direct and buffering effect on

health.

Berkman and Syme (1979) constructed a social network index and their findings were

subsequently confirmed in a number of other studies. For example, Stansfeld traced the

evidence that social support impacts on health from the Alameda County study and noted

that “Social support may not only have a protective effect in preventing or decreasing the

risk of development of illness but may also be helpful for people who have to adjust to, or

cope with, the stress of a chronic illness” (Stansfeld, 2001, p.164). Similarly, social

support has proved to be successful in dealing with chronic disabling diseases such as

arthritis and limiting secondary depression. He concluded that social support operates on

an individual and societal level with social integration impacting on the whole

37

community and social cohesion contributing to the way people and their health are

valued.

Challenging the emphasis placed on economic outcomes in public policy implementation,

Emerson and Hatton argued that “…subjective well-being or happiness should be seen as

the yardstick by which the impact of economic and social policies should be evaluated”

(Emerson & Hatton, 2008, p. 143). Their conclusions were based on a study of 1,273

English adults with intellectual disabilities and builds on a sparse research base. They

found that most people with intellectual disabilities expressed relatively high levels of

happiness with their lives and that this was only at marginally lower levels than the

feelings of all adults in the general population. Feelings of happiness were found to be

associated with the frequency of contact with friends also experiencing an intellectual

disability but friendships with people without an intellectual disability were unrelated.

Emerson and Hatton’s views corresponded with a participative study conducted by

McVilly, Stancliffe, Parmenter and Burton-Smith (2006) which reported the friendship

experiences and aspirations of adults with intellectual disabilities. In this study,

participants defined their needs of friendship, characteristics of best friends, why best

friends were important and their most valued aspects of friendship. They also identified

problematic issues, barriers to maintaining friendship and making new friends and

assistance that would have helped. The role of a shared disability based identity to

friendship was important to participants. They also said that a sense of comfort and

equality made relationships easier to form and maintain. While personal characteristics

such as age, shyness and fear of getting hurt created some barriers, greater priorities such

as the availability of transport, facilitation of telephone, letter writing or email were

identified as more significant barriers. The study found that, consistent with findings

from the general population “…people with intellectual disabilities consider issues

pertaining to friendship to be among the most important concerns in their life” (McVilly

et al., 2006, p.705).

38

The literature also identified that the characteristics and functions of supportive

environments worked through the facilitation and coordination of relationships. As a

result, loneliness and isolation were reduced when friendships, relationships and social

support were available (Carney, 2001). This sense of collectivity promoted well being.

Supportive environments established a sense of belonging and worth, physical and mental

health protective factors, the exchange of advice, services, access to new social contacts

and direct provision of aid, services and tangible economic assistance. This was a

significant issue for people with disabilities in local communities and one of the

considerations that resulted in deinstitutionalisation policies.

Bruhn and Phillips (1987) noted that people gained sustenance from their social

relationships and social environment. As a result, their research has focused on the effect

of social support on health and how to quantify social support and compare it to life

change and stress. Their contribution to the literature was to provide a theoretical basis

for socially supportive behaviour. They argued that Maslow’s concept of basic needs

provided a theoretical framework for understanding social support and that the ability to

give and receive social support is continually growing. This can be understood by

Erikson’s eight stages of development. Bruhn and Phillips concluded that learning social

support required themes such as “faith, autonomy, affiliation, anticipation (hope), self-

esteem and trust” (Bruhn & Phillips, 1987, p.227) and that future research should focus

on process rather than a static analysis of support.

In relation to interactional aspects of support Pearlin argued that “… support takes place

in continuing relationships in which the giving and getting functions are less clearly

separated and, in fact, may be reciprocally exchanged” (Pearlin, 1985, p.49). He defined

support functions as being esteem support, status support, informational support,

instrumental support, social companionship and motivational support.

Another aspect of the function of supportive environments was the ways in which

participants were able to create identities, a sense of belonging and worth and exchange

mutual benefits. This links back to the earlier argument regarding the characteristics of

39

supportive environments that engaged people in a social context that improved their

individual situation and strengthened the community. It is consistent with Carney’s

argument that:

… social self is constituted through participation in community, friendship, and family relationships. This is the raw material from which people shape or develop their sense of social identity, and public activities; an identity that is shaped by the life course of the person and those around them … But life courses are marked by interdependence rather than independence, and are reciprocally linked. (2001, p.58)

Several studies of people with intellectual disabilities at varying stages of life and cultural

backgrounds have confirmed the significant impact that friendship, or its corollary,

loneliness have on behaviour, social outcomes and happiness. For example, friendship

has been identified as important for children’s psychological, social and academic

development and provides a context for developing social strategies for problem solving

and conflict resolution. From pre-school on, children with developmental disabilities

experienced difficulties forming friendships, perhaps with the exception of Down

syndrome children. Reported rates of loneliness were high for children with

developmental disabilities and families pivotal in coaching and encouraging children to

interact and welcome friends into their homes to model relationship development.

Howell et al. (2007) argued that while disability type, gender, cognitive and adaptive

skills at age 3 years were not necessarily predictors of loneliness that children with more

externalising behaviours were more likely to report feelings of loneliness in middle

childhood. Similarly, Carter et al. (2005) found that adolescents with intellectual

disabilities were also likely to gain academic, functional and social benefits from the

exchange of social support and gain increased quality of life. However, their study also

found that high school students with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities interacted

infrequently with their peers, particularly without intervention. Whereas families were

identified in Howell’s study to have a role in increasing social contact for younger

children, Carter’s study found that educators needed to take deliberate steps to facilitate

40

social interaction among students and that peer buddy systems may provide a mechanism

for increasing peer support.

A study of older women with intellectual disabilities by LeRoy et al. (2004) demonstrated

the cumulative impact that loneliness and exclusion has over the life course. LeRoy et al.

interviewed 29 women over 50 years of age in Ireland and the United States and found

that all women were poor, had between 2 – 4 people in their immediate circle and these

were mainly paid support staff. They were mostly reliant on others for transport, few had

a regular exercise regime and most had a weight problem and little control over their diet.

For many in this study, the lack of contact with families was a source of sadness and their

limited leisure activities were primarily directed by staff.

Harris’ 2003 study of disabled refugees and asylum seekers highlighted the multiple

barriers that arise as a result of their disabilities, lack of access to refugee services,

language barriers and forced dependency on friends and family. Harris acknowledged

that while many of these barriers were also experienced by non-refugees and asylum

seekers, their problems were exacerbated by simultaneous barriers that result in poverty,

inadequate housing, inaccessible social services. One participant summarised this as “All

doors are closed to us” (Harris, 2003, p.409).

This literature has demonstrated that the implementation of social inclusion policy needs

to respond to contemporary issues such as human rights, social justice, active citizenship

and social and economic influences. The absence of a systemic approach to addressing

these issues in local settings is likely to have an influence on the extent to which a person

with a disability in a local setting will be included.

The experience of disability and social inclusion in the Australian community This section reviews the experience of disability in the Australian community and the

roles and responsibilities of national, state and local government in implementing social

41

inclusion for people with disabilities in local settings. It identifies disability related

legislation, policy and planning and key issues in the implementation process.

The profile of disability in Australia

Disability is a very significant policy issue for all governments in Australia. The most

recent population data available from the Australian Bureau of Statistics publication,

“Disability, Ageing and Carers, Australia: Summary of Findings” (2003) indicate that

one in five people in Australia (3,958,300 or 20 per cent) have a reported disability. The

ABS uses the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health.

Disability is defined as “any limitation, restriction or impairment, which has lasted, or is

likely to last, for at least six months and restricts everyday activities”. These everyday or

“core” (p.2) activities include communication, mobility and self care and include:

� loss of sight (not corrected by glasses or contact lenses);

� loss of hearing where communication is restricted, or an aid to assist with, or

substitute for, hearing is used;

� speech difficulties;

� shortness of breath or breathing difficulties causing restriction;

� chronic or recurrent pain or discomfort causing restriction;

� blackouts, fits, or loss of consciousness;

� difficulty learning or understanding;

� incomplete use of arms or fingers;

� difficulty gripping or holding things;

� incomplete use of feet or legs;

� nervous or emotional condition causing restriction;

� restriction in physical activities or in doing physical work;

� disfigurement or deformity;

� mental illness or condition requiring help or supervision;

� long-term effects of head injury, stroke or other brain damage causing restriction;

42

� receiving treatment or medication for any other long-term conditions or ailments

and still restricted; and

� any other long-term conditions resulting in a restriction.

Four levels of core-activity limitation are determined based on whether a person needs

help, has difficulty, or uses aids or equipment with any of the core activities

(communication, mobility or self care). The overall level of core-activity limitation is

determined by the highest level of limitation in these activities. There are four levels of

limitation. Profound limitations are where the person is unable to do, or always needs

help with, a core-activity task. Severe limitations are where the person sometimes needs

help with a core-activity task, has difficulty understanding or being understood by family

or friends or can communicate more easily using sign language or other non-spoken

forms of communication. Moderate limitations are where the person needs no help but

has difficulty with a core-activity task. Mild limitations are where the person needs no

help and has no difficulty with any of the core-activity tasks. It is important to

understand that even mild limitations mean that a person may use aids and equipment,

cannot easily walk 200 metres, walk up and down stairs without a handrail, easily bend

to pick up an object from the floor, use public transport, can only do so with help or

supervision, needs no help or supervision but has difficulty using public transport.

Figure 1 illustrates the distribution of people with disabilities in Australia.

According to the survey the rate of disability was similar for men (19.8 per cent) and

women (20.1 per cent) and there was little overall change in the rate from 1998 (20.1 per

cent) to 2003 (20.0 per cent). Similarly, there was little change in the rate of severe core

activity limitation from 1998 (6.4 per cent) to 2003 (6.3 per cent).

43

Figure 1 Distribution of people with disabilities in Australia

Reproduced from ABS, 2003, p.4.

Of the 20 per cent of the Australian population experiencing disabilities, 570,500 (14 per

cent) do not have specific limitations or restrictions, 385,900 (10 per cent) have

schooling and employment restrictions only. 1,057,100 (5.36 per cent) experience mild

44

limitations, 700,300 (3.5 per cent) experience moderate limitations, 650,400 (3.3 per

cent) experience severe limitations and 594,100 (3 per cent) experience profound

limitations (ABS, 2003, p.4).

Significant numbers of people with disabilities restricted in their activities of daily living

are now living in households within local communities. This underlines the importance

of implementing effective strategies to increase social inclusion given the different needs

and experiences of people with disabilities based on impairment complexity, gender and

lifestage, cultural and indigenous status.

Life stage is a significant factor in understanding the experience of disability in local

settings. Service and environmental needs change over the life course where, for

example, severe and profound prevalence rates peak in early childhood and school years

and demand for early intervention and school environment based services are high. In

contrast, psychiatric disabilities may emerge from adolescence on. Disability prevalence

increases with age and reflects risk of workplace injury and in later years reflects an

increase in musculoskeletal and other physical disabilities (Australian Institute of Health

and Welfare, 2007, p.156). This has significant implications for implementing social

inclusion for people with disabilities in local settings. Apart from impairment type and

complexity, factors such as gender, lifestage cultural and indigenous background demand

a finer level of planning and flexibility.

Prevalence studies also indicate that by 2010, the total number of Australians with severe

or a core activity limitation is projected to increase to 1.5 million. Between 1981 and

2003 there was a trend towards people with severe or profound disabilities living in the

community rather than in, with this trend strongest in people aged 5 – 29 years

(Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2008, pp.2-3). The fact that there are no

more recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics beyond 2003 is significant in

itself. It is limiting to develop and implement policies without contemporary data.

45

Disability in Australia is associated with economic disadvantage as evidenced by lower

formal educational achievement, higher unemployment and lower incomes for this

population group (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2003). While levels of disability in the

population have remained relatively stable and relatively equal levels between men and

women, there have been increases in life expectancy for people with disability as a result

of medical advances (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2007, p.153). These

trends are likely to accelerate given Australia’s ageing population.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics survey data indicated that people with disability

compare unfavourably with the whole population in educational achievement and labour

force participation and this is reflected in income levels. Thirty per cent of people with

disabilities aged 15-64 years had completed year 12 secondary education compared with

49 per cent for the same age cohort without a disability. Similarly, 13 per cent of people

with disabilities aged 15-64 years had completed a bachelor degree compared with 20 per

cent for the same age cohort without a disability (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2003,

p.5).

When people with disabilities over 18 years of age were experiencing a national

unemployment rate of 8.6 per cent, and a participation rate of 53 per cent in 2003, the

rates for people without a disability were 5 per cent and 81 per cent respectively. The

medium gross personal income per week of people with a reported disability was $255

aged 15-64 compared with $501 for those without a disability. The medium gross

personal income per week decreased with increasing severity of disability and was lowest

for those with a profound core-activity limitation.

The survey illustrates the diverse profiles of people with disability based on a

combination of impairments and limitations and the increasing proportion of people with

disabilities living in local communities. It identifies the inequity experienced by people

with disabilities in relation to education and employment which results in structural

poverty. It highlights the necessity for public policy relating to disability to articulate

46

issues and solutions based on a more detailed understanding of impairment and

complexity.

In Australia, a commitment has been given to developing a “National Disability

Strategy” and creating structural change (Disability Investment Group, 2009). The

proposal for a national disability insurance scheme has been presented as one of the

options to provide funding certainty for people with disabilities and their carers. The

national government also funds other research and evaluation, training and development

and peak bodies. National expenditure on these services in 2006/07 was $4.42 billion

with Victoria receiving $1.19 billion - almost half this expenditure was allocated to

accommodation support (Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and

Indigenous Affairs, 2008).

The Victorian government provides information, planning and capacity building,

individual support, targeted services and residential accommodation support. In 2008-09

14,000 Victorians with disabilities were assisted by the state government (Department of

Human Services, 2009, p.23). Some $86.6 million was spent on information, planning

and capacity building, $85.7 million on targeted services, $481.3 million on individual

support and $581.4 million on residential accommodation support (Department of

Human Services, 2009, p.141-2).

In addition to people with a reported disability, the survey demonstrates that a further

4,149,000 (21 per cent) of Australians have had a long term health condition, even if it

did not restrict their activities. When combined with the number of people with a

reported disability, this demonstrates that 41 per cent of Australians would benefit from

increased population based planning and changes to the social, economic, natural and

built environments in the local settings where they live to enable improved physical,

mental and social well-being.

This disability profile highlights a number of salient points. The first is that, given the

percentage of the population with a permanent or ongoing disability, the last survey of

47

disability, ageing and carers only occurred in 2003. This does not provide adequate or

current data as the basis for evidence based policy development and implementation.

The second is that with at least a quarter of the population affected by a disability, there

is a strong need to have a better population based understanding of various cohort groups

such as life stage, impairment type, gender, cultural and indigenous status and

geographical location. The third is that the data show a significant disparity between the

education and employment outcomes for people with disabilities compared with the rest

of the population. Analysis of this data presents a compelling case for more focused

effort on the implementation of social inclusion policy that will enable individuals,

groups and communities to be more active and supported to participate.

Contemporary public policy, planning and implementation responses to disability and social inclusion

The legislative and policy context is critical to understanding both the study context and

the emergent action to increase comprehensive implementation of social inclusion for

people with disabilities in local settings. The Australian Constitution of 1901 establishes

a federal system of government and is the context within which public policy, services

and programs for people with disabilities are generated and implemented. In this system,

powers are distributed between the national government and the six states (Western

Australia, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania) while

the three Territories (the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory and Norfolk

Island) have self-government arrangements. The Constitution defines the law-making

powers between the national government and the states and territories.

In addition to national, state and territory governments, local governments are elected

bodies that provide planning and services for a specific geographic area within each state.

As such, local governments are a third tier of government. The Victorian Constitution

Act 1975 recognises local government. There are 79 local government authorities in

Victoria which are bound by the provisions of the Local Government Act 1989.

Although local government has been in existence in Australia for more than 160 years, it

48

is not recognised in the national constitution. This means that local government is not a

formal partner through the National Disability Strategy. National, state and local

governments all share responsibility for establishing or enacting legislation, policy,

services and programs for all Australians, including people with disabilities, but their

roles and responsibilities vary.

The following section describes the extent to which the policy focus on social inclusion

has become embedded in roles and responsibilities in relation to Australian legislation,

policy and planning and related contextual issues. It highlights that the research problem

pivots on the need to increase the implementation of social inclusion for people with

disabilities in local settings.

National government roles and responsibilities

The national government has significant roles and responsibilities in establishing anti-

discrimination legislation, administering the Home and Community Care program for

older people and people with disabilities. The Home and Community Care program is a

joint national, state and territory cost-shared program with the Australian Government

providing 60 per cent of funds and the states and territories providing 40 per cent. It also

facilitates negotiations with state and territory governments regarding disability planning

and resource allocation for services. It has responsibly in portfolios such as employment,

training and post secondary training and for funding for public and social housing that

impact on people with disabilities living in local settings. In addition, the national

government is responsible for data collected through census and surveys.

Legislation

The national government established the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and it

remains a critical piece of legislation for people with disabilities. This Act protects

individuals across Australia from direct and indirect discrimination in many parts of

49

public life, such as employment, education and access to premises. It makes harassment

on the basis of disability against the law and protects friends, relatives and others from

discrimination because of their connection to someone with a disability. It also

established a complaints and conciliation process to address breaches.

The Home and Community Care Act 1985 established the Home and Community Care

Program to provide community care services to frail aged and younger people with

disabilities, and their carers. The program provides services such as domestic assistance,

personal care, professional allied health care and nursing services, for younger people

with a disability and their carers to be more independent at home and in the community.

Home and Community Care program funding aims to reduce inappropriate admission to

residential care. The Home and Community Care program, and other specialist services

provided through state government, are often combined and people with disabilities will

often receive a mix of services funded by different tiers of government.

In Victoria, many Home and Community Care services are delivered through local

government with additional funds being contributed by councils. Specialist disability

services are also provided through the Commonwealth State/Territory Disability

Agreement or delivered via the same or different non government organisations.

From July 2011, as part of reforms endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments,

all funding and responsibility for the provision of Home and Community Care program

services will be taken over by the national government in all states except Victoria.

Policy and planning

National service planning formally commenced in 1991 when the national government

entered into a multilateral service agreement with the states and territories. This

agreement was known as the Commonwealth State/Territory Disability Agreement

(CSTDA). The first CSTDA 1991-97 defined the roles and responsibilities of the

national, state and territory governments in the delivery of specialist disability services.

50

Each state and territory subsequently enacted complementary legislation to the

Commonwealth Disability Services Act 1986. This ensured that disability services in all

states and territories would adhere to the principles and objectives enshrined in the DSA

as well as moving, over time, to outcome based funding, service agreements and regular

service reviews. It moved from an emphasis on specialist services to improving access to

generic services. The objective was to increase service accountability and consumer

focus in state-based services as the DSA had done in national services.

Under the first CSTDA, the national government undertook responsibility for

administering employment services and labour market programs. The state and territory

Governments undertook responsibility for funding accommodation, community support,

community access, respite and other support services. The CSTDA provided for joint

national and state responsibility for advocacy, research and development and involved

both jurisdictions in planning, priority setting and program evaluation.

Based on the inadequacy and inconsistency of disability services data, the CSTDA

responded by setting out broad data requirements. Subsequently, the Australian Institute

of Health and Welfare (AIHW) developed a minimum data set comprising core non-

financial data to be collected by the national and state governments to build up a

comprehensive picture of disability services.

The second CSTDA 1997-2002 resulted in the establishment of Bilateral Agreements

between the national, states and territories to complement the single multilateral

agreement. It also provided a mechanism for the national government to work in

partnership with individual state and territory governments to address disability issues of

local importance and joint interest.

The third CSTDA 2002-07 featured both a preamble and five key policy priorities which

introduced the principle of partnership and inter government collaboration. The

agreement sought to strengthen access to generic services for people with disabilities,

51

government linkages, individuals, families and carers, long-term strategies to respond to

and manage demand for specialist disability services and accountability, performance

reporting and quality.

Talks on the fourth agreement were initiated by a joint meeting of national, state and

territories ministers in February 2008. During 2008, the Council of Australian

Governments endorsed a new framework for federal financial arrangements, titled the

Intergovernmental Agreement on Federal Arrangements. Five national agreements were

established within this framework including the National Disability Agreement which

replaced the CSTDA from July 2009. In January 2009, the national government

announced that the CSTDA would be replaced by the National Disability Strategy. In

November 2009 the Disability Investment Group released a report suggesting new ways

of funding and structurally addressing disability and social exclusion (Disability

Investment Group, 2009).

Key national government issues

CSTDA plans from 1991 highlight key issues for national, state and territory disability

planning. These issues included that data gathered by the states and territories are not

comparable. Nor does data estimate unmet need or support strategic planning. There has

been little improvement in jurisdictional understanding of the nature, quality and

durability of outcomes for people with disability accessing CSTDA services. Service

development and provision is still impeded by contested funding arrangements and

responsibilities. Interfaces with other program areas are lacking in policy and practice.

The framework for achieving whole-of-government coordination and collaboration

around access to generic services is insufficient; and quality assurance across

jurisdictions is variable.

According to submissions taken by the Australian Senate Community Affairs Committee

Review of the CSTDA (2007), the Victorian Office of the Public Advocate argued that

the vision contained in the preamble was “appropriately aspirational” but that the five

52

strategic policy priorities “appear modest in comparison”. In practice the priorities “seem

to be mainly preoccupied with just one aspect of the fourth priority: demand

management”.

Further, the Public Advocate argued that:

While progress can be seen on some of the incremental policy priorities, the Office is concerned that the vision encapsulated within the CSTDA preamble remains elusive. The other parts of the CSTDA that establish the national framework are not directly related to the vision of the preamble. For example, while the term 'rights' is used seven times within the preamble as an important remedy for the situation of people with disabilities, the rest of the agreement fails to use the term. (Australian Senate Community Affairs Committee, 2007, p.262)

There were 29 recommendations from the Senate Community Affairs Committee Review

of the CSTDA review. In summary they included that agreement partners should work

toward more consistent national funding levels, assessment processes and supports based

on recognition of the differential experience of disability on individuals.

Recommendations addressed gaps in strategic planning and proposed that new ways of

funding services were required.

State government roles and responsibilities

The state government has significant roles and responsibilities in establishing legislation

to guide the delivery of disability services. In addition, all state government Departments

are responsible for policy and planning that impact on people with disabilities.

The state government has responsibility for multiple portfolios that impact on the daily

lives of people with disabilities including planning and community development, justice,

innovation industry and regional development, human services, sustainability and

environment, education and early childhood development, transport and housing.

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Legislation

The Victorian state government passed the Disability Act in 2006. It replaced the

Intellectually Disabled Persons’ Services Act 1986 and the Disability Services Act 1991

and it commenced operation on 1 July 2007. It complies with the Commonwealth

Disability Discrimination Act 1992. The purpose of this Act was to enact a new

legislative scheme for people with a disability and to reaffirm and strengthen their rights

and responsibilities. The Act was based on the principles of human rights (Department of

Human Services, 2007).

It aims to advance community inclusion and participation for people with disabilities,

promote whole of government approaches and facilitate planning, funding and service

provision. It has a strong service orientation and aims to promote and protect the rights

of persons accessing disability services, support high quality disability services, increase

consumer accountability and ensure that the efficient and effective use of public funds.

The Act recognises the existence of the State Plan and requires preparation of a plan from

1 January 2013 and every four years thereafter. It is specific that this plan must identify

the needs of people with disabilities, establish support goals, priorities, objectives and

policy priorities and strategies. It also specifies that regard must be given to the different

needs of people with different types of disabilities and reflect the different strategies in

response.

Policy and planning

Policy and planning for services and programs for people with disability occurs within all

state government departments, however, state wide service and development planning

occurs through the Departments of Human Services and Community Planning and

Development (DPCD) respectively.

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The Department of Human Services Disability Services Division was responsible for

initiating the State Plan which was developed following consultation with people with a

disability, their parents, families and carers, service providers, community groups, local

government, state and national government departments, statutory authorities and other

members of the broader community.

As a result of consultation, the plan adopted three policy goals in relation to pursuing

individual lifestyles, building inclusive communities and leading the way. It committed

to working in partnership with and between other Government Departments and statutory

authorities, service providers in the non-government sector (including for-profit and not-

for-profit organisations), local governments, community groups, businesses and industry

leaders, the Commonwealth Government and the broader community.

Five priority strategies were identified and all had a strong social inclusion flavour. As a

result, implementation has focussed on reorienting disability supports, developing strong

foundations for disability supports, promoting and protecting people’s rights,

strengthening local communities and making public services accessible (Department of

Human Services, 2002).

Given the focus of this thesis, strategic priority 4, Strengthening Local Communities, is

of key interest. In the original implementation plan from 2002-2005, it was identified

that this priority would be achieved by a number of actions. These included to support

ccommunity awareness, the formation of stronger partnerships with local governments,

support for community strengthening initiatives, increased community transport options,

increased mechanisms for participation in arts, cultural, sport, tourism and leisure

activities, establishment of a companion card scheme and opportunities to attend the 2006

Commonwealth Games (Department of Human Services, 2002a).

In the subsequent implementation plan 2006-2008, actions under strategic priority four

were described in terms of encouraging and educating communities to strengthen

community capacity to reduce barriers and to respond to the needs and aspirations of

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people with a disability across all areas of community life. An Office for Disability was

created to lead policy and action plans. A range of specific programs to facilitate

community awareness and resources for community action were provided. In particular,

partnerships were developed with local government to facilitate these initiatives.

The Department of Human Services Disability Services Division has responsibility to

fund specialist providers across the non-government sector to provide direct support and

care for people with an intellectual, physical, sensory and neurological disability, and

acquired brain injury in Victoria. The Division also provides some care and support

services to people with a range of disabilities and all funded services are bound by the

provisions of the Disability Act 2006. The policy and planning work generated from this

Division is consistent with the aims of the proposed National Disability Strategy and

involves service planning, quality and capacity development and implementation of the

State Plan.

Funding for the Metro and RuralAccess programs is allocated from the Disability

Division based on the State Plan priority Strategy 4. These are key program initiatives to

support implementation of the State Plan. Metro and RuralAccess workers are based in

local government and engage in community development work to increase community

awareness. They facilitate local change, participate in local planning, develop projects,

create participation opportunities for people with disabilities and promote coordination

between disability supports, local government, community organisations and local

communities.

In addition, the Department of Human Service Aged Care Division5 has responsibility to

plan, fund and monitor services for older people, people with a functional disability and

the carers of both target groups through the Home and Community Care program. The

policy and planning work generated from this Division, however, is primarily focused on

older people.

5 This Division was moved to the new Department of Health when Department of Human Services was split in 2009.

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DPCD was established to link Government planning with community development. “A

Fairer Victoria 2008: Strong People Strong Communities” is a key state government

policy document and outlines a whole of Government social policy action plan to address

disadvantage and promote inclusion and participation (Department of Premier and

Cabinet: 2008). People with disabilities have been identified as a disadvantaged group

within “A Fairer Victoria” and a variety of initiatives have been funded through this plan

to increase individualised support through expanded packages for independent living and

at key transition points such as school to work.

The Office for Disability was established within DPCD in 2006 to provide policy advice

and support to the Minister for Community Services to implement a coordinated whole-

of-government response to disability. The Office also has responsibility to support the

Victorian Disability Advisory Council, the development and implementation of disability

action plans and programs and activities that will support the aims of the Office.

The Office's aim is to encourage and influence Victorian Government policy and

activities to improve outcomes for people with a disability and to deal with barriers to

participation in our communities and progress the vision and goals of the Victorian State

Plan 2002 - 2012 and the mandate of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities

Act 2006. 6

Local Government roles and responsibilities

Local government has significant roles and responsibilities for planning in local settings

and is an identified partner in the State Plan. The Department of Human Services

Disability Services Division has also had an ongoing relationship with the peak local

government body, the Municipal Association of Victoria.

6 Following the election of a Liberal-National Party Coalition Government in Victoria in 2010, the Office for Disability will be moving to the Department of Human Services.

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The functions of local governments vary across the state but most have roles such as

statutory and strategic planning, community planning, safety planning, human service

delivery, leisure and libraries services and or planning, urban design, engineering

services, environment planning and local laws enforcement. These are either delivered

directly through local government or contracted providers. As such, Victorian local

governments are pivotal partners in implementing the State Plan to increase the inclusion

of people with disabilities in local settings.

Legislation

The Victorian Constitution Act 1975 (Part 2A) established the role of local government as

“a distinct and essential tier of government consisting of democratically elected councils

having the powers that the Parliament considers necessary to ensure the peace, order and

good government of each municipal district”.

While local governments are bound to comply with national and state legislation such as

the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and Disability Act 2006, they are also bound by

the Local Government Act 1989. This Act defines required roles of Victorian councils

including that they take community needs into account, provide leadership and advocate

and foster community cohesion and active participation in civic life. The Public Health

and Wellbeing Act 2008 also defines the function of a council under this Act as

protecting, improving and promoting public health and wellbeing by supporting the

health of all community members and their capacity to achieve improved health. See

Appendix A for details on the legislative roles of local government.

In addition, the activities of local government in relation to planning and building, roads

and parking, services and facilities for children, young people, adults and older adults,

waste management, animal management and local laws require compliance with other

relevant national and state legislation. When combined, these legislative references

provide local governments with a clear mandate to engage in planning, facilitating and

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advocating for the whole community with particular focus on the interests of vulnerable

groups, including people with disabilities.

Policy and planning

Local government authorities enact their governance responsibilities in a number of ways

including through the establishment of a council plan, municipal strategic statement,

municipal public health and wellbeing plan. These are required under state government

legislation and are usually based on input from councillors, council officers, local

stakeholders and community members. In addition to these mandated plans, local

governments develop a wide range of policies and plans based on community needs or in

response to other national, state legislation, policy or community based initiatives.

Increasingly, policies and plans are developed and implemented in collaboration with

national or state government, local stakeholders and community members.

Over the last decade, many local government authorities have initiated community

planning processes to strengthen planning, improve responsiveness to local communities,

provide increased opportunities for civic participation and increase the capacity for

evidence based advocacy. These initiatives are important for the implementation of state

government social inclusion policy in local settings. They are important because

planning based on community needs will result in the needs of specific population groups

in local settings, such as the needs of people with disabilities, being documented and

understood. It means that mechanisms for local community members to participate in

civic processes may already be in progress and relevant partnerships and planning that

could coordinate local effort may be in place.

In addition, public health planning in local governments has progressively enhanced

traditional epidemiological models based on interventions such as immunisation and food

safety. It is now required to consider the impact that environments have on the health

and well being of community members. This is characterised as a social model of health

which recognises that social, economic, built and natural environments impact on

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community members in local settings. This shift is significant for disability planning as

there is synergy between the social model of health and the social model of disability and

environments are considered to significantly assist or impede inclusion in both.

The effectiveness of contemporary jurisdiction and policy on structural barriers to social inclusion

In terms of contemporary jurisdictional responsibilities for disability, the national

government has established a rights and service legislative basis for policy with the

Disability Discrimination Act 1992, Home and Community Care Act 1986 and Disability

Services Act 1986. Signing the UN Declaration of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

furthers the legislative context for supporting social inclusion. While coordinating

service planning was the central focus of the former Commonwealth State and Territories

Disability Agreement, the new National Disability Plan widens the relevance of national

and state jurisdictional interventions beyond service planning and delivery. National

programs for employment services, post secondary training and funding for public

housing take the needs of people with disabilities into account. But national population

data collection through the ABS is not reported in local area boundaries (Australian

Bureau of Statistics, 2003) and state government service data are not readily available.

From a legislative perspective, Victorian state government legislation corresponds with

the national legislative framework. The Disability Services Act 2006 addresses service

related rights and responsibilities. The State Plan addresses goals and strategies to move

toward increased social inclusion. The state government addresses social inclusion for

people with disabilities in policies arising from a range of portfolio commitments.

Local government authorities are not formally recognised in national, state and territory

responses to disability planning and service delivery. Yet local government has

jurisdiction for aspects of planning, regulation and service delivery that impact on people

with disabilities in community settings all the time. These include planning and delivery

for strategic and statutory matters, human services, health services, community safety,

60

urban design, engineering services, local laws and environmental planning. Local

governments in Victoria take up these jurisdictional roles through the Local Government

Act 1989, Public Health and Well Being Act 2009 and a number of other state

government acts that require local government to be the regulator.

Within these jurisdictional boundaries, the extent to which current policy has

incorporated the principles of social inclusion is varied. While legislation and policy at

national and state government levels reflects the language of social inclusion, it has failed

to back up rhetoric with quantified standards, population analysis and research or

evaluation. Population data, service data and surveys that are collected and analysed are

not routinely communicated at a local government area level. Nor do they necessarily

contribute to local area planning. In local areas, the experience of social inclusion is

variable as in Victoria there are 79 local government authorities with considerable

difference in population size and density, diversity and budget capacity.

Current policy has developed some base for the implementation of social inclusion but

lacks specific strategies or mechanisms to effect systemic and structural implementation

in local settings. National planning remains largely service oriented and standards or

indicators of social inclusion across all the dimensions of community life are yet to be

identified. This reduces the opportunity for targeted interventions to improve social

inclusion implementation or to measure and develop trends over time. Similarly, the

absence of accurate, timely and comprehensive data has also diminished the capacity to

identify specific interventions in local settings. The State Plan focus on service recipients

leaves the majority of people with disability out of structured planning to implement

social inclusion.

In this respect, current legislative and policy settings mitigate against a universal

approach to implementing social inclusion for all people with disabilities. The lack of

focus on population data regarding impairment type and complexity exacerbates this

situation. Increased consideration of the impact that life stage, gender, culture and

indigenous status have on people with disabilities would lead to more responsive

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interventions. It is not so much that legislation and policy fail to address social inclusion

for people with disabilities. It is more that the current jurisdictional boundaries, policy

contributions and strategies are fragmented and mechanisms to increase coordination are

not in place. It is not that policy fails to recognise the dimensions of inclusion that need

to change, rather that mechanisms are not in place to guarantee cross portfolio

collaboration or problem solving. The impact of this in local settings is that social

inclusion is likely to be implemented in variable ways. This works against the

establishment of clear, measurable systems and the removal of structural barriers.

Chapter summary

Social inclusion is fundamentally about ensuring that people with disabilities have the

opportunity to exercise their rights and obligations as active citizens and to be valued as

full members of the community. This requires both compensatory services and the

removal of structural and systemic barriers. It is likely that a range of benefits will result

for people with disabilities and the community if social inclusion policies can be

successfully implemented. A range of policy measures beyond declarations, rights based

legislation and the provision of services will be required to achieve this end. In

particular, policy will need to focus on strategies to address systemic and structural

barriers. The next chapter examines how current Australian disability policy has

implemented social inclusion.

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CHAPTER 3

A DISCUSSION OF POLICY IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES

Introduction

There is now strong support for the idea of implementing social inclusion policy for

people with disabilities. As indicated in the previous chapter, concepts of social

inclusion broadly underpin policies for people with disabilities, whether they focus on

service delivery, housing, employment, education or recreational outcomes. The goal is

for people with disabilities to be included in everyday settings and relationships.

However, notwithstanding the commitment to social inclusion in disability policy, the

extent to which social inclusion has actually been achieved is much less clear. While

most of the large scale residential facilities have now been closed and residents have

moved into the community, they often continue to live relatively segregated lives. This is

particularly true for people with intellectual disabilities. They continue to experience

limited employment opportunities. Segregated educational facilities remain a feature for

a significant proportion of children with disabilities. Residential facilities, although

smaller in scale, are often institutional in nature. Community based recreational and

social opportunities often remain less accessible than those provided within disability

specific services.

In the past, disability policy has focused on deinstitutionalisation and physical

integration, the formal introduction of disability rights and the introduction of a range of

community based disability services. As suggested in the previous chapter, arguably,

these actions are necessary but not sufficient to ensure the social inclusion of people with

disabilities. For people with disabilities to be included in everyday recreational, social,

employment and community settings, it is likely that a new set of implementation

strategies will be needed. These include greater emphasis on incentives for employers,

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community organisations, local government, and educational providers to include people

with disabilities. Those supporting people with disabilities will need to put more effort

into planning, advocating, facilitating and supporting strategies for social inclusion. The

extent to which current community based service provision for people with disabilities

inadvertently prevents inclusion may need to be carefully evaluated.

Disability policies that promote social inclusion, such as the State Plan, therefore present

new challenges for the development and measurement of implementation strategies.

Despite the best efforts of governments and policy advocates, policy often fails to achieve

or only partially achieves its goals. There is a substantial literature on the challenges of

policy implementation which seeks to explain why this occurs. This chapter addresses

implementation experiences relevant to disability policy and social inclusion, including

challenges to policy implementation from philosophical and structural perspectives. The

chapter concludes by outlining an approach for analysing the factors that are important in

increasing the likelihood that disability policy will be comprehensively implemented.

The policy process

Most descriptions of the development and implementation of policy argue that this

process progresses through a series of stages influenced by the interaction of key

stakeholders. Policy stages typically include agenda setting, goal setting, strategy

development, consultation, resource allocation and planning, implementation and

evaluation.

Discussions of public policy processes are usually set within the context of institutions of

democratic government. These include democratic decision making forums such as via

elections and parliament, executive decision making structures via cabinet and

bureaucracies to develop and implement decisions. Formally, policy is defined through

election and budget cycles, legislative processes and executive decision making and

review. Stakeholders, like people with disabilities and their advocates, seek to influence

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the policy process through these institutional structures and processes (Althaus,

Bridgman & Davis, 2007; Parsons, 1995, 2004).

Policy theorists have sometimes argued that implementation ought to be a linear, rational

process of decision making based on evidence, analysis and unbiased consideration.

Classically, this position was most closely associated with Simon (1977). However, most

empirical accounts of the policy process suggest it is often neither linear nor rational in

the sense that Simon advocated. Instead, it proceeds in cyclical, pragmatic and

incremental ways reflecting contested views and divergent interests. Often these are only

partially settled and then returned for further consideration later. The policy institutions

and processes of government negotiate, facilitate and broker these competing views using

the tools of rational analysis, evidence and consideration to reach partial and temporary

policy settlement.

For example, Althaus, Bridgman and Davis describe policy as a cycle which is a rationale

and deliberate process in a complex matrix of “...politics, policy and administration”

(2007, p.33). Their approach is that policy develops through a sequence of tasks that

disaggregate complex phenomena into manageable steps. Whilst acknowledging that the

world is a messy place, the policy cycle is characterised as commencing with issue

identification and progressing through policy analysis, policy, instruments, consultation,

coordination, decision implementation and evaluation.

This challenge of policy implementation has been the subject of significant academic and

practitioner interest and Pressman and Wildavsky’s (1984) contribution to the discourse

is a much quoted work. It is a study of the Economic Development Administration’s

employment effort in Oakland in the United States where there had been a commitment

of $23 million in federal funds. The study highlights the challenges that complex

processes and interests hold for implementing public policy in local settings. Pressman

and Wildavsky argued that long chains of causality resulted in increased reciprocal

relationships and that this increased the difficulty of successful implementation.

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The complexity of joint action is of particular interest to this study of disability policy

implementation as it involves multiple intergovernmental, community based services and

organisations, people with disabilities and their carers. Multiple participants and

perspectives is one of the implementation characteristics that Pressman and Wildavsky

identified as reducing the likelihood of successful implementation. They found that

incompatibility, program preferences, competing commitments, priorities, leadership and

role differences, legal and procedural differences and lack of power can combine to

undermine implementation. Pressman and Wildavsky found that top down approaches to

implementation failed. The current policy interest in local settings with local government

as a key partner is promising, particularly if appropriate resourcing and change

management are implemented.

A number of approaches to policy diffusion have been developed. In this respect one of

the most widely used and investigated has been that developed by Rogers. When Rogers

initially published the “Diffusion of Innovations” in 1962, there were only 405 similar

publications available. Many were focussed on technological innovation and mass

communication. From the early 1960s to the publication of the fifth edition in 2003, the

number of diffusion publications was approaching 5,200 (Rogers, 2003, p.xviii) with

applications across wider fields including anthropology, early sociology, rural sociology,

education, public health and medical sociology, communication, marketing, geography

and general economics (Rogers, 2003, p. 94).

The focus on uncertainty and information in Rogers’ theory of the diffusion of

innovations is a useful framework through which complex public policy such as disability

policy can be reviewed. The complexity surrounding disability policy can be

characterised by factors which impact on implementation including multiple:

� public sector partners and funding sources (national, state and local government);

� service providers (national, state and locally based commercial and not for profit

organisations that deliver specialist and general disability, health and welfare

services in the community);

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� advocacy organisations (national, state and locally based organisations that

deliver impairment specific research, support and advocacy for people with

disabilities and their carers); and

� population characteristics: people with disabilities may have intellectual, physical,

sensory, acquired brain injury, neurological impairments or a combination of

impairments at different levels of complexity. These characteristics can be

impacted by other population considerations such as life stage, gender, culture

and location and whether they experience mental health conditions.

In Rogers’ theoretical model, innovation is defined as generating uncertainty and

alternative or new ways of problem solving. Uncertainty about the alternate options

drives problem solvers to exchange information resulting in a convergence process. For

Rogers, this social process between interpersonal networks is eventually worked through

into social construction which can result in social change.

The policy context

More broadly, public policy is always set within a particular historical context. In this

respect, it is arguable that institutions and processes of government have a role in the

development of public policy but that this has been eroded over the past three decades.

This erosion has significant implications for the implementation of strategies to promote

social inclusion. Parsons suggests the rise of advocates for smaller government and the

greater use of market mechanisms to solve social issues in the 1980s saw the introduction

of public choice theory. This reduced the influence of government policy making as

market and business rationality became a dominant philosophy (Parsons, 2004, p.43).

Market or public choice theory gained international intellectual momentum from the

1970s and was articulated and promoted by right wing think tanks. It stressed the

supremacy of the market over the public sector and the individual freedoms associated

with the private sector. This in turn influenced the policy responses to a raft of issues as

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deregulation and privatisation characterised contemporary economic policy (Nevile,

1998).

Social inclusion can, in part occur through market mechanisms. The recent advocacy for

consumer directed funding is a case in point. The national government established terms

of reference for the Productivity Commission to undertake an inquiry into long term

disability care and support with a view to receiving a final report in July 2011

(Productivity Commission, 2010). However, greater social inclusion for people with

disabilities is likely to require active changes to the non market social and cultural

structures. Similarly, change will be required to the processes of community

organisations, education, employment and recreation.

People with disabilities are often disadvantaged both in the market and in these non

market processes. While market interventions on their behalf, like consumer directed

funding, should not be discounted, they are unlikely to be sufficient on their own.

Ironically, the 1970s marks the time when deinstitutionalisation was gaining momentum

in Australia. Yet concurrent public sector management philosophies in Australia were

moving in different directions. Social inclusion and public choice theories are quite

different.

The consequence of implementing public choice theory is that the burden of mutual

obligation often falls on the most marginalised and vulnerable in the community although

under a libertarian guise. This has resulted in exclusion of individuals rather than the

exercising of choice (Kinnear, 2000). For example, people with disabilities experience

relative exclusion from the labour market and as a result experience higher levels of

poverty. They have felt the impact of these philosophical shifts quite acutely. Increased

privatisation of health services, recreational and educational and opportunities has also

increased the barriers for people on low incomes to participate. While privatisation per

se does not affect access, if it is accompanied by new or increased user charges it can

place barriers to people on low incomes. Given the income profile of people with

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disabilities and their carers, this is a significant issue (Swain, 2004; Goggin & Newell,

2005).

Possibly the most significant effect of economic rationalism for social inclusion and

disability policy was the introduction of competition policy at the local community level

(Hilmer, Rayner & Taperell, 1993). Premised on the idea that government should “steer

not row” (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992, p.35) market based principles strongly entered the

Australian public policy discourse in 1993 when Hilmer’s report on national competition

policy began to widely influence the development and delivery of public services (Hilmer

et al., 1993).

Competition policy resulted in a wide range of national and state services being tendered

and markets were created where agencies had previously worked in collaborative and

developmental ways. For Victorian local government, it resulted in a system of

Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) where local government was required to

tender out services (including those for people with disabilities) which had previously

been provided in house. Many local networking and interagency relationships were lost

at that time as agencies competed to win tenders for work with specified target groups.

Concepts of social inclusion and universal service platforms were not high policy

priorities or included in tendering arrangements.

Although CCT is no longer required in Victorian local government, its influence has been

slow to diminish. Inter and intra-organisational and community relationships are still re-

establishing and local government culture continues to realign its relationship with the

community. During CCT, residents using services were cast in the role of consumers

(Black, 1997). This occurred in spite of criticisms by some that this was a reductionist

approach and undermined the role of citizens in local communities. This experience was

compounded by local government amalgamations in the 1990s in Victoria. As a result,

there is a variable capacity to develop whole of community planning frameworks

reflecting the needs of various local communities of interest, including people with

disabilities (Ernst et al., 1997; Drake, 1999).

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In a post-CCT era, publicly planned and delivered services have re-emerged and

competitive tendering has declined but a range of services continue to be delivered by

commercial and non government organisations, which were successful during the CCT

period. There continues to be divergent approaches and views about the role of local

government in service delivery, regulation and community building. Nevertheless, for

people with disabilities living in local communities, state and local government policies

have shifted to a more inclusive orientation and away from a pure micro-economic

reform thrust. In contrast, national government employment, training and support

policies have been slower to move away from the market driven approach. These are

critical aspects of implementing social inclusion and reducing poverty and

marginalisation which results in exclusion. The process for implementing such policies

can be seen as marginalising if it is not based on an individual response with adequate

community based initiatives (Forrest, 2005).

A Productivity Commission report delivered to the Australian Government in 2004

followed a review of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. It provided evidence on the

uneven experiences of people with disability in achieving social inclusion. It examined

discrimination based on disability in relation to employment, education, accommodation,

transport and the provision of goods and services. It found that the Disability

Discrimination Act 1992 has been reasonably effective in reducing discrimination

although inconsistent in its achievements. The Act has been more successful at

improving access to transport and education than employment opportunities but has

assisted people with physical disabilities more than those with mental or intellectual

disabilities. People from regional areas, with distinct cultural and indigenous issues still

face disadvantage. The future challenge will be shifting emphasis from physical to

attitudinal change to support social inclusion (Productivity Commission, 2004).

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The re-emergence of community building

The literature indicates that the central barriers to social inclusion for people with

disabilities emerge from the implementation processes through which legislation, public

administration and service delivery are impacted by ideological influences. Clear’s

(2000) analysis suggested that there are significant issues that work against social

inclusion for people with disabilities. These include limited housing and accommodation

options (which are similar to those experienced by the general community), employment

(where people with disability remain overrepresented in unemployment statistics),

advocacy and education. He argued that:

The breadth of public policy appears to have created terms of social inclusion. Social inclusion is not full and generous; it is managed through legislation, administration and service systems. Importantly, it is managed by enduring systems of social and economic life that are not structured to include people with impairments. (Clear, 2000, p.xiv)

There is some scepticism expressed in the literature regarding the speed with which

governments have taken up the language of social inclusion as a key mechanism to

address responses to structurally derived social problems and exclusion. The scepticism

is compounded by the lack of detail in implementation plans and the absence of

evaluation processes. Mowbray argued that “community” has been faddish and

expedient in public policy and program design. It has been reinvented and

interchangeably referred to as community capacity building, government-community

partnerships, community and neighbourhood renewal and place management (Mowbray,

2004, p.107).

While such policies reflect appealing communitarian ideals in their language, Bryson and

Mowbray (2005) are critical of community capacity building initiatives. They describe

them as being low cost solutions and caution against nostalgia in adopting community as

a policy focus. They also question whether valid conclusions can be drawn from the

social capital literature to support the views that it has such beneficial outcomes in the

absence of an analysis of social and economic inequality. This literature indicates that, in

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the case of implementing social inclusion for people with disabilities, approaching

individual or social change in isolation could fail to address the policy challenge. To

move beyond rhetoric, clear implementation and evaluation plans are needed.

Others have also criticised the extent to which the language of social inclusion has been

embraced through public policy. This criticism is focussed on social inclusion being

promoted as a panacea without description of related organisational or social changes or

how any of these would be measured or evaluated. Some have argued that the social

model of disability and whole-of-community approaches to developing and implementing

inclusive outcomes for people with disability are too generic and fail to recognise the

specific implications of impairment (Thomas, 2004). Mansell highlights this point in

relation to the support needs of people with severe or complex disabilities such as

intellectual disabilities:

… redistribution of resources, for example, money, housing, and employment, is usually not enough to obtain equality of opportunity. The nature of people’s impairments means that they need help from others in order to realise the opportunities that life presents (Mansell, 2007, p.9).

It has also been argued that creating inclusive communities, based on the concept of

universal participation, would be a stronger foundation for policy development. This is

because implementation costs would be viewed as fundamental rather than competing in

already overburdened public sector budgets (Clear, 2000; Tregaskis, 2004).

Confronting structural disadvantage

Irrespective of the philosophical motivation of policy, the literature indicates that

structural disadvantage remains a significant challenge to implementing social inclusion

for people with disabilities in local settings. Social inclusion remains problematic

because it requires specific interventions and challenges existing interests, resources and

work practices.

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Tregaskis (2004) explored some of these structural issues. In a study of how

constructions of disability affected the chances of social inclusion in mainstream social

environments a leisure centre setting in the industrial midlands in England was reviewed.

The study concluded that there are no “quick fixes” to challenging exclusion for people

with disabilities but that a number of situationally appropriate access solutions are

needed. It was argued that “… real inclusion may only be possible once we begin to

learn how to engage with each other through dialogues that recognise and value

difference” (Tregaskis, 2004, p.151). Addressing the daily structural and attitudinal

discrimination in the lives of people with disabilities in local communities is a critical

starting point. At issue is the extent to which policy initiatives, however innovative, are

able to translate in local settings to improve the experience of people with disabilities in

being both a person and a member of society (Albrecht, 2004).

In general, government disability policy aims to enable people with disabilities to live

more inclusive lives in local communities. It has been suggested by some that the

experience of this form of community based living has remained largely institutional

without substantive work practice reform or the extension of social networks or genuine

independence (Gleeson, 1999). To achieve comprehensive community engagement and

the process of community building that will result in greater social inclusion, the issue of

adequate funding and resource levels is paramount.

This perspective is shared by a number of others who have considered the barriers to

social inclusion experienced by people with disabilities. They argue that the

consideration of power relations in society that affect public resource allocation is critical

in understanding the values and assumptions underpinning disability policy (Drake, 1999,

Priestley 2001, Thomas 2004). Drake asserted that the prevailing norms and values in

any population are those of the majority. As people with disability are in the minority, it

is not surprising that these norms are the fabric of disability policy.

Further, Drake argued that policy is the context within which legislation is developed and

applied to regulates the behaviour of citizens. The interplay between “structures and

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human volition” (Drake, 1999, p.20) plays out in a continuous cycle where ascendant

groups form institutions and structures which influence the exercise of power through

policy making, planning and implementation. He posed a crucial question regarding the

extent to which the experiences of disabled people in society are determined through the

creation and application of policy.

Priestley (2001) adopted a similar perspective to Drake and argued that disability is a

global issue. In his model, claims for greater participation, integration and equality are

not just for individual rights but the ability to influence the social structures within which

they live. He argued that structural inequalities and conflicts cause exclusion rather than

disabling attitudes or prejudice. Goggin and Newell (2005) argue that “injustice,

exclusion and marginalisation” (p.18) of people with disability is a form of apartheid.

They argue that the concept of “special” benefits being provided for people with

disability reinforces the apartheid experience as it is predicated on the value of “normal”

with an over-emphasis on work and economic productivity.

Similarly, Thomas (2004) suggested that the social model of disability has exposed social

oppression and exclusion analogous to gender, race, class and sexual oppression. This

interpretation is consistent with Priestley’s conclusions as he traced this form of

exclusion back to the industrial revolution where the requirement for speed in production

began excluding people who were unable to keep up.

Seeing the barriers to social inclusion as largely structural, Gleeson (1999) introduced the

concept that community care ideals and urban regulation are creating barriers to enabling

environments for people with disabilities. This view is shared by Drake who identified

the social exercise of power, the helper-helped perception and the structure of policy

making itself as being a significant barrier. This is perpetuated by the almost total

exclusion of disabled people from political and bureaucratic processes. It means that

decisions are continually taken by non-disabled people and disabled people are

characterised as passive recipients of welfare.

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The process of developing and implementing disability policy has been dynamic and

controversial because of this context. Percy (1989) argued that while institutionalisation

denied people with disabilities access to society, subsequently, exclusion has rested on

assumptions about inabilities rather than capabilities. The exclusion of people with

disability has been manifested in many ways. The needs of people with disabilities are

largely ignored in private and public sector design of facilities, employment practices,

educational practices, educational programs and public sector service delivery. He

concluded that when efforts are made to take the needs of people with a disability into

account, non-disabled people lump most disabilities together and this is an impediment to

more enlightened policy development.

Challenges for future disability policy implementation

The literature identified a number of challenges for future disability policy and

implementation of social inclusion in local settings. These included the need to

intentionally implement policy in a universal and citizen rights framework, embed

changes in organisations and the community and increase intergovernmental

collaboration and evaluation with a local settings focus. In Australia, the relationships

between the tiers of government, community and disability services remains a

challenging though fundamental factor.

A final challenge is the need to find a theoretical framework to enable analysis of current

implementation to increase social inclusion, particularly given that evaluation data

regarding the State Plan’s implementation remains underdeveloped. The next section

will expand on future implementation challenges. It will conclude by outlining how the

diffusion of innovations theory, developed by Everett Rogers, provides a theoretical

framework for this thesis.

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A universal, citizen rights framework

The concept of inclusionary landscapes and places is a theme developed by a number of

writers in the late twentieth century. It provides context for the current interest in

implementing inclusive policies. Whilst not directly addressing social inclusion for

people with disabilities in communities, these themes are consistent with Albrecht’s

reconceptualisation of disability as requiring a universal perspective with a

comprehensive and inclusive philosophical policy base. They are the themes that have

influenced the State Plan.

The emergence of this discourse raised questions as to whether a more civil society

needed to be built. Would people become disenfranchised in the role of consumer rather

than citizen and become less likely to participate in community life? Farrar and Ingles

(1996) argued for the development of civil society as a vehicle for establishing

interlocking communities that foster a sense of collective well being. This theme has

currency in the broader public policy implementation. Parsons (2004) argued that the

economic rationalist experiment of the 1980s sidelined rational policy development. The

1990s and beyond by contrast have been characterised by a focus on governance and an

interest in linking policy making to government understanding, steering and management

of complex realities.

These arguments set the philosophical context for social inclusion in disability policy

being characterised as “the desire for a secure place in social networks based on

reciprocity, trust and mutual respect” (Gleeson, 2004, p.315). Gleeson suggested the

value of a different kind of community planning. This would be focused less on the

instantaneous production of physical infrastructure “and more on building networks,

relationships, capacities and possibilities for social interaction” (Gleeson, 2004, p.318).

Gleeson’s (2004) contribution to the literature bridges from the public choice discourse of

the 1970s and 1980s to the “wicked policy” trends of the twenty first century (Australian

Public Service Commission, 2007). It characterises the nature of the philosophical shift

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required in policy implementation to increase social inclusion for people with disabilities

in local settings.

Embedding changes in organisations and the community

Goggin and Newell (2005) recommended incorporating disability into political and

governance arrangements. This would mean developing an international approach to

disability and citizenship and changing the public debate and policy making process by

routinely engaging with people with disabilities. They argued that economists needed to

understand disability and move on from a tragic or catastrophic view of disability often

depicted through the media. Greater opportunities for education and the strategic social

inclusion of disability need to be identified.

In defining disability, Goggin and Newell noted that it was commonly associated within

individuals and represented as a life sentence incurring suffering, discomfort and loss of

functioning. The term disability implies the opposite of ability. It has been incorrectly

characterised as representing deviance and existing in the realm of charity and

representing “otherness” (Goggin & Newell, 2005, p.25). They argued that “To

understand how we encounter disability in society, we need to redirect our gaze away

from the person with disability to scrutinise society itself as the site where disability is

located and reproduced” (Goggin & Newell, 2005, p.27). Achieving social inclusion

from their perspective would necessarily involve people with disabilities in local

governance and in being able to navigate the roles and resources of government.

Reddel (Reddel, 2004, p.130) addressed the discourse around the values and ideas of civil

society, citizen participation and localism by proposing that these be seen as the

“foundations of contemporary social governance”. Further that an alternate framework

for thinking about state and community relations include possible governance

methodologies for actioning the framework. He characterised the emergence of the

language of social inclusion and exclusion as reinventing the social policy discourse.

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This contrasts with the policy of the 1980s and 1990s which was focussed more explicitly

on unemployment, globalisation, economic restructuring, deregulation and privatisation.

Reddel argued for a model where the state and its agencies would play a leadership and

strategic function in collaboration with social movements. He maintained that traditional

social governance is not capable of reconceptualising state and civil society relations and

that they remain linked to market theory from the 1990s reforms agenda and its heavy

reliance on corporate management. In place of this, Reddel argues for:

A new form of network governance based around the interactions of the socio-political systems involving the public, private and civil sectors has been promoted as an alternative model. This new mode of governance focuses on management by negotiation and horizontal networks, policy learning and organic organisational forms rather than traditional methods of hierarchical command and control or market models. (Reddel, 2004, p.137)

Reddel argued that translating these ideas into principles and indicative methodologies is

still underdeveloped. Policy dangers include an over generalised account of networks in

social governance and power differentials between state and civil society networks. He

also foreshadowed that the construction of a sustainable institutional framework is

needed comprising policy, discourse, negotiation, and arbitration to negotiate complexity

to deliver a model of social governance with active state and engaged civil society.

Implementing new forms of governance would respond to the claims of disability

theorists regarding structural exclusion.

Intergovernmental collaboration in local settings

From a whole of community perspective, Mansell and Ericsson (1996) concluded that

deinstitutionalisation did not just affect people with disabilities and their carers. It had an

impact on decision makers, staff in services and researchers. It also generated interest in

new concepts such as Castellani’s “seams of government” (1996) and the integration of

previously invisible people to local communities. Mansell and Ericsson argued that

institutions emerge from the expression of community beliefs and values and that their

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demise leaves those beliefs and practices still to be tackled in the community. They

concluded that the greatest challenge for all societies is “…how to build and sustain

social solidarity and mutual commitment among people with different needs, talents and

aspirations, so that everyone may flourish and prosper” (Mansell & Ericsson, 1996,

p.253).

By reviewing current European area-based policy initiatives and practice, Randolph

(2004) concluded that addressing social disadvantage and exclusion is more likely to be

successful through local coordination and integration rather than through a state

generated “whole of government” approach. The principle of aiming to address the

complex causes of social exclusion so that disadvantaged households are better able to

experience social inclusion and access mainstream resources and opportunities open to

the bulk of the population is relevant for the development of inclusive disability policy.

Using Randolph’s paradigm, a coordinated, place based approach to policy development

could create more inclusive outcomes for people with disabilities. This would be

particularly effective if stimulation of the local economy, increased local employment

options, renewal of the physical environment, enhancement of social conditions and

relations and greater political engagement with excluded group were front of mind.

While Randolph identified the extent to which exclusion is generated by wider structural

social and economic factors as a tension, he also argued that one of the main roles for

area-based programs is to encourage agencies to collaborate through partnerships.

He noted the absence of local mechanisms to build synergies between complementary

projects or to rationalise competing projects and that program integration can only be

delivered locally. He argued for a shared priority plan to guide all funding into local

areas to reflect common or strategically based targeting based on place and or

disadvantage. He suggested that local renewal consortia may be an alternative to

structure to drive renewal on a place basis. He called for increased integration of land

use and social planning and the establishment of longer-term local renewal funds to

support local initiatives.

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This approach is similar to the principles outlined in a Victorian government paper titled

“Actions for Community Strengthening with Local Government” (Department of

Victorian Communities, 2005). It proposed that a best practice model for local

government would include actions relating to the foundations of community

strengthening, development of community wide interventions, joined up services and

changing the way local governments do business. A number of actions could be

developed in terms of the foundations of community strengthening and relating this to the

social inclusion of people with disabilities. Identifying community members needing

support and developing a current service map, recognising the needs of this group in local

government budgets and service plans, creating a data base to monitor implementation

and related consultative mechanisms and advocacy emerge from the proposed model.

Development of a social inclusion self-audit for local government authorities is an

example of the kind of action that could make a significant difference in local settings.

Gillen (2004) critically analysed New South Wales planning systems that have caused

community disenchantment and identified future challenges. He argued that the rhetoric

of joined up thinking and whole of government action should demand that planning,

transport, education and health enter cross sectional links. Knowledge creation and

dissemination, coordinated problem solving and deliberative vision making should be

necessary processes. Relevant to this study, he highlighted that the barriers to a strategic,

proactive, integrated and place-based approach can be found in the traditions of local

government where reactive decisions and pressure groups result in resistance to change.

Conscious responses to current processes that influence policy, programs and advocacy in

local areas would be required to strengthen social inclusion implementation.

Analysing the implementation of strategies for social inclusion

The preceding discussion has highlighted the need for a radical shift in strategy for social

inclusion for people with disabilities to be successfully implemented. The focus needs to

shift from legislation, regulation and service delivery to a more active engagement with

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the social, cultural and economic organisations that determine whether or not people with

disabilities will be included. In the previous chapter, it was argued that the State Plan

adopts this new perspective resulting in a range of new strategies.

When the State Plan was launched in 2002 it identified challenges and barriers to

implementing social inclusion that were raised by people with disability during

consultation. They included:

Strengthening rural, regional and urban communities, so that they are more accessible and more inclusive of people with a disability…. raising the community’s awareness of disability, so that all people with a disability can be respected and valued for who they are…. improving access to physical environments, including public transport and buildings and building more opportunities for people with a disability to participate in arts, cultural, sport and leisure activities. (Department of Human Services, 2002, p.3)

These challenges and barriers to increasing social inclusion in local settings have a

critical relationship to the policy goal “Building Inclusive Communities” (p. 9) in the

State Plan. As a result, the State Plan identified that changes in local settings would

require multiple partnerships including with local governments. The State Plan identified

priority strategies and the local government partnership has a relationship to the priority

strategy to “Strengthen Local Communities” (p. 11). Yet, while the State Plan identified

that “There will be more partnership initiatives between governments, communities and

providers of health and community services in local communities” (p. 27) there are few

details of the scope or arrangements to develop this partnership.

The State Plan Implementation Plan 2002-2005 (Department of Human Services 2002a)

re-stated that partnership with local government would be an important implementation

element. However the relationship with local government has been characterised in

narrow programmatic terms. These include the RuralAccess and Access for all Abilities

program activities or liaison with the Municipal Association of Victoria to review the

progress of local disability plan development and promote the state government’s best

practice development grants award winners.

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The Implementation Plan foreshadowed the development of a MetroAccess Program for

metropolitan local settings. It also noted that “While the total number of people with a

disability in Victoria is large, the number of people who need and use disability supports

funded or provided by the Department of Human Services is relatively small”

(Department of Human Services 2002a, p.89). This issue has not been addressed in terms

of how social inclusion for all people with disabilities should be implemented in local

settings across the state. Nor has it identified how a partnership with local government

could accelerate the State Plan’s goals. The State Plan Implementation Plan 2006-2008

maintained the overall structure and organisation of the original Implementation Plan.

However, it was much less focussed on the Department of Human Services Disability

Services Division head office partnership with local government rather than a regional

office relationship with the 79 local governments across Victoria. There were no specific

actions regarding the role of local government as a key implementation partner or the

planning, implementation or evaluation processes that could be jointly undertaken.

Given this context, the pivotal question for this study is to identify the factors that have

assisted or impeded the implementation of planning to increase social inclusion for

people with disabilities in local settings. The extent to which broader planning and

policy frameworks, in this case the State Plan, impact on the success of local planning

initiatives, support intergovernmental partnership and effect social change are at the heart

of the study.

By defining diffusion as a kind of social change which results in alteration to the

structure and function of a social system, Rogers’ theory provides a framework to review

the extent to which the State Plan vision has been implemented. Rogers (2003) argued

that successful diffusion proceeded through a progressive process of adoption with

innovators and early adopters progressively implementing new ideas, policies and

technologies. Innovation and the implementation of new strategies occur because they

are seen to have greater utility than those that preceded them. If successful, they

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progressively spread through organisations and social systems because they provide

better solutions toward desired goals.

Rogers’ theory is based on the premise that the adoption of new ideas, even if they have

obvious advantages, is difficult. Implementation can take significant time and may or

may not be successful. The common issue for individuals or organisations implementing

new ideas is how to accelerate the rate of adoption to achieve widespread change.

According to Rogers, an innovation is a new idea or practice requiring new knowledge,

persuasion and a decision to adopt. The process of diffusing an innovation is therefore a

critical consideration to achieving policy objectives in a timely and cost effective manner.

Early diffusion studies demonstrated that the time required to diffuse innovations varies

based on the characteristics of each innovation. This can explain different rates of

adoption. Rogers’ theory is that innovations perceived by individuals as having greater

relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, observability and less complexity are more

rapidly adopted. In addition the diffusion process is affected by the time it takes to

provide potential adopters with knowledge, to be persuaded to innovate, make a decision

to proceed, implement and confirm.

Relative advantage refers to the degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than

the idea it supersedes. Objective advantage is not as important as the impact that the idea

might have in economic terms, social prestige, convenience or satisfaction for the

adopter. Compatibility refers to the advantage of an innovation providing continuity for

potential adopters or the values and norms of a social system. Complexity refers to the

degree to which the innovation is perceived to be difficult to understand or use. New

ideas that require the adopter to develop new skills and understanding will take more

time. Trialability refers to the degree to which innovation may be experimented with on

a limited basis. Trialling an innovation is less uncertain for individual adopters and

therefore more likely to be taken up rapidly. Observability refers to the extent to which

the outcomes from innovations can be seen

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While the tradition of diffusion research has largely been used in relation to technology

innovation, Rogers argues that a single integrated body of concepts and generalisations

are emerging. From largely scientific roots, the diffusion model has emerged as relevant

for many disciplines. The relationship between individual and social system responses to

implementation and change means that it can be applied as well to technological

innovation, economic interventions, social and political change.

There are a number of reasons for applying Rogers’ theory of diffusion to an evaluation

of the implementation of the State Plan. Given that the innovation in contemporary

disability policy is the greater focus on social inclusion in local settings, it is relevant to

identify how to accelerate the rate of adoption to achieve widespread change. The

characteristics of innovations enable the identification of specific supports and

impediments to increasing social inclusion. The advantage of Rogers’ theory is that it

places the role played by individual adopters in the social context thereby bridging

individual and systemic relationships in achieving innovation. It provides a mechanism

for collecting and analysing study data that is part of a research tradition and will result in

study outcomes that will be relevant to contemporary disability policy implementation

and evaluation.

Rogers’ theory is applicable an evaluation of the implementation of the State Plan as the

vision of inclusive community defined in the State Plan is multi-dimensional and

foreshadows unprecedented approaches to social inclusion implementation. The State

Plan also seeks to facilitate convergence of complex service provider and community

building activities. As such, the State Plan can be described as containing Rogers’ four

main elements in the diffusion of innovations which are identifiable in every diffusion

research study, campaign or program. These are the innovation, communication

channels, time and social system.

In relation to innovation, the State Plan represents what Rogers characterises as “an idea,

practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption”

(Rogers, 2003, p.12). According to Rogers, an objective definition of innovation is not as

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relevant as the extent to which the perceived newness of the idea prompts reactions to it.

Newness can refer to evolved knowledge and the expression, persuasion or decision to

adopt.

This description is consistent with the State Plan’s vision to include people with

disabilities in all aspects of daily community life which has been a foundation stone of

disability policy since deinstitutionalisation policy. These policy aims have remained

consistent over the last twenty years but innovation has been introduced in the

implementation methods. The “newness” in this State Plan is the promise of a

partnership based approach to creating change. It suggests that the State Plan is a

mechanism to increase the dimensions of inclusion to include disability supports, health

and community services, recreation, education, employment, transport and housing in a

comprehensive plan at state and local government levels.

In relation to communication channels, the State Plan aims to provide a policy

mechanism for participants to “create and share information with one another in order to

reach a mutual understanding” (Rogers, 2003, p. 17). According to Rogers, the essence

of the communication process is the information exchange through which individual

participants are able to communicate a new idea to one or several others. The extent to

which the State Plan vision has been able to be communicated by individuals or

organisations ranging from state and local government to people with disabilities to

achieve social change is of key interest in this study.

Rogers identified that successful communication is more likely to occur with participants

who are similar and have shared beliefs, education and social status. In the case of the

State Plan, there is difference in personal and organisational beliefs and experiences,

professional and other education and social status involved with key implementation

partners.

In relation to time, the State Plan has a fixed implementation timeline (2002 – 2012).

The Victorian State Disability Act defines that after 2012 a State Disability Plan will need

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to continue. However, it will need to be more comprehensive and based on an expanded

population and impairment model. According to Rogers’ theory, these timelines would

need some consideration of the implementation process to take individuals to

acknowledge and either adopt or reject innovation, the relative time it takes early or late

adopters to implement innovation and the measurement of adoption within a setting. In

relation to social systems, state government, local government and people with

disabilities meet Rogers’ definition of a social system in being “… a set of interrelated

units that are engaged in joint problem-solving to accomplish a common goal” (Rogers,

2003, p.23). This is identified in the State Plan’s priority strategy to strengthen local

communities.

Rogers’ theory contends that social systems affect diffusion in a number of ways

including through the structure established, the organisational or contextual norms at

play, the role of individual change agents and opinion leaders, the types of innovations

adopted or rejected by individuals or organisations and the consequences which change

the social system on an individual or organisational level. The implementation of

innovative practices like those proposed by the State Plan necessarily occurs in particular

organisational and community settings. It is the extent to innovation occurs in each of

these local settings which determines whether or not social inclusion will occur.

As a complex piece of public policy, the State Plan has generated uncertainty and a range

of implementation goals requiring collaborative problem solving. In this study, the

characteristics of innovations defined by Rogers are utilised as a framework to investigate

the factors that effect the rate of adoption of the State Plan in local community and

organisational settings where practices need to change if people with disabilities are to

experience greater social inclusion. In particular, the study explores the utility of Rogers’

concepts of relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability as

the qualities of innovation most likely to impact on the rate of adoption.

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Chapter summary

This literature review has highlighted the emerging gap between government aspirations

to implement social inclusion policy for people with disabilities in local settings and the

achievement of systematic and comprehensive change. Although the majority of people

with disabilities now live in the community, the extent to which they are routinely

included in every day recreational, social, employment and community settings is

contested. As a result, the literature indicates that implementation mechanisms may need

to be as diverse as the population of people with disabilities to be more successful.

This challenges a linear, rational approach to policy making and diffusion and suggests

that implementation may need to vary with increasing complexity. Implementing social

inclusion policy for people with disabilities is highly complex. It involves multiple

public sector partners and funding sources, service providers, advocacy organisations and

diverse community members and carers. While complexity is challenging, a discussion

of Rogers’ characteristics of innovation framework has demonstrated that it is an apt

approach to identifying specific factors that have assisted or impeded implementation.

The literature also demonstrates that the shift in public sector management from public

choice to community oriented policy highlights the value of partner based approaches and

intergovernmental collaboration to tackling structural disadvantage. The next chapter

outlines the methodology developed to respond to the research problem.

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CHAPTER 4

METHODOLOGY

Methodological approach

A qualitative framework was chosen for this study because it allowed a richer and more

nuanced exploration of participants’ perceptions and interpretations. This was important

for understanding the variety and interplay of issues which affected the success of the

State Plan’s implementation. Research on these issues is still formative which makes an

interpretive and exploratory methodology appropriate. A case study approach was

chosen to enable exploration of the implementation process in some depth. The case

study method has the capacity for one or more individuals or organisational views to be

collected and analysed. In this study, data were bounded by time and activity and a

number of techniques such as interviews and document review were used.

Yin has argued that “In general, case studies are the preferred strategy when “how” or

“why” questions are being proposed, when the investigator has little control over events,

and when the focus is on a contemporary phenomenon within some real life context”

(Yin, 2003. p.1). This criterion was relevant for this study as the implementation of

social inclusion policy for people with disability is a contemporary and innovative

initiative. The research questions were all focussed on understanding how the

implementation process had occurred and how implementation stakeholders had

experienced the process and outcomes. The researcher was also interested in identifying

whether there were differences in the experience of implementing the policy either

between implementation agents or based on location. Conducting a case study, and

drawing participants from three different locations, provided a suitable method for

identifying the intended data.

Critics of the case study method express a number of concerns which were considered at

the design stage. They include the potential for rigor and generalization and the danger

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that lengthy data collection processes could result in an inaccessible report. These

criticisms have been mitigated in a number of ways. On the issue of rigor this study has

developed a well defined and systematic set of procedures. On the issue of report

accessibility, only data related to the research questions have been included in the study

results.

The issue of generalisation applies to all qualitative methods because it relates to the

appropriateness of applying the canons by which quantitative research is judged. Strauss

and Corbin (1998) argued that the scientific canons require some modification to fit

qualitative research and the social complexities being studied. For example, modifying

the reproducibility canon in a qualitative study means that a researcher with the same

theoretical perspective, following the same data gathering and analysis processes in

similar conditions should find similar theoretical explanations.

Similarly some modification is required for generalisability. In testing or forming theory

in a qualitative study, it is necessary to specify the conditions that have resulted in

problems, issues and strategies or actions in response. The merit of the substantive

theory tested or formed through the use of qualitative methods is its “ability to speak

specifically for the population from which it was derived and to apply back to them”

(Strauss & Corbin, 1998, p. 267). On the issue of generalisability, this study has a clear

participant base and has documented the problems, issues and strategies or actions

indicated in the literature as well as from the data collection and analysis processes.

Responding to the criticism that case studies can result in lengthy data collection

processes and an inaccessible report, the case study format, number of participants and

data collection techniques were carefully chosen with the study questions in mind. In

spite of a very large amount of incidental data being collected, only data relevant to the

research questions and Rogers’ diffusion of innovation theory have been reported.

All methods of enquiry generate issues that need to be addressed and due consideration

has been given to those associated with the case study method. The value of a case study

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method for this study is that it enables a holistic view of organisational and managerial

processes and the experience of change validated by people with disabilities. According

to Yin (2003), case study design, data collection, analysis and reporting are essential

elements to find answers to the research questions. Further detail on these aspects of the

research will be outlined later in this chapter.

The study design is consistent with the characteristics of qualitative approaches set out by

Creswell (2003) as it:

…takes place in the natural setting, employs multiple methods of data collection, is emergent rather than prefigured, is based on the interpretations of the researcher, is viewed holistically, is reflective, uses both inductive and deductive reasoning processes, and employs a strategy of enquiry. (p. 205)

Strauss and Corbin (1998, p.6) proposed that researchers choosing qualitative

methodology recognise the complexity of phenomena. They make the point that

researchers using qualitative methodology often hope that their work has relevance for

both academic and non-academic audiences. The principal advantage of the approach

adopted in this study is that it provides an in-depth exploration of the interpretations and

views of participants within a well developed model for evaluating the implementation of

innovations. It is consistent with the views of Miles and Huberman (1994) that the

qualitative paradigm is increasingly used in fields such as public administration as it

provides “well-grounded, rich descriptions and explanations of processes in identifiable

local contexts … [and] generate or revise conceptual frameworks” (p.1).

Morse and Richards argue that “…good research is purposive and good methods are

congruent with a fit between question, method, data and analytic strategy” (Morse &

Richards, 2002, p.4). This methodological integrity is a way of ensuring that the many

options available to the qualitative methodologists are not “mixed and matched” to a

point where data analysis and results do not make sense. Here, the adoption of Rogers’

theory of diffusion has provided a clear framework and structured the study while

allowing participants scope for rich descriptions and interpretations. All qualitative

methods contribute to an understanding of complex data in context and were considered

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in the development of this methodology. In deciding on the method of enquiry, a number

of options were explored and discounted including ethnographies, grounded theory,

phenomenological research and narrative research.

Ethnography (Creswell, 2003, p.14) was excluded as a potential method because of its

focus on the study of a cultural group in a natural setting over a prolonged period of time.

Although this study is centred on the experience of people with disability in local

settings, it is located in the context of social and disability policy implementation

processes and the partnerships between tiers of government. In addition, people with

disabilities are not a homogenous group and comprise multiple communities of interest

based on gender, lifestage, cultural or Indigenous background, impairment type and

complexity. As such, observational data would not enable research questions to be

answered within the time constraints of this study.

Grounded theory (Creswell, 2001, p.14) was excluded as a potential method because the

study questions did not refer to the development of a general abstract theory of a process,

action or interaction. The focus was on the factors that affect policy implementation.

Consequently, the study sought to explore the relevance of Rogers’ theory of the

diffusion of innovations for understanding the implementation of the State Plan.

Phenomenological research (Creswell, 2003, p.15) was excluded as a potential method

because it involves extensive and prolonged engagement to identify patterns and

relationships on a specific phenomenon and people’s experience of it. It is concerned

with the lived experiences of the real world in the context of things, people, events and

situations. It is not unusual for research questions to remain implicit and for the

researcher to set aside, or bracket, a priori knowledge. In this study, the literature review

has identified knowledge and gaps which have resulted in the formation of specific

questions for participants and the study data collection needed to be concluded within set

time boundaries.

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Narrative research (Creswell, 2003, p.15) was excluded as a potential method because of

the focus on developing collaborative stories about individual lives. While this would

have provided interesting insights into the lived experience of disability, it would not

have assisted in answering the research questions.

The contribution of this study to the literature is to apply Rogers’ theory of diffusion and

implementation to a unique problem which is the implementation of disability policy to

increase social inclusion in local settings. As such, this methodology provided an

original application of an existing theory to a new problem or context to explore its

usefulness. This study can therefore be characterised as theory-driven, qualitative

research (Creswell, 2003). Data was gathered and analysed using Rogers’ characteristics

of innovation as the interview framework. It has also been used as the method for

reporting the results. This has been achieved by providing Rogers’ definition of the

characteristic, an analysis of the State Plan based on this definition, participant views of

the characteristic and a summary as to whether all aspects of the characteristic has been

met. This is significant in the analysis and reporting chapter as Rogers’ theory is that all

dimensions of each characteristic need to be met to maximise the process and speed of

diffusion.

Taking Creswell’s comment (2003, p.21) that the choice of a research tradition takes the

research problem, personal experiences, and the audiences for the study into account, a

qualitative methodology for this study is appropriate. This is because the research

problem requires an understanding of multiple realities. In this case, it includes

experiences of national, state and local government representatives and people with

disabilities. It enables a mechanism for understanding the ways in which people in local

settings make sense of these realities and as a result articulates a more systematic way of

working. Understanding how the State Plan is currently implemented and comparing this

with the literature highlights the elements requiring change and provides the basis of a

social inclusion implementation model.

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Human ethics

Ethics approval was gained from the Faculty Human Ethics Committee at La Trobe

University prior to data collection commencing and the study was reported on as

required. The approval number for this application was FHEC 06/07.

To comply with the ethics process, information was provided in writing to potential

participants to seek their interest in participating in the study. Samples of these letters are

included in Appendix B. Informed consent forms were signed by all participants prior to

interviews being conducted so that they were aware of the study requirements, their right

to withdraw and the contact details of the study supervisors at La Trobe University.

Samples of the informed consent are included in Appendix C.

People with disabilities who participated in the study were not recruited as state clients,

but as active, independent and competent community members. They were involved in

advisory committees that provided policy and implementation advice on disability issues

in local areas. As a result, participants had the same choice regarding study participation

and withdrawal of informed consent as all other participants and were guaranteed that

their contribution would be confidential.

Records of interview based on field notes de-identified participants and their

organisations to ensure confidentiality. Individuals, agencies and local areas were de-

identified in records of interview and in the study report writing process. Participant

codes were used and kept separately from lists of participant names. Individual or

organisational names were not recorded in field notes or records of interview.

Project documentation was stored in a secure, locked filing cabinet in the School of

Public Health at La Trobe University. Computer files were password protected. De-

identified data and consent forms will be kept for five years at La Trobe University at

which point they will be destroyed.

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Participants

Local government, state government and people with disabilities were identified as the

key agents in implementing social inclusion policy components of the State Plan in local

settings. This is because the State Government generated the State Plan through the

Department of Human Services (and the department also provide services and

accommodation to many people with disabilities), local governments are obliged to plan

for the whole community and advocate on issues of community concern and people with

disability are often included on disability advisory committees that comment on policy,

programs and advocacy needs in local communities. Hence, participation of

representatives from these implementation partners was sought to develop an effective

case study.

Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office agreed that the

organisation would participate in the study and nominated program managers and officers

for interview. Three local governments agreed to participate in the study and a decision

was taken to seek participation from three local governments from diverse geographical

locations. The first local government approached declined to participate on the basis that

they were over committed at the time. They were replaced with another rural local

government with sufficient time and availability. As a result, participating Councils

included one from a metropolitan region, one from an interface region and one from a

rural region. Once the three local governments had agreed to participate, the two

Department of Human Services regional offices covering these three local governments

were approached and also agreed to participate. Similarly, once the three local

governments had agreed to participate, they were asked to nominate an active member of

their disability advisory committee to participate in the study. Two of the three

nominated participants were chairs of their local disability committees and the third was

an active participant.

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After verbally indicating interest in participating, all participants were then sent a letter

introducing the study and a subsequent meeting was held to answer questions and discuss

study processes.

As individuals were nominated and agreed to participate in the case study development

process, individual interviews were arranged and participants received and signed

informed consent forms prior to the interviews commencing. Participants were also

given copies of the informed consent forms so that they could reflect on the study and

data collection process and retain the details of study supervisors and the steps for

withdrawal from the study should they so choose.

At this point, time delays experienced in finalising the interview process resulted in a

change to the original method of seeking a written reflection exercise and multiple

interviews. All participants agreed to participate in one longer interview, rather that two

shorter sessions.

Table 1

Participant roles and sample size

Participant role State wide Metropolitan Interface Rural

Person with a disability - 1 1 1 Local government officer - 1 2 2 Local government manager - 1 1 1 State government regional - 1 - -

– officer State government regional - 1 - 1

– manager State government Head Office 2 - - -

– officer State government Head Office 1 - - -

– manager Total 3 5 4 5

Note: The state government metropolitan regional manager and officer also had responsibility for

the interface study location.

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Data collection boundaries

Locating the study in three local government settings enabled identification and

definition of multiple policy implementation issues with key implementation partners to

identify supports and barriers to more systematic implementation. Although the

boundaries of local government settings are arbitrarily defined representations of

community, they are the boundaries within which planning, funding and other resources

that impact of local inclusion are often allocated by state and local governments.

Adopting these settings also provided a bounded context for decisions regarding study

scope and participants.

The State Plan is focussed on strengthening local communities7. As a result local

government is identified as a key implementation partner. Therefore, key

implementation partners in the local government setting for this study were defined as

Department of Human Services managers and officers, local government managers and

officers and people with disabilities involved in local area planning, advocacy or advice.

Study processes

The State Plan (Department of Human Services, 2002) and Implementation Plans

(Department of Human Services. 2002a, 2006), the Local Government Act 1989 and A

Fairer Victoria: Creating Opportunity and Addressing Disadvantage (Department of

Premier and Cabinet, 2005) were key public policy documents which were reviewed and

analysed as a preliminary step prior to case study development.

Yin (2003) notes that case study strategies can be strengthened by the use of multiple

settings as it increases the possibility of direct replication. In addition, the local settings

chosen were likely to have different contexts and so common findings expand external

7 See Victorian State Disability Plan 2002-2012, Priority Strategy 4.

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generalisability. Based on this view, the researcher initially identified factors that could

vary the experience of implementing the State Plan in local communities according to

geographical location and prior success in developing inclusive actions.

The initial criterion for the choice of case study participants included:

� One local government area in each of the categories of metropolitan, interface,

rural and capital city/regional centre; and

� Half of the participating local governments should be deemed as high

performing in the area of disability planning by expert advisors.

As the research process progressed, this criterion needed to be modified to reduce the

number of case study participant categories and the differentiation between local

governments demonstrating leadership and high levels of activity in disability planning

and social inclusion implementation and those that did not. In the initial recruitment

phases, both the Municipal Association of Victoria and Department of Human Services

Disability Services Division were approached to provide expert advice on participant

selection issues. They confirmed that there as there was not an objective framework in

place they could not specify what a local government demonstrating leadership and high

levels of activity would look like. Nor could the annual survey data on local government

disability plans differentiate performance outcomes in local settings.

The Municipal Association of Victoria is a peak body that supports local government

activities. It has a role in supporting and providing advice to local governments

regarding the development and implementation of disability plans. It is also involved in

advocating and negotiating with state government on a range of issues including

disability and community planning policy and implementation. It was able to provide

credible, independent advice and as a result the study’s participant profile was modified.

It was possible to identify local governments that were very active and inclusive of

community members with disabilities. But it was not possible to determine the

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effectiveness of their activities or strategies. Similarly, it was possible to identify others

with lower activity levels in disability plans. But this may not have necessarily reflected

their activities or effectiveness as these could have been integrated in other documents

such as the Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plan, Municipal Strategic Statement

or council plan. This highlighted at an early stage in the study process that the principles

of inclusion upon which the State Plan was based lacked an evaluation framework to

measure progress and the consistency of implementation in local settings.

In addition, the amount of time needed to contact and gain agreement from local

governments and Department of Human Services regional offices to participate and the

restrictions imposed by thesis candidature guidelines made it impossible to recruit and

conduct the number of case studies originally envisaged. As a result, case study settings

were purposively selected based on expert advice from the Municipal Association of

Victoria. Locations where local governments were active in disability planning were

identified. The rationale for recruiting local governments with high activity levels was

that they may have additional insights into the factors that assisted or impeded

implementing the State Plan compared with those with lower levels of activity. These

recommendations were corroborated through review of publicly available local disability

plans to ensure that the participants met the revised study criteria.

The Department of Human Services Disability Services Division was consulted at Head

Office on nominated case study settings, to coordinate the involvement of Department

staff at Head Office and within the relevant regions in the proposed case study activities.

The Victorian Disability Advisory Council was also approached to confirm the study

participants but commented that the Council would normally take advice on such matters

from the Municipal Association of Victoria as experts in the local government

environment.

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Data collection strategies

Interviews were conducted in accordance with the ethics approval between June 2006 and

June 2007 with analysis finalised in March 2008. Seventeen individual face to face semi-

structured interviews were conducted with the study participants according to the

interview schedules in Appendix D. One interview of approximately two hours was

conducted with each participant. Interview questions were organised around two key

themes, the first being current implementation mechanisms to increase social inclusion by

strengthening local communities and the second being implementation attributes from

Rogers’ theory.

Questions regarding implementation mechanisms focussed on how interventions were

designed, how the workforce was supported, whether change had been identified and

what supports and impediments had been identified. Questions regarding Rogers’ theory

focussed on participant experiences of the relative advantage, compatibility, complexity,

trialability and observability of implementing social inclusion policy in local settings.

According to Minichiello, Aroni, Timewell and Alexander, (Minichiello, Aroni,

Timewell & Alexander, 2000, p.1) “… the interview is a complex and involved

procedure when used as a social science research tool”. It provides “… a knowledge of

meanings and interpretations that individuals give to their lives and events”. Questions

were adapted for participants to make sense and fit their life or occupational experience.

In this study, a review of the literature was conducted prior to entering the field and as a

result, the interview questions were designed to gain participant views on the meaning of

social inclusion, the value of the State Plan as a vehicle for implementing social inclusion

policy and the experience of implementing the State Plan. Questions also focussed on the

attributes of innovation identified in Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory.

The literature review identified themes and concepts for exploration and the semi-

structured interview process enabled a conversational and flexible approach to capture

data from participants. This also provided opportunities for follow up or probe questions

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and assisted in building rapport in the interview process. I found that having completed

an undergraduate degree in Social Work that included interview skills was helpful in

achieving analytical listening and creating a safe, non-judgemental dialogue. Within the

first few interviews, some questions were not seen by participants as able to be answered

and were not pursued. These questions are identified in Appendix D.

All participants interviewed were adults participating on the basis of their professional

capacity and roles. Participants with disabilities were under no duress to participate. By

selecting current participants on local disability advisory or community committees, they

had a demonstrated capacity to understand and articulate disability planning and policy

issues and were in a position to provide their own informed consent.

While the study was based at La Trobe University, School of Public Health, Bundoora

campus, field work occurred by mutual agreement with participants at their workplaces

or in local community venues organised by the researcher when required. The field work

locations were selected to protect participant privacy and enable a confidential interview.

Data analysis

Written records of interview and field notes were maintained for analysis and approval

was given in all cases for interviews to be tape recorded to verify written records of

interview and field notes during coding and analysis. Tape recorded interviews were

transcribed verbatim and individuals and organisations were de-identified to minimise

any potential harm. Member checking did not occur and could be considered a limitation

of the study.

The researcher’s role

In studies adopting qualitative methodology where the researcher is the primary data

collection instrument it is necessary to identify personal values, assumptions and biases

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that might impact on the study. As the researcher is experienced in the field of social

policy, and has worked in national, local government and community organisations, there

is a lived experience and understanding of the processes of policy implementation and

intergovernmental relations. This experience and understanding enables what Creswell

identifies as “believability” and “trustworthiness” which assists verification (Creswell,

2003, p.199).

The audience for this research includes national, state and local government authorities,

people with disabilities, local service providers and disability advocacy organisations.

My interest in the implementation of disability policy has emerged from a career in

community development and social policy that began in 1985 following the completion

of an undergraduate degree in Social Work. My initial work was as a community

development worker on Victorian public housing estates. In the ensuing years I worked

in the state office of a national government rehabilitation agency, an agency accrediting

residential aged care facilities and more recently in three local government organisations.

In each setting I came into contact with people with disabilities and in two of the three

local government organisations I was responsible for managing the formulation or

coordination of disability planning. In addition to disability planning, I was also

responsible for the delivery of other social policies, community planning and the

development of the municipal public health and well being planning. Much of the work I

have undertaken has required an understanding of the issues affecting groups of people

within the community who experience disadvantage and social inclusion. Much of this

work has necessitated liaison with other tiers of government, service organisations,

advocacy groups and the various communities of interest in local communities.

As a result of these experiences, I have observed a number of public policy

implementation issues that affect all levels of government, community sector or

marginalised population groups:

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� It is difficult to get access to relevant population and service data to identify

trends and support planning in local settings;

� Mechanisms are not in place to coordinate all national, state and local government

planning and funding efforts based on a shared population based model or

comprehensively evaluation;

� Resources are rarely sufficient to analyse the specific needs of population groups.

In the case of disability this means the differentiation of impairment type and

complexity given gender, lifestages, cultural and indigenous experiences: and

� The failure to access relevant data, plan for specific population groups and

implement policy in collaboration with other tiers of government and local

organisations leads to fragmentation and poor policy outcomes.

My experience of consulting communities in local settings has been that many of the

issues that frustrate people with disabilities are not the responsibility of local government

authorities. For example, the provision of support services, respite, housing, transport

and education are areas of state government funding responsibility. Higher education and

employment are areas of national government responsibility. While local governments

can advocate with community to improve these state and national funded services, the

capacity to incorporate improvements to increase social inclusion remains fragmented.

Local governments can make an impact on the design and development of public places,

increase access to recreational opportunities and support political engagement that

enables influence over the local environment. Doing this requires integrated planning

and implementation across all departments of local governments and in my experience

some do this better than others.

I think that this understanding of the policy formulation and implementation processes

arising from public policy provides insights that have been relevant for designing the

methodology for this study. I am sensitive to the implementation experiences of people

with disabilities in local settings as well as the state and local government managers and

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officers trying to implement the State Plan. I was also conscious of the need to set aside

my experiences to hear about the experiences of others doing similar work.

In conducting interviews with participants, my prior experience in the field of policy

development and implementation assisted in building rapid rapport and enabled me to

collect and explore data at a detailed level. I found that knowledge of the field enabled a

trusting interview context and increased participants’ confidence and willingness to

discuss both day to day and contentious aspects of disability policy implementation.

Due to my previous work, I must acknowledge some biases may have influenced my

values and perspectives. While I have made every effort to maintain objectivity, these

views may shape the way that data have been interpreted. Irrespective of these biases, I

have tried to apply a systematic approach to the interpretation of the data, to report the

data against Rogers’ theory and to analyse the data from a solution oriented perspective.

Although I was awarded a Department of Human Services scholarship to undertake this

study, and the Department co-operated by agreeing that managers and officers could

participate in interviews, there was little other contact and minimal requirement for

progress reports to the Department during the course of the study.

This study meets the recurring features of qualitative research. It has been conducted

within a field and in a real life situation, seeks a systemic, integrated and holistic view of

policy implementation and captures data from local actors. It tries to understand people’s

own words to identify how people understand, account for, take action and manage day to

day situations (Miles & Huberman, 1994).

Chapter summary

This chapter described methodological issues and considerations that have shaped the

study design. This study’s methodology and methods were designed to reveal whether

the State Plan goal to increase social inclusion was being diffused in local communities

and the factors that assisted or impeded social inclusion for people with disabilities. The

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study methodology was designed to answer the research questions and contribute to the

literature in two respects.

Firstly, it aimed to identify whether improved inclusion and outcomes for people with

disabilities had been achieved in local areas since the State Plan’s release in 2002 and

how local implementation had been assisted or impeded. Secondly, the study aimed to

identify the attributes that have assisted or impeded the implementation of increased

inclusion for people with disabilities through partnership based state and local

government planning and implementation processes. Rogers’ theory was helpful in

identifying the impact of relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and

observability in the implementation process.

The study’s significance is underscored by the interest of the state government in

pursuing local community planning in partnership with local government at the time of

writing. Analysis of the data collected in the study provided a more in depth

understanding of the nature of intergovernmental and community partnership in

achieving local social change. The next chapter reports on the study results in relation to

Rogers’ characteristics of innovations.

Participants’ views of the implementation of the State Plan were explored using Rogers’

diffusion theory. In this respect, perceptions of the relative advantage, compatibility,

complexity, trialability and observability of the State Plan’s implementation were

explored through semi structured interviews. Rogers’ framework was used to assess the

factors which assisted and impeded the implementation of social inclusion in local

settings from participants’ perspectives. The extent to which Rogers’ key characteristics

were seen as present in implementation was critical for later analysis. So too were

participant perspectives on the rate of adoption and overall effectiveness of the State Plan

and its impact on the success of local planning initiatives, support for intergovernmental

partnership and capacity to effect social change.

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This study adopted Rogers’ framework for the development of key questions and

analysis. It was positioned within a qualitative and interpretive research tradition

(Creswell, 2003) rather than in a more objective, positivist school. It sought to explore

the utility of the framework adopted from the perspective of the key participants in the

State Plan’s implementation process.

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CHAPTER 5

STUDY RESULTS

Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to report the documentary analysis of the State Plan and on

how state and local government managers, officers and people with disabilities who

participated in this study, described the State Plan’s capacity to increase the inclusion of

people with disabilities in local settings in relation to Rogers’ characteristics of

innovations. Each of Rogers’ characteristics of innovation including relative value,

compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability is defined. Then the definition is

applied to the State Plan and finally participant views regarding the characteristic are

outlined.

Seventeen individual face to face semi-structured interviews were conducted with the

study participants of 2 hours duration. Participants were provided with the opportunity to

nominate a location that they considered private and confidential. The fourteen State and

Local Government participants all nominated an office in their workplace as their

preferred setting for a depth interview. The three people with disabilities participating in

the study nominated their homes as their preferred setting for a depth interview. All

interviews were audio taped, transcribed and analysed using Rogers’ characteristics of

innovation theory as a framework.

Although the study design assumed that the views of State and local government

participants would be potentially quite different, the points of difference were relatively

small. The results indicate where views are shared amongst participants and highlight

areas of difference. Although the study design assumed that all categories of participants

would have views on all Rogers’ characteristics, this was not the case.

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State and local government participants did express views on all characteristics. In the

instance of relative advantage, for example, Department of Human Services head office

and regional managers and officers expressed more views than local government

managers and officers. This is understandable as the State Plan emanated from the State

Government and is not a mandated document for local government in Victoria. Hence,

the relative advantage of the State Plan was more experienced by State Government

participants. Given Rogers’ model, the absence of comments from any of the included

participant groups has more meaning in analysing the implementation issues that may

need to change. If the State Plan was mandated for local government, then it is likely that

local government managers and officers would be more engaged with it.

Similarly, participants with disabilities were silent of the State Plan’s relative advantage,

compatibility and complexity and highly opinionated on the characteristics of trialability

and observability. This can be understood in a number of ways. Firstly, people with

disabilities living in local communities are probably more engaged with the activities of

daily living, the extent to which State and local governments are able to trial projects,

services or programs that improve their social inclusion and the observability of the

impacts arising from this activity. Secondly, the process of policy implementation, its

relative advantage, compatibility and complexity is less likely to resonate with local

community members than it does or professionals in the field.

Relative advantage Rogers’ definition of relative advantage

According to Rogers, relative advantage is “… the degree to which an innovation is

perceived as better than the idea it supersedes” (Rogers, 2003, p.15). This may mean

economic or social benefit, convenience or satisfaction. The extent of objective

advantage is not as important as whether individuals perceive it to be advantageous as the

greater the perceived relative advantage, the more rapid its rate of adoption will be.

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An analysis of the relative advantage of the State Plan

According to the State Plan Implementation Plan 2002-05 (Department of Human

Services, 2002a) this State Plan is perceived as better than previous disability plans

because it broadens the parameters of inclusion beyond a direct service model:

…for the first time in Victoria, The State Disability Plan provides a framework for promoting inclusion and participation for people with a disability across all areas of life – including disability supports, health and community services, recreation, education, employment, transport and housing. (Department of Human Services, 2002a, p.iii)

Further, it formalised the relationship between state and local government, and other

stakeholders, required to effect change:

…the Disability Services Division will be strengthening our relationships and building partnerships with the disability sector, other Government Departments, local governments, community groups and, perhaps most importantly, with people with a disability, parents, their families and carers (Department of Human Services, 2002, p.iii).

Three goals described the State Plan’s implementation focus including support for the

exercise of choice by individuals with disabilities to pursue individual lifestyles,

strengthening the ability of the Victorian community to become more welcoming and

accessible and developing more inclusive and accessible public services.

Given this study’s focus on implementation of the State Plan in local settings, the priority

strategy to “Strengthen Local Communities” is of key contextual interest. It represents

one of the defining differences between past and present disability planning as it embeds

social inclusion in a local settings context and formalises an implementation relationship

with local government. The significant difference between this State Disability Plan and

past plans is that emphasis has shifted to the importance of changing social, cultural and

economic process and structures in local settings to include people with disabilities,

rather than simply focusing on service driven solutions.

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What marks the difference between initiatives and past disability policy initiatives is the

commitment to intergovernmental and community organisation partnership to achieve

local change.

Participant views on relative advantage State and local government participants from metropolitan and interface areas and

Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office expressed

views that the State Plan’s emphasis on social inclusion was better than previous

disability policy. People with disabilities participating in the study did not express any

views regarding the relative advantage of the current State Plan. Whilst not all categories

of participants articulated these views, none provided views to the contrary. According

to Rogers’ theory this meant that it had relative advantage.

The relative advantage identified by participants in this study included the formal linkage

between disability policy and human rights, expansion of the state government’s policy to

include all people with disabilities (not just service recipients), community building as a

fundamental element of policy implementation and the formal inclusion of local

government within the policy context as a key implementation partner. These points will

be expanded on in the following sections.

Participants from the Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head

Office and a local government officer described the State Plan as having relative

advantage over previous disability policies because it overtly linked disability policy to a

human rights framework and identified people with disabilities as active citizens. This

linkage was described as having modernised state government disability policy by

reframing people with disabilities as active citizens with a role in relation to local

communities.

This was evidenced by the comments that:

The State Plan is grounded within a human rights framework but it’s also grounded within the social model of disability. It’s got a post modern flavour to it

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as well because … the play on diversity within the State Plan and citizenship are really important things and RuralAccess and the community building stuff all drew on that …. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

and that “… disability almost got stuck in the 60s social theory. I think what the State

Plan actually did was bring us into the late 20th century as far as social theory goes”

(Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer).

Placing resources into local government to facilitate implementation of the social

inclusion policy emphasis of the State Plan was identified as a deliberate decision that

provided relative advantage as evidenced by the following comment:

… again I think the significance of placing RuralAccess and MetroAccess within local government is about that. It’s about saying that these are discussions about citizenship, these are discussions about how we organize to respond to the citizenship needs and aspirations of people with disabilities. It’s about a civic response it’s not about a service response based usually around people’s deficits. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

The linkage to a human rights framework meant that the State Plan, whilst not mandated

for local government to implement was described as consistent with the legislated role of

local government to plan and advocate for all community members. This was identified

as more relevant than previous state government disability policy that focussed on

services which were not delivered by local government.

This policy consistency was evidenced by the comment that:

I’d say that people pay their rates for us to provide a service to the community. The community is made up of lots of people with varying ages, needs, requirements. We have a responsibility to meet the needs of our community and as such we’re not doing our jobs if we don’t think about it holistically. (Interface local government officer)

A participant from the Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head

Office expressed the view that the State Plan provided relative advantage over past policy

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because it aimed to implement social inclusion for all people with disabilities and not just

service users.

This was evidenced by the comment that:

… a State Plan that was able to focus in the attention of the division and the Government on not only those people in receipt of services but also people with disabilities living in the Victorian community. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

Both this Head Office participant and a local government officer raised the fact that the

State Plan extended the policy landscape further from a service driven model of inclusion

to one including broader community building.

This was evidenced by the comment that:

We needed something different which was going to actually strengthen community and engage in community planning and development. We needed to do something that we hadn’t done before and that was fund services that clearly have a responsibility to plan with community - fund workers and services that don’t have case coordination responsibilities. Fund services of place workers and resources strategically in that case within local governments … [because] local government has a mandate to plan across the full range of community infrastructure and is the service best placed to deliver on that. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

For one local government officer, the State Plan set a framework for “…bringing the

community together” (Interface local government officer).

In addition to the argument that the State Plan had relative advantage in identifying

strategies to implement social inclusion more comprehensively, participants also

described the State Plan as providing a policy rationale and a mechanism for increased

relationship development and partnership with local government. In these respects, the

State Plan was described as having relative advantage over past disability policy. These

views were expressed by a Department of Human Services Disability Services Division

Head Office participant and a local government manager. Comments from a Head Office

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participant highlighted the lack of formal relationship between state and local

government in implementing disability policy prior to the State Plan’s development as

well as the challenges of balancing service sector change and the need for emphasis on

strengthening local communities where people with disabilities live.

This was evidenced by the comments that:

I think it’s been a very poor connection between the [disability services] division and local government and as a result of that, very poor connection between the service system and local government. Not really an understanding the role that local government can play in building and strengthening community and including people with disabilities and leading community change … so you know the intention with something like RuralAccess was to look at how we could engage local government more effectively and then that, really put local government on the radar in a much stronger way within the context of the State Plan. I don’t think it would have been in there otherwise as strong as it was because the preoccupation of the division was around you know funding and support of the service system. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

and that,

The State Plan has developed a context for the community building initiatives, for the role that local government might play. It’s given that community building work more authority so it becomes a hook …. The next phase is, how do we …. really push partnership stuff and the integrated planning stuff using the resources that we fund? (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

The formal identification of local government in the State Plan as an implementation

partner was identified as an innovation by participants. Evidence of shifting practice was

provided by a local government manager who noted:

I think in past they might not have included those agencies, they might have included the Disability Advisory Committee of Victoria because that’s sort of one of theirs, but they wouldn’t necessarily have included the agencies and they definitely wouldn’t have included the local government. (Metropolitan local government manager)

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Another said that in the past, the experience of working with state government may not

have been positive as evidenced by the comment that:

Local government had often been burnt with that thing about where a state government would come in and fund a project and then walk away from it and the local government was left with it without funding to deal with it. (Metropolitan local government manager)

The next section reports on the data collected from study participants on perceptions of

compatibility.

Compatibility

Rogers’ definition of compatibility

According to Rogers, compatibility is “… the degree to which an innovation is perceived

as being consistent with the existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential

adopters” (Rogers, 2003, p.15). Compatibility with the values and norms of a social

system will enable more rapid adoption whereas an innovation which is incompatible

with the values and norms of a social system may require prior changes to the value

system which is a slower process.

An analysis of the compatibility of the State Plan

It is arguable that the State Plan was consistent with the existing values and past

experiences of the state government because it “…has been developed in the context of

key Government policy frameworks, including Growing Victoria Together” (Department

of Human Services, 2002a, p.3). A key element of Growing Victoria Together was its

focus on the development of safe, resilient and caring communities, commitment to

reducing disadvantage, and emphasis on community building and strengthening. This is

consistent with other whole of government and engagement based policies that have

reflected this new policy direction.

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The shared commitment to the universal values embodied in the State plan were highly

consistent with idea of compatibility in promoting social inclusion. On the other hand, the

Department of Human Services, which had responsibility for the Implementation Plan for

the State Plan has a mission to “… protect and enhance the health and well being of all

Victorians, emphasising vulnerable groups and those most in need” (Department of

Human Services, 2009, Homepage). This illustrates the tension that arose between the

community building and strengthening character of the State Plan and other key

Government policy frameworks and the objectives identified to support the DHS mission.

These objectives are predominantly framed in terms of service delivery and focus on

service waiting times, quality, sustainability and efficiency, different service models and

access. Only one Department of Human Services objective focused on building strong

communities and it was linked to primary care services rather than the relationship

between disability supports, health and community services, recreation, education,

employment, transport and housing (Department of Human Services, 2002, p.7).

Arguably, notwithstanding the commitment to the values and goals of social inclusion,

the overwhelming emphasis remained on the provision of services to individuals with

disability, rather than on the active removal of social, cultural, physical and economic

barriers to participation and inclusion.

Similarly, within the Department of Human Services, the Disability Services Division

mission was to “… improve quality of life for all Victorians with a disability through

supports and services that enhance people’s independence, choice and community

inclusion” (Department of Human Services, 2009, Homepage). Roles associated with

this mission focus on the inclusion of people with disabilities, service system flexibility,

service quality and resource management, predominantly in relation to the disability

service support system. There was a much less noticeable emphasis on programs to

directly remove barriers for inclusion and participation within published documents.

In describing new directions for disability services and the vision for inclusive

communities, the State Plan frames this change in terms of “… moving away from

existing service models … towards a system that responds to individual needs … so that

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people with a disability can participate in activities of their choice” (Department of

Human Services, 2002, p.13).

While not actually defined, the State Plan’s key target group would seem to be people

with disabilities either in receipt of services or waiting for services rather than the

population based group of people within the community with acknowledged disabilities

at varying levels of complexity. The absence of comprehensive population based data in

the State Plan and Implementation Plan reduced the capacity for analysis of target groups

and linkages to recommended implementation action.

The Implementation Plan 2006-08 was similarly weighted toward services and service

recipients but noted the establishment of an Office for Disability in the Department of

Planning and Community Development as introducing a mechanism for enhanced

community building.

The Office for Disability was charged with responsibility for extending a whole of

government approach to disability, positive community attitudes, leadership amongst

people with disabilities, a whole of population approach to disability and coordination

across government on disability issues. However, responsibility for the State Plan

remains with the Department of Human Services Disability Services Division. Other

interventions identified are largely programmatic and fund local and regional initiatives.

Participant views on compatibility with values People with disabilities participating in the study did not express any views regarding the

compatibility of the current State Plan with either Department of Human Services or local

government values and principles. State government participants from the Department of

Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office and regional offices provided

the most comments that the State Plan’s emphasis on social inclusion was consistent with

their values. One regional local government officer made observations regarding the

State Plan’s compatibility with the values of its own staff.

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Department of Human Services regional office staff commented on the compatibility

with the values of staff and this was evidenced by the comments that:

Oh yeah I feel very comfortable with it. I see a clear, very clear connection and a flow from the plan, Disability Services departmental priorities, DHS values and then we have regional priorities and then we have Disability Services priorities in this region. (Metropolitan Department of Human Services manager)

Similarly another officer commented that:

I think the change is not too far for people. I think people for a long time have been working in the same way, you know they already have this idea that they want people with disability to be more part of their community. (Rural Department of Human Services officer)

A regional local government officer reinforced the compatibility of the State Plan for

state government by highlighting some of the consistent themes in the State Plan and

other significant state government policy addressing social inclusion. This was

evidenced by the comments that:

The [State Plan] … aligns very closely with a lot of the Fairer Victoria [policy] work and I suppose one of the nice things about the policy and the current state government raft of policies is they are fairly consistent across the theme and so the whole capacity building inclusiveness approach that this part of the Fairer Victoria platform flows out, …. is very cohesive and … that whole policy framework really ties up quite strongly. (Regional local government officer)

Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office staff were

involved in developing the State Plan following the experience of implementing the

RuralAccess program which also utilised the principles of the social model of disability.

In supporting the extent to which the State Plan provided continuity with organisational

values, it was argued that this meant that the values were consistent.

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This was evidenced by the comments that:

… the whole development of the State Plan and the community building initiatives I think are really interesting and how they influence one another. So I suppose in a way I’d argue that you know something like RuralAccess really helped to shape the direction of that priority strategy around strengthening community. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

Participants identified that support for the social model of disability and the State Plan’s

emphasis on social inclusion were compatible for state government staff because:

Most people would say it’s a good thing because people with disabilities should be able to access on an equal footing anything that’s available in the community so there is a very strong philosophical commitment to that. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

For another Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office

officer, compatibility related to the potential for the policy to deliver social inclusion into

local settings. This was evidenced by the comment that “… absolutely … it’s really

about trying to ground disability within the context of culture and the context of you

know society” (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office

officer).

For a Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office staff

member, the value of partnership work with local government was compatible and

described as a natural next step to implement policy to achieve social inclusion in local

communities. This was in spite of some reservations within the department regions that

working with local government and funding staff to do programmatic social inclusion

work was quite challenging.

This was evidenced in the comment that:

[some said] … “why would you do anything with local government because they’re difficult, they’re hard to work with”, so there was all that sort of stuff and

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instead of saying well recognise it that’s why we want to work with them, that’s why we want to place workers inside councils to do stuff. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

No participants put forward contrary views regarding the degree to which the State Plan’s

emphasis on social inclusion was consistent with their values.

Participant views on compatibility with past experiences

In contrast, however, a Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head

Office officer identified a number of ways in which the State Plan’s emphasis on social

inclusion was not consistent with their past experiences and on this issue, local

government participants were silent. Comments disputing compatibility with past

experiences related directly to policy implementation and the lack of past experience

within the Department of Human Services to manage such significant shifts in policy

emphasis. In the case of the State Plan, this was about changing from a dominant service

culture to a universal system of social inclusion for all people with disabilities. Strategies

to maintain consistent implementation between Department of Human Services Disability

Services Division Head Office and regional offices, local government and between

different state government departments were identified as lacking.

Participants emphasised the dominance of the medical model in disability services, and a

strong culture of working with service recipients. This increased the challenge of

implementing the State Plan’s emphasis on social inclusion. The following comment

provided evidence of the challenge in implementing change that has not been tackled

before:

… I think what’s hard in the disability area is that you just have this prevailing culture which is about specialist services and specialist service provision and it’s driven very much from a health model. So trying to promote a culture of inclusion, even though it’s now in policy, that’s a great thing. But trying to get people to understand what it means and value it when you’ve had for the last 100 years or whatever a prevailing culture around disability being about health, individuals, specialist services, service provision and trying to shift that and say it doesn’t need to be about those things …it does but not to the same extent it has.

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We need to think about people as people and they live in communities and they have the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else and how do we support them to be a part of community. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

The following comment demonstrates the differences of view regarding how Department

of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office and regional offices wanted

to implement the programs linked to the State Plan’s social inclusion priorities.

They took it to the regions. There was going to be this new initiative and it was going to be based on the local area coordination stuff. It was going to be one worker and they’d have to work 125 cases. The regions cracked it. Basically there were a few people who said we don’t need this - we need something different. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

Regarding the experience of working with local government to implement disability

policy and a sense of how that process might be conducted, one Head Office Department

of Human Services Disability Services Division officer noted that “I’m not sure that the

division had a clear sense of what that might look like and I think that there wasn’t a

great deal of clarity around the role that local government might play”.

Prior to the adoption of the State Plan, participants indicated that systems were not in

place to implement social inclusion for all people with disabilities in local areas and

across all state government departments. The State Plan was described as providing a

mechanism to drive change and as such the compatibility with past implementation

experiences was absent. This is evidenced by the following comment that “… we can use

the State Plan as more of a hook for us in terms of contextualising it. Issues that we want

to drive through the policy apparatus here and more broadly across government so it’s an

interesting way it works” (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division

Head Office officer).

The lack of compatibility of the State Plan with past policy and implementation

experiences highlights an issue in relation to Rogers’ compatibility characteristic of

innovation. Hence this aspect of Rogers’ characteristic of compatibility was not met.

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Participant views on the compatibility with the needs of potential adopters

Participant responses regarding the consistency of the State Plan’s emphasis on social

inclusion with the needs of potential adopters was divided. Potential adopters in this case

study included the managers and officers from the Department of Human Services and

local government authorities. As a result, their “needs” refers to the policy objectives of

the Government at the time of implementation. Department of Human Services

participants identified that the State Plan was more efficient by assisting with , demand

management and reducing the cost to government of providing institutional care.

This is evidenced by the following comment:

… the most obvious answer is demand management. If you can make a community more inclusive in accepting and embracing people with disabilities, and they can get support and opportunities through the community, you don’t need to provide as many specialist services. So that is the most obvious answer and that is probably the critical reason as to why the community building program came into place. But above and beyond that I think people within the Department, and within disability services, mostly understand that these programs provide some leverage for them to facilitate some of the things that they want to achieve in terms of the service system and reforming the service system. So it’s creating another string to the bow if you like of disability services but it’s allowing them to be able to do some other things that they want to do and need to do that at the end of the day will create better opportunities for people with disabilities and also will hopefully create less reliance on a specialist service system response. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

A regional Department of Human Services manager identified that the State Plan’s

emphasis on social inclusion would free up Government resources to work more

intensively with people with more marginalising conditions. This was evidenced by the

comment that “… there will be more and more people living independently because there

are options available and the community can support them. So that’s one advantage in

terms of then more resources may go into the most marginalised people” (Metropolitan

Department of Human Services manager).

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The only comments made that supported the consistency of the State Plan with the

objectives of potential adopters were from two local government participants. They

expressed views that the State Plans consistency with local government’s objectives

related to the fact that Councils are generally universal providers and so the concept of

social inclusion for all has policy resonance. This is supported by the comments “that at

the end of the day council is a mainstream service and …that is basically our goal that we

make it that people have a direct access to our services” (Metropolitan local government

manager).

And that:

One of the things that everyone within council hates is the bombardments from disaffected or unhappy communities about stuff that we’ve got no control over. Much of it comes from a lack of understanding within the community of just what local government does. So I think, one of the arguments around council supporting [the State Plan] is to have better informed communities actually seen as partners and supporters. (Regional local government manager)

Examples of where the State Plan approach to social inclusion was not compatible with

the objectives of potential adopters were identified by DHS head office staff and local

government managers and officers. The tension between departmental values regarding

services and planning, versus the community planning required of a plan for all people

with disabilities, some of whom will not be service users, is illustrated by the following

comment from a DHS head office staff member:

I think the Departmental values are about planning for services and planning for individuals and Disability Services mirrors that broadly speaking. That would be the case, and the challenge for us is that’s been that way in terms of disability services and our regions and our service sector, for ever and a day that we planned for individuals and we planned for services for individuals. Planning for community is another dimension that we find it hard to get our heads around and how you bring together plans for individual planning for services and planning for the communities which is face to face planning. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

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Another Department of Human Services Disability Services Division officer identified

that this tension had created some difficulty in developing the State Plan and particularly

around the role of local government as an implementation partner:

And the other thing that was important was that the service was placed outside of the traditional service system and that was a bit of a debate. So building up the case for placing it in local government was really important and the idea in terms of the jigsaw or an equation is that we didn’t need more of the same …. You know we want to resource them we want to partner up with them because we want to engage them effectively so you know that was some of the debate and arguments that was going around. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

Similarly, a local government participant identified some levels of incompatibility with

implementing the State Plan approach to social inclusion. This mainly focussed on the

incapacity of the state to bind local government action. This is evidenced by the

comment that one officer “ …was very much aware of what was in the State Disability

Plan but I’m not sure how strongly what we’re doing in terms of [disability] planning

derives out of that framework. I don’t feel that there are any direct linkages”

(Metropolitan local government officer).

Potential adopters were divided in their views about the compatibility of the State Plan

with their needs. Some participants focused on economic advantages while others on

social outcomes. Hence this aspect of Rogers’ characteristic of compatibility was not

met.

The next section reports on the views collected from study participants on perceptions of

the complexity of State Plan for innovation.

Complexity Rogers’ definition of complexity

According to Rogers, complexity is “… the degree to which an innovation is perceived as

difficult to understand and use” (Rogers, 2003, p.16). Complicated innovations will be

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understood and adopted more slowly as they often need adopters to develop new skills

and understandings.

An analysis of the complexity of the State Plan

The State Plan articulates a vision for “a stronger and more inclusive community” where

“everyone has the same opportunities to participate in the life of the community, and the

same responsibilities towards society as all other citizens of Victoria”. However it does

not define “inclusive community”, which population groups should have increased

opportunities or the development processes required (Department of Human Services,

2002). The shift from a focus on service provision to one of opening up opportunities

through engagement and community development is a key element of the State Plan’s

policy definition. It has different implications for implementation strategy. It implies a

fundamental shift to approaches that involve community building, engagement, changing

the way recreational, employment, social organisations include or exclude people with

disabilities. This involves a new approach to planning and strategy development,

regulation, funding arrangements. Yet these differences are not reflected in the

implementation plan.

The State Plan does not contain an analysis of the profile of people with disabilities in

terms of impairment type, complexity, gender, life stage, cultural or indigenous

background. Nor does it identify the locations within which people with disabilities live

or provide any analysis related to their current or proposed use targets for disability

supports, health and community services, recreation, education, employment, transport

and housing.

This lack of definition and data analysis contributes to complexity of understanding. The

State Plan does not establish an implementation framework to operationalise the concept

of inclusion. Nor does it support adopters in developing the skills and understandings to

implement change in state wide or local settings. Population data are a key element upon

which the State Plan should be being implemented. The shift from service defined

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definitions and service eligibility to strategies for including all people in all aspects of

local communities means that much more needs to be known about those people who are

the target of inclusion strategies. If local governments are to partner in implementation

of the State Plan, then these data profiles need to be shared to develop joint diverse

actions in local settings.

People with disabilities participating in the study did not express any views regarding the

complexity of the State Plan’s emphasis on social inclusion. Participant views indicate

that social inclusion a difficult concept to understand and use in policy implementation.

These points will be expanded on in the following sections.

Participant views on complexity and understanding social inclusion policy Local government and Department of Human Services participants had mixed views on

whether the concept of social inclusion, as the basis for and outcome of disability policy,

was a difficult concept to understand. For those who saw it as an understandable

concept, it was described as being straightforward at an intuitive level and providing the

platform for meaningful participation. This is evidenced by the comment that “… out of

any other social issues or social change that we are trying to achieve, disability and

inclusion policy actually has a lot behind it. People grasp it quickly” (Interface council

manager).

One Department of Human Services officer commented that the State Plan, and the

concept of social inclusion, is more accessible to people with a social work and

community development background and that belief in the principles of this professional

orientation provided a driver for implementation. This is evidenced by the comments that

“I think if you’re coming from a community development background you can really

understand it and see where they want to take this” and “community strengthening is an

ideology, it’s what we’re all working towards. Our community will be inclusive of all

people with disabilities no matter how minor or major that disability is and it’s as simple

as that” (Metropolitan Department of Human Services officer).

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The same officer said that inclusion means “that we want everyone to be included at

whatever capacity they can to be included so we’re not saying that if you’re included you

need to be actually doing the activity or running the activity” (Metropolitan Department

of Human Services officer).

Another participant outlined an understanding that social inclusion meant genuine and

not tokenistic participation. This is evidenced by the comment that:

Inclusion of people with a disability … the trick is to be committed to meaningful participation or as my colleagues say, full participation. Non tokenistic is where people are sitting at the table and they’re regarded for their skills and their interests rather than because they we’ve done something and we just want people with disability involved. (Metropolitan Department of Human Services manager)

However, more participants commented on the difficulty of understanding the concept of

social inclusion. Questions of the concept scope, meaning and definitions in the policy

implementation context were identified as problematic. One local government officer

identified that inclusion was not well understood in the community and this is evidenced

by a comment in relation to work with members of one local community through the

MetroAccess program that “… they wanted me to not use the word inclusion because

they didn’t know what it meant” (Interface local government officer).

A Department of Human Services manager also pointed out that other state government

departments were not aware of the meaning the social inclusion embedded in the State

Plan and that they were not aware of the State Plan. This was in spite of the State Plan’s

goal to provided joined up state government responses for people with disabilities to

increase social inclusion.

This is evidenced by the comment that:

We recently started meeting with colleagues from the Department for Victorian Communities, not from the Office for Disability, but the local engagement area. I realised that I needed to start with the State Disability Plan because they didn’t know about it … we were to talk about how we were going to work together, local engagement from DVC and us from Disability Services in the region. We needed to hear from them about what they’re doing, what they’re about and we

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needed to tell them what we are doing. When I started going straight into things like MetroAccess I had to pull myself back because I thought hang on let’s just check in with them whether they know about State Disability Plan and their eyes were glazed. So to me it was – no. (Metropolitan Department of Human Services manager)

Both local government and Department of Human Services participants had common

concerns with the definition of social inclusion in an operational context. In spite of the

State Plan’s intention to be a plan for all people with disabilities, irrespective of service

recipient status, many participants stated that they found it hard to define what social

inclusion could mean for different target groups.

This is evidenced by the comment that

This whole concept of inclusive community - the specific service provisions and the relationship between the two and the trigger points - how does one affect the other and how does one complement the other … from my observation, in terms of practical experience, there’s a real confusion still about how it all sits, how it all relates. (Interface local government manager)

Comments from local government officers indicated a lack of understanding as evidenced

by the following comment that “[the term social inclusion is] seen as jargon … and I

don’t know what we do about the inclusion word because even though we’ve been using

it for years and years a lot of people are still just seeing it as jargon and haven’t got a clue

what it means” (Regional local government officer). Another local government officer

remarked that disability service agencies have not been clear in their understanding of the

term social inclusion or related terms such as capacity building as evidenced by the

comment that:

I’d be sitting in meetings, particularly with workers from a major service provider, and all they talked about was community capacity building. Everything was community capacity building. One day I just sat there and I said to one of them ‘do you actually even know what that means?’ It’s like people are talking the talk, and we’re all using the right words now, and we’re very much talking about inclusion and community capacity building. But how much do we all understand what that means and how that transpires [in practice]. (Metropolitan local government officer)

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Similarly, a Department of Human Services officer identified the interpretation of social

inclusion to be difficult. This is evidenced by the comment that “we can’t interpret the

words very well and so there’s lot of words out there, lots of jargon about inclusive

communities” (Metropolitan Department of Human Services officer). Another

Department of Human Services participant commented that the same interpretation issue

is present for service providers. This is evidenced by the comment that:

I think that people struggle with that [definition of social inclusion], what that means … I think it’s a contestable set of terms that people will have their opinions and they’re probably all right about it. I think people struggle with what that means for their work and that includes people within Disability Services, disability support workers in community residential units and planners because we’ve been doing some work with them … .(Metropolitan Department of Human Services manager)

None of the participants said that the concept of social inclusion was easy to implement

within the context of disability policy. State and local government participants indicated

that an inadequate definition increased the difficulty of implementation and forced

operational staff to make their own decisions rather than relying on policy guidance.

There was confusion over how the diverse needs of people with disabilities was

identified. This was seen as problematic for implementation by participants. Under

resourcing, underdeveloped workforce skills and the absence of a measurement system

were cited as making it difficult to implement strategies to promote social inclusion.

Finally, participants commented on the lack of a strategic plan to support partnership

based implementation between state and local government.

The abstraction of the concept of social inclusion was identified as an issue in policy

implementation. It indicates that unless central policy definitions are precisely

articulated, operational staff lack clarity about implementation processes and how to

develop an implementation plan. This was identified by both state and local government

participants and evidenced by the comment that:

It is very abstract, extremely abstract and I find a lot of government stuff is abstract and I’m very tangible. I want to hold onto something, I want to be able to go with it but I suppose we’re still exploring those pathways so that we can

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actually find that tangible projects that we can work on. (Metropolitan Department of Human Services officer)

For one local government manager, the abstraction of the definition of social inclusion in

the State Plan has made it hard for operational staff to implement because they were not

sure about what they need to change and how they would measure outcomes. This is

evidenced by the following comment:

It’s problematic … say you put a watering system in an oval, well you’ll see the grass will be greener and that’s immediately understandable. Immediately something that you can monitor. If you do something in disability … you’re probably not going to see it if you’re the person who didn’t get it in the first place. … don’t just show people what can be, show people how good what they’ve done is and I think that would make a big difference. Like for example to design a building with good accessibility, visit the building with someone who has limited mobility.

Even though many support the concept at an in principle level, it was identified by

participants as needing a strategic implementation plan. This is evidenced by the

comment that:

I think society has moved to the point generally that we’re all pretty aware that the Disability Discrimination Act exists. We are all pretty aware that if you’re discriminating against someone with a disability that’s a bad thing. I think we’re at the point where people just don’t quite know what they need to do to improve it. So that’s where I think we’re moving into this real exciting stage actually of, people are quite open to education now because they’ve heard the DDA stuff, okay I know I have to do it but how do I actually do it. (Metropolitan local government officer)

Participants argued that the failure to ground the concept of inclusion was a flaw in the

State Plan. This is evidenced by the comment that:

I mean you might have, let’s say 20 per cent of the population lives with some sort of disability, okay but there’s no question you can ask that will be reflective for all those 20 per cent because the question that you ask about people having an intellectual disability is going to be totally different from those with a mobility disability (Metropolitan local government manager)

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In addition, the broad definition becomes problematic given the diversity of people with

disability in terms of impairment type and complexity. This is evidenced by the

comment regarding the meaning of inclusion that:

It’s more a problem in that it’s so broad. It’s so, and I think that’s where the people that feel like inclusion, an inclusive emphasis, dilutes the specific work that can be done on the multi level disabilities. So I think it’s very understandable, I just think it’s very broad, where it loses it’s understandability, it’s so broad. (Regional local government officer)

These issues then make it harder for operational staff to identify the most relevant or

significant projects in local areas and a Department of Human Services participant

identified the impact on operational staff. This is evidenced by the comments that “…

actually choosing projects and initiatives has been a real struggle trying to get people to

understand” (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office

officer).

Both state and local government participants identified that an underlying tension in State

Plan implementation related to the definition of social inclusion and whether a universal

or service driven change process is the most relevant. The absence of an implementation

plan for social inclusion that differentiates actions for all people with disabilities,

irrespective of their service status, was identified as problematic by a local government

officer. It is evidenced in the following comment:

There was certainly talk about the challenges of making it [the State Plan] something that would be more universal and there was discussion about the fact that a minute proportion of people with disabilities are in receipt of services. The vast majority of people with disabilities in our community do not get disability services. So that was acknowledged but when it comes to actual strategies it’s very easy to slip back into disability services. It comes up every time when we talk about engaging people with disabilities it’s a lot easier to engage people who are touched somehow by the service system just in terms of basic communication. Whereas we know that there’s hundreds and thousands of people out there who don’t have a link with the services who manage to get on with their daily lives and manage as best they can. Some are very, very involved in community and others are probably very isolated. (Regional local government officer)

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Similarly, social inclusion was seen as difficult to implement because the concept is

complex and insufficient attention has been given in the State Plan to developing a

change program to move the practices in services to a more relevant model. This is

evidenced in the following comment:

I think we’re still, especially within disability services and your traditional services, getting those people that think if we take a group of people out to the swimming pool that’s their activity done, tick the box … it’s the traditional services that are more difficult to move along and like I said that kind of goes back to the skill within the staff to be able to facilitate that within the constraints that they’re currently working and within the way things are funded. (Regional Department of Human Services officer)

This question of the extent to which resource adequacy affects the ability to implement

the social inclusion goal of the State Plan was canvassed by both state and local

government participants. This is evidenced by the comments that the

“deinstitutionalisation of people with disabilities has not been what it’s cracked up to be

simply because it wasn’t followed with the right resources as far as I’m concerned”

(Metropolitan local government manager) and:

… we’re asking community to be accepting of people with disabilities, but to do that, they do need to make some structural changes to the way they do things, they do need some resources. I think it is a bit of a cop out that we just go out there and say right we’re all going to include people with disabilities, let’s all do it and let’s all do it out of our own pocket. I think that is a bit of a hole and I think the State Plan is a bit like nirvana, it’s the ideology that we want but where is all the practical stuff coming from. (Metropolitan Department of Human Services officer)

The other critical issue that makes the definition of social inclusion difficult to implement

is the absence of a strategic partnership plan to develop joint state and local government

action with associated resources. This point was made by local government participants

and is evidenced by the following comment:

I think there needs to be some collaborative effort between councils and the Municipal Association of Victoria to start really pushing as a state wide group about some of those core issues like buildings code, building standards and accessible transport. I find that what happens is that every little council is trying

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to advocate for these things in their own municipality, which is great, but at the end of the day council is feeling that they can’t do anything that’s not being endorsed by the Minister so you’ve sort of got your hands tied. (Metropolitan local government officer)

The same officer noted that understandings of policy objectives are not enough and that

implementation relies on adequate resources. This is evidenced by the comment that:

… say for example supporting the shop owners to make their businesses more accessible. They’ll come back to us and say we understand why we need to do this yet who’s going to give us the money to put a ramp into our building …. I think that’s the thing with the State Disability Plan - it’s got all these amazing promises or visions or whatever in it but where’s the dollars to actually implement a lot of that stuff … so at the end of the day that’s the thing that’s holding a lot of people back I think. (Metropolitan local government officer)

Participant views in relation to the complexity characteristic of innovation were varied

based on whether they were commenting on the extent to which the State Plan’s emphasis

on social inclusion was difficult to understand or use. Participants from both local

government and the Department of Human Services agreed that the State Plan’s emphasis

on social inclusion was understandable in principle although difficult to interpret and

understand in local settings.

No participants identified where it was easy to use the definition of social inclusion to

design and implement strategy. The comments of both local government and DHS

participants focussed on a number of problems. These were associated with the breadth

of the definition, the difficulty of translation of policy to practice, confusion regarding

legitimate policy target groups and underdeveloped resources in partnership support,

skills and funding.

According to Rogers’ theory, participant comments regarding the complexity

characteristic means that the rate of change to increase social inclusion in local settings

may not be as rapid as might otherwise be the case.

The next section reports on the data collected from study participants on perceptions of

trialability of the State Plan.

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Trialability Rogers’ definition of trialability

According to Rogers, trialability is “… the degree to which an innovation may be

experimented with on a limited basis” (Rogers, 2003, p.16). New ideas which can be

broken down and potentially trialled in instalments will be adopted more rapidly because

they represent less uncertainty and provide learning by doing. In order for an innovation

to be trialled it is important that it is well specified. Without a clear description of the

practical application of an innovation, trialling and implementation become difficult.

Hence, the complexity of community inclusion as a key policy concept undermined the

capacity of the policy to establish consistent or targeted trials.

An analysis of the trialability of the State Plan

Implementation with local government and local communities is a key feature of

Victorian Government policy for the social inclusion of people with disabilities.

According to the State Plan Implementation Plan 2002-05, Priority Strategy 4 –

Strengthen Local Communities is one of five priority strategies that form the basis of the

State Plan action plan. While the other priority strategies focus on the service system and

leadership from state government, Strategy 4 addresses community awareness,

intergovernmental and intersectoral partnerships, locally based state funded programs

(Rural and MetroAccess), community transport and community based participation.

The State Plan Implementation Plan 2006-08 reinforced the initial implementation plan

and extended it by transferring intergovernmental and intersectoral policy

implementation to the Office for Disability within the Department of Planning and

Community Development. It also committed the state government to the development of

a Community Building Framework including indicators for funded programs such as

Rural and MetroAccess and Deaf Access and a focus on leadership. The Community

Building Framework, if developed, would provide a model for implementing social

inclusion and a measurement tool. Continuing the programmatic approach to

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implementing the State Plan vision, this Implementation Plan also flagged changes to the

Access all Abilities Program aimed at increasing participation in sport, recreation, arts

and culture. It renewed the agreement with the Municipal Association of Victoria and

identified the need to improve access and cultural appropriateness of supports for people

with disabilities from culturally and linguistically diverse and indigenous backgrounds.

Strategy 4 aligns with Rogers’ concept of trialability as it provided a number of program

initiatives to experiment with the implementation of inclusion. However, it is also clear

that the State Plan does not specify how social inclusion is to be achieved in detail.

The State Plan provides a broad implementation framework, some resources and a set of

broad objectives and then leaves much of the actual design of implementation to local

actors. For Rogers, trialability is an inherent characteristic of an innovation which either

supports or impedes implementation. In practice, the extent to which the State Plan is

trialable was likely to depend on adaptation of the broad policy framework by local

participants.

All participants provided comments on trialability.

Participant views on trialability Study participants from state and local government and participants with disabilities

commented that the State Plan focus on local settings provides a policy context within

which social inclusion can be experimented with on a limited basis. One participant with

a disability commented that:

Local government is the place for it to happen because local government is the nearest form of government in the community and it can react and respond and it can develop [inclusion] in the community. People expect councils to do things but really councils can only do so much. The council has a wonderful opportunity to empower the community and that’s what I see the strength in local government. (Interface participant with a disability)

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This participant went on to make the point that social inclusion is occurring in an ad hoc

way in the community all the time and that this can be coordinated to increase positive

outcomes. This is evidenced by the following comment:

Well the thing is it is already in the community. All you’ve got to do is amplify it because like if you look at your service clubs and you look at Rotary and you look at Lions and you look at scouting and lots of groups and church groups. They need leadership, they need something to be brought out, to bring out those people in the community, lots of people one on one, there are people everywhere who are all working in isolation. (Interface participant with a disability)

Participants indicated that a range of factors assisted and impeded implementation of

social inclusion in local settings. The key themes assisting experimentation were a

universal policy platform, state government resources, partnership with local

governments, leadership and staff support and skills. Those which were seen as

impeding experimentation were the absence of a comprehensive population and service

data profile and a systematic implementation plan. The following sections explore

participant views regarding the factors that assist and then impede the trialability and

experimentation of the State Plan.

Universal policy platform According to participants, the State Plan’s universal policy platform has assisted

experimentation and innovation. In setting out overall policy objectives and strategies,

local government participants reported that universal policy values and integrated action

was a key feature that enabled the implementation of social inclusion. One participant

put this in terms that “Services need to be delivered to everybody not in separate manners

to different groups” (Metropolitan local government manager). The universal policy

platform in the State Plan provided local government with a consistent rational for

implementation.

One participant identified that the State Plan was consistent with council’s overall policy

commitment to social inclusion because, “In our statement of intent for the next four

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years around making sure that our most disadvantaged are not left behind, there’s a social

democracy approach” (Metropolitan local government officer). In practice, this approach

meant that a rural local government incorporated disability planning into an inclusion

policy to embed council responses and decision making. This is evidenced by the

following comment:

Well I know in trying to implement our access policy and action plan we wrote it in such a way that it was about inclusiveness and certainly. It is very much about disability but it doesn’t focus on disability. When we went around initially to try and encourage the cooperation of other business units we talked to each of the managers about the things that they do in the core business and about how that related back to the component parts of the access policy and then when we put together our action plan. We tried as much as possible to include the things that those business units do as part of their core business. In the context of the access policy and action plan, that worked quite well and we felt at the time it was a really good education process, that those managers then had a much better understanding of what we were trying to achieve. It was clearer that we were trying to include these things into the mainstream policy of council. (Rural local government manager)

Incorporating disability policy in a universal manner was raised by several local

government participants as an important feature supporting implementation. The benefits

of this were outlined by another participant in the following terms:

All the departments were responsible in rewriting the plan it wasn’t just me writing what I wanted to see happen it was the departments. The departments were required to put forth what they were prepared to commit to so they were actually aware of what they were meant to be doing and the ownership’s there over what they were committing to. It’s not just me saying ‘oh it would be nice if you could do this’. They are actually saying ‘we want to do this to improve access in our area’. (Metropolitan local government officer)

An example of a tangible outcome from this universal approach to policy was provided

by one participant:

I had some ideas for some projects when I came to council. I had this idea that I wanted to train up some staff in Auslan because we’ve got a great language aid service that was developed through the diversity area whereby someone from the community comes in and just needs basic conversation we’ve got a pool of staff who’ve been trained up in different languages. We call on them they come down or we have a phone conversation, basically do basic translation, if it’s anything

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too technical we need to outsource it. So one of my big brainwaves was why don’t we train up some people in Auslan add them to that language service but integrate it all so it’s just part of our response to language as a whole. (Metropolitan local government officer)

For local government participants, a universal policy platform assisted in experimenting

with social inclusion as it draws many contributors together. This integrated planning

was identified by a number of participants as consolidating a universal approach and

should ultimately be measurable. This was evidenced by the following comment:

I think we’ll have won when we have integrated planning or be on the way to winning. It becomes more than people in community strengthening trying to get us to do stuff. We’ll have won when people can see the benefits of doing it, you know can see the benefits in terms of civic participation in terms of employment, in terms of making buildings accessible. I mean when people can see the benefits and willingly include them in their own plans and put key performance indicators in their own plans around that then I’d say now we’re inclusive. (Rural local government officer)

State Government resources

The provision of state government resources was identified as a key factor in assisting

local experimentation and innovation. Participants specifically focussed on the role

played by programs such as Metro and RuralAccess to support a variety of local inclusion

initiatives. Conversely, the lack of systematic support provided by the Department of

Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office in extending successful

programs on a state wide basis was identified as limiting implementation.

On this first point, a Department of Human Services officer commented that providing

resources into communities as part of the State Plan implementation process has

increased the ability to experiment with inclusion in local settings as it is difficult to

achieve this through centralised policy settings. This is evidenced by the following

comment:

… because we are talking about inclusion of people in a community and community doesn’t happen, I mean community doesn’t happen at government, community is out there and government is here. We’re not the best people to be

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telling that community what they should and shouldn’t be doing so it’s a very smart move to actually put an agent, I suppose of the government, out in the local community to organise that community to bring on that change and form those relationships. (Metropolitan Department of Human Services officer)

Similarly, a local government participant noted that the funding associated with State

Plan programs has enabled it to experiment with implementing social inclusion and

partnering with local government. This is evidenced by the comment that:

[The State Plan] obviously has funding. I mean one of the first results of the Plan was that we got some money to do some disability mapping. I guess one of the other things is that increasingly this state government is seeking to work closer with local government so you actually have in the crudest way of looking at it you have state government as the funder and local government carrying out those works and … have local government as one of the partners. (Metropolitan local government manager)

Both state and local government participants identified that the Metro and RuralAccess

initiatives enabled the State Plan’s goal of social inclusion to be implemented. From a

Department of Human Services perspective this enables implementation to be driven

down, planned for and delivered in local settings where people with disabilities live. This

is evidenced by the comment that:

MetroAccess is definitely the mechanism that I suppose disability services use to strengthen the capacity of the community. I suppose we put a lot of faith and hope that MetroAccess officers and because they’re in the local community they know the grass roots issues, they work in council that all the data and information about their local communities so they’re in the best place to actually know how to either infiltrate or support community organisations to make them inclusive. (Metropolitan Department of Human Services officer)

Further that:

We rely a lot on what MetroAccess workers identify through community consultations in terms of what’s needed and we try to match this with our thinking and our views. What we’ve seen across the region, and we’re not questioning what people are planning to do or in a sense saying this is not relevant. They need to in a way reconcile community responses and needs also with council priorities and some political issues as well … (Metropolitan Department of Human Services manager)

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A similar comment was made by a local government officer:

I feel that MetroAccess has been a real positive area for community awareness building on the disability sector in particular and about how one should become more inclusive in the community. I think there’s always a bit of a naivety out there in the past and I think MetroAccess since it’s been implemented has been a very positive sort of educational mode for that. (Metropolitan local government officer)

Earlier community building programs such as the RuralAccess program were seen as an

important factor supporting local implementation and innovation. Department of Human

Services participants from Head Office and regional offices reported that as the State

Plan incorporated the earlier experience and values of the RuralAccess Program, it had a

greater chance to build on that implementation process. The experience of developing

and implementing a community building program was described as influencing the State

Plan’s development process and creating a culture that supported State Plan initiatives.

This is evidenced by the comments that:

RuralAccess came before the State Plan. I think that’s an important thing to remember that you know the whole thinking and the conceptual development of RuralAccess and the influence that that had on the conceptual development within the division here and then it led to making sure that building implicit communities component of the State Plan is really strong. Again I don’t know how strong it would have been had we not been in here working on the development of community building initiative. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

In the rural region it was suggested that:

RuralAccess has definitely been a big driver in this region but in saying that they wouldn’t have been as successful if it wasn’t for local government taking on board so much of the initiative and really understanding and taking on a bit of responsibility I guess and almost really changing the way that they did things in their own little space. (Rural Department of Human Services officer)

Department of Human Services participants credited intensive support from the

Department of Human Services regional for some of the success in trialling social

inclusion strategies. This initially involved supporting the implementation of

RuralAccess. Subsequently it related to forming the partnerships required to implement

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the State Plan. These supports were described by participants as requiring a challenge to

the perception of how state wide change should be implemented. This is evidenced by

the comment that:

‘Just throw the money out’ was a managerial agenda. So we moved from that managerial agenda which just said, here you are you’ve got your aims and objectives of the program, give them funding and they’ll go and deliver. I’m saying ‘no they won’t just deliver’. It’s ridiculous, it’s a community building context in terms of state government policy, let’s make the most of it and you’ve also got your crafting and orchestrating a whole set of change here. It’s going to take time and a lot of work and a key to it is going to be the partnerships that were developed and if we don’t have strong partnerships with the regional contacts this initiative is doomed. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

Participants outlined the extent to which the time required to establish partnerships

affected implementation mechanisms as evidenced by the following comment:

… a lot of support work was needed which has been very difficult for this place to understand in terms of partnering up state level, regional level, local level. I mean the number of times I’d be asked why am I on the phone and I’d say well I’m on the phone because we’re rolling out an initiative! I’m not sure if the executive really understood what it meant because their heads are in other spaces you know. So we’re rolling out an initiative that’s a completely new way of working. We hadn’t put any time into [the implementation process]. Remember we rolled it out in six weeks, we hadn’t put any time into training or support for the regions so it all happened in situ basically and that was my job. That’s how I saw my job basically providing pretty extensive support. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

Department of Human Services Disability Services Division participants spoke about the

readiness of regions to implement the State Plan and in spite of issues regarding staff

supervision and support that subsequently became a key priority. This was evidenced by

the following comments:

The other issue for us is that there was very, very poor supervision of staff at a regional level so because again we’d rolled it out really quickly so people were growing into the initiative you know and that included people at management level within the regions. It’s very difficult for people to understand that idea. People growing into the initiative and the structures that we need to put into place which were still growing too. Local councils have grown into it too. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

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As the State Plan initiatives were trialled across the state, regional state government

officers took an increasing role in providing support and coordination and this is

evidenced by the following comment:

The regions will set up management structures. Its regional coordination structures that bring the workers together on a four week or six weekly basis so that the opportunity for peer support to deal with that stuff is strong and people don’t get left isolated. Regions will contact the workers on a regular basis. Regions will make sure if there’s a consortia of councils that there’s a management committee that’s happening, all of those things. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

Local governments also started adjusting their resources into disability planning and

projects. However, the following comments provide evidence of variability in the effort

local government has put into State Plan implementation, or the implementation of local

disability plans that are a requirement of local government:

I think the fact that we have a full time disability planner and we also have the MetroAccess position is really good because some councils don’t even have a disability planner. Or their disability planner might only be two or three days a week or something so the fact that we do have a full time position disability planner, full time position MetroAccess and we have a part time AAA officer then we have the service policy and planning unit through Age and Disability Services. So we do have a lot of resources put into disability policy and planning here and I get a sense that we’ve got probably on par with some other councils up there with the highest sort of resources in that respect. (Metropolitan local government officer)

Partnership with local government

Department of Human Services participants from Head Office and regional offices and

participants from councils in all study areas reported that partnership was a key feature

that enabled implementation of social inclusion, supported experimentation and made

programs sustainable. This is evidenced by the comment that:

… you have to be able to develop a project and then be able to come off and know that it’s still going to be sustainable so partnership is very, very important. I suppose in that partnership, part of your role is skilling up that other partner to take on that disability issue and once you’ve done that you can hopefully walk

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away and think that they will go on and continue the good work. (Metropolitan Department of Human Services officer)

The partnership with local government to implement social inclusion strategies identified

through the State Plan was identified as increasing the capacity for experimenting with

social inclusion strategies in local settings. This was evidenced by the comment that

I think that it’s great that [state] government have got trust now with local government. They’ve got a good partnership and that there is that trust that council will do the right thing. They will implement the State Disability Plan and they will drive community inclusion, definitely. (Metropolitan Department of Human Services officer)

Likewise, a Department of Human Services Disability Services Division officer

interviewed recounted what a senior local government officer indicated were the benefits

of partnering to implement change:

We’ve been able to really use RuralAccess in some regions strongly to drive some of that so that they partner up. The CEO was saying to me it’s the first time that he’s ever seen that all the day services working together on a proposal. Now they’re all working together with an adult education provider with council leading it. So there’s all this work that’s starting to emerge is going and that’s because people are starting to have a common understanding about where community building fits. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

In rural areas, State and local government partnerships to trial strategies for social

inclusion were described as being a longer standing practice and a response to resource

scarcity. This is evidenced by the following comment:

I think it’s probably around the areas of partnerships and collaboration. I think it’s something that we do quite naturally just because of our lack of resources, so, without being told that this is what we have to do it happens. Whether it’s within local government, organisations and services within communities or even communities being prepared to be more inclusive. They understand the benefits of being able to have access to a range of resources. … In this area and even prior to the DVC community strengthening stuff the local government network was operating and it’s the Mayors and CEOs of the six local governments. They were meeting on a regular basis. They had meetings with heads of regional departments here which is a very similar model to the whole regional managers’ forum model. Now the regional managers’ forum here I understand is quite

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successful compared to in some of the other areas where it hasn’t evolved or engaged quite as well, but I think once again that’s because there was already that commitment to the partnerships, the relationship building was already there. (Rural local government manager)

Leadership

Study participants from all study areas reported that the presence of leadership was a key

feature that supported experimentation. In fact, leadership was identified as a critical

requirement to support experimentation because initiatives to implement social inclusion

policy for social inclusion are unlikely to come from the community. This is evidenced

by the comment that:

It’s [social inclusion] not really something that comes up out of the community and you don’t generally get communities saying we want to be more inclusive, particularly the people you first meet in communities. If you drill down a bit you might get there but so it’s very much it flows down out of government and out of agencies and so it’s a top down process I suppose. (Rural local government officer)

Similarly, achieving coordinated experimentation on a state wide basis was described as

needing leadership from a number of organisations:

I know part of the State Plan is about working with the Municipal Association of Victoria on access and inclusion and they’re still putting some money into that access and inclusion officer position. But for rural councils that don’t have a lot of internal resources, if MAV will take a position on something after consulting with its members and looking at legal obligations and give some practical guidance on implementation that could be really helpful to us. So a lot of councils have put energy into developing local codes for things like local laws for footpath trading. The response from senior management here when I raise that was no we’re not willing to do that we’ll wait for the Municipal Association of Victoria to come up with a state wide one, which will never happen. (Rural local government officer)

Local government participants and participants with disabilities identified that leadership

from senior council officers was a support for experimentation. This is evidenced by the

comment that:

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The CEO - that’s part of the reason why we’re given the latitude that we’re given within this unit because he’s extremely supportive and they are prepared now to look at what we’re doing and say that’s great that seems to be going really well. [Implementing social inclusion is] not just about humouring community, it’s actually about bringing cultural and structural change to our organisation too. To enable this stuff to be implemented. No longer does council just have responsibility over some core things that are highlighted in the Local Government Act. (Rural local government manager)

The leadership provided by the CEO also extends to the status afforded disability

planning in an organisational structure and the profile provided of the staff doing the

work within the organisation. This is evidenced by the following comment:

When we got a new CEO on board and there was a re-organisation, the disability Access Planner Position, which had been in Community Services was moved into a more centralised and policy focussed area and away from service delivery. It went into strategy and governance. (Metropolitan local government manager)

A participant with a disability from the same local government area confirmed the

leadership role of the CEO by commenting, “We have the support of the CEO. We have

a good CEO. I might know it, because I’m on the committee” (Metropolitan participant

with a disability).

Leadership from councillors was identified in one local government area as an important

support. As evidenced by the comment that “One of the things about this council is that

the Councillor who is the major support for disability has been chairing the Disability

Advisory Committee for the last ten years and that makes a difference. She has also

become one of the two ‘senior’ councillors since the last election” (Metropolitan local

government manager). Similarly, an officer at the same council noted that:

I think more than anything we’ve got a councillor who constantly champions the rights of people with disability or champions access. I think more than anything that’s probably what has put disability and access so high on the agenda in this particular council. So I don’t think it’s necessarily something that the council strategically set out to achieve. I think that’s more the reason why it’s come about. (Metropolitan local government officer)

A participant with a disability from the same local government confirmed the leadership

role of the councillors by commenting “We’re lucky here we have a Councillor on side

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and we don’t have to fight. We actually have a councillor who’s interested and that

makes a difference” (Metropolitan participant with a disability).

Leadership from council staff in planning and implementation was identified as

supporting experimenting with social inclusion with one participant commenting that “I

have seen people within council and some operational areas who have been made aware

and have taken disability on board and have made it almost sort of part of their personal

business. In some ways that’s the real answer” (Metropolitan local government

manager). However the sustainability of this personal investment in implementation was

raised by two participants.

The first issue raised was the extent to which personal leadership can occur in a vacuum

without total organisational support. This was evidenced by the comments that “if it

really comes down to individual officers and their interest and passion and values, which

is good in some ways, but is really quite risky for an individual” (Interface local

government manager) or that “I think a lot of people are doing a lot of good work but

they get very stressed and burnt out in the same token” (Metropolitan local government

officer). The problem with individual leadership is that “At the moment it’s still only the

officers that are aware you know it only comes down to the person in the position”

(Metropolitan local government officer). The implication of this comment is that

individual leadership is helpful but in and of itself does not provide the basis for

sustainable change.

Leadership from community groups and people with disability was identified by

Department of Human Services participants and a participant with a disability as an area

that needs strengthening. One participant commented that “… the best people to help

people with disabilities for inclusion are people with disabilities but they’ve got to be

empowered” (Interface participant with a disability). Similarly a Department of Human

Services officer highlighted the need to support leadership through the disability

movement to empower people with disabilities to be more active. This is evidenced by

the comment that:

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…if you think about different movements in time, like the women’s movements or gay rights, it almost takes one or two significant figures within that community to stand up. Disability doesn’t have a really strong leadership focus or leadership group that could take their movement to the next level. It’s almost like we’re trying to break the ice and move forward on these things so I think building the skills and the leadership skills of people with a disability is fairly significant – an initiative that we can do but it may be that that’s in a community strengthening model anyway. (Rural Department of Human Services officer)

And yet, a number of participants stated that implementing social inclusion through

disability planning had not been taken up comprehensively by all local governments and

that leadership was lacking to increase the level of experimentation. One participant

described this as requiring a cultural shift. “It’s almost like a core paradigm shift we

need to have. That space to just share a vision for the state and how that then can be

nurtured right through. We just haven’t even gone there really” (Metro local government

manager). Increased partnership based leadership was identified as both a gap and an

opportunity as evidenced in the following comment:

There’s almost a need for a collaborative leadership from different levels. Beyond a policy perspective to the recognition that in order for this to be embedded and translated on the ground, there needs to be this shared collaborative leadership in terms of working out the ‘how’. The ‘what’ and the ‘why’ we all agree I think it’s more about the ‘how’. (Interface local government manager)

Others speculated on the lack of leadership shown by local government and that

sometimes programs needed to kick start interest and commitment. This is evidenced in

the comment that:

It’s an interesting thing because disability still isn’t well supported in local government. I don’t know why it is and the reason I know this is because I have spent a bit of time with the network of disability and access planners and invariably even if you find people who might be at the right [pay] level, they’re not full time. The only thing that has changed this really is [the introduction of] MetroAccess. (Metropolitan local government manager)

Most participants commented on the importance of leadership in local government and in

local communities to implement strategies for social inclusion. This contrasted with a

perceived lack of systems leadership provided by the DHS which was seen as leading to

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fragmentation in the implementation of plans and strategies. One local government

participant highlighted the challenge of working with multiple State Government

departments because disability planning is not coordinated. This is evidenced by the

following comment:

You’ve now got I think it’s ten government department disability action plans but they’re all, as far as we can tell, developed in Head Office. No one in the regions has really been involved with development and there’s not much ownership for the regions. So DHS has got its disability action plan, education has got its, DSE has got one and so on. But at the regional level it’s all a bit of a blank. No one seems to be clear about who the contact points are or how the implementation is going to happen regionally. Some of the themes that come through are things like disability awareness training and are in every single one. (Rural local government officer)

This fragmentation was confirmed by a Department of Human Services officer in the

following comment:

Regionally we have some relationships with our state government colleagues from other departments but it depends on the scope of what our priority is and what projects we’re working on. In terms of the State Plan, I guess there’s one initiative that’s happened at the state level to make sure that every state government department had a disability action plan. What concerns us regionally is that we want to be able to support those state government departments to implement their action plans at the regional level but it doesn’t seem to be feeding down to the regional level so you have these plans that are managed at a state level that there’s no real operational plan. I don’t think change or innovation or anything like that has been considered and we can’t even find out who to contact within each state government department who has responsibility for these plans. (Rural Department of Human Services officer)

Staff support and skills

Study participants with disabilities reported that staff support was a key feature assisting

experimentation with strategies for social inclusion. Staff support is required at personal

and community implementation levels. At an individual level support enables people

with disabilities to move around in the community and take up civic involvement

opportunities. For one participant, this support revolved around flexible attendant care as

evidenced by the following comments:

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If you look at it, what works best … attendant care works really well … why? Actually the guy on the ground has control of his life and the routine. The minute you give the routine to someone else, then you’ve rendered it nonsense. It’s the agreement between the two people. You’re managing me, can I make a decision every day of the week and say, ‘I want to do this tomorrow’. The minute you limit the opportunity to do that, you limit choices. The minute you say, you will not make a change in your routine, I’ve got an answer for you. You want to change your attendant care routine, and if you have to think, am I allowed to do this…who do I have to talk to … it’s very … (Metropolitan person with a disability).

This participant noted that the flexibility of the system relies on “Other people really

giving you more of their time than you’ve actually got allocated. Because you’re only

allocated a certain number of hours and a lot of carers are giving you minutes, or an hour

extra, and those minutes might add up to hour …. which is a fragile way to implement

social inclusion and based on good will rather than system (Metropolitan person with a

disability).

With regard to implementing social inclusion in the community, another participant with

a disability emphasised the need to have empathetic staff and this is evidenced by the

following comment:

The RuralAccess officers seem to do a very good job and they seem to fulfil that role rather well, depending on the person. It doesn’t always work well and I work across the six local shires. We’ve got some really good access workers, we’ve had some pretty ordinary ones. Where we’ve had the ordinary ones nothing happens. Nothing works for the community and the people it affects feel rather frustrated. Whereas someone like our worker- I couldn’t see anyone else in the role. She relates with the community, she’s got empathy with the community, she involves the community, she’s just extremely good. (Regional participant with a disability)

Similarly, participants from Department of Human Services Disability Services Division

Head Office, regions and local government areas represented in the study identified

examples where the lack of staff skills or training issues have impeded the

experimentation of social inclusion. Concerns have centred on the lack of staff

experience, skills, capacity to be an effective change agent and to develop partnerships.

Concerns were also expressed in relation to the availability and resourcing of training.

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Given the significant role played by attendant carers, this issues of training extends

beyond community residential unit staff to all staff playing a support role for people with

disabilities in community settings.

A Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer

highlighted that the capacity to experiment with the State Plan’s social inclusion policy is

directly impacted by the skill profile of staff and their knowledge of or experience with

community development. This is evidenced by the following comment:

Workforce issues are huge in terms of success. If I give you a worst case scenario you’d get someone appointed who is inexperienced, young, never worked in local government before, never done community development work before, not done much work in disability service system, poor ownership of the initiative by council, no support and supervision structure, no management steering group focus or meetings, working across three councils. You know you’re pushing shit up hill to get success out of all of that. Now if you’ve got some worker there who’s a gun and who’s employed at the right level, very experienced - a good worker would see all of those constraints and deal with them …. there’s a real issue around the workforce pool of skilled workers and I think what’s probably happened in our Metro regions is that people have come into the community building roles in the regional positions that work for the bureaucracy and don’t necessarily have a background in community development or community building. So you get a particular flavour, a particular set of expertise which may be good but may be missing some things in terms of actually building the capacity within the region around the knowledge base of work and what it means. You grow that knowledge over time when you’re working in the area but if you’re working at a regional level and you’re the one person in most cases that is expected to be the expert or have the knowledge around community building, that’s a huge ask. So if you don’t have a background and don’t have a lot of experience and examples to draw upon I think that’s really difficult. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

At a regional Department of Human Services level, concerns regarding staff skills focus

on funded services and the capacity of service staff to increase social inclusion within

program boundaries. This is evidenced by the comment that:

Well it’s all about doing interactions between staff and residents and creating opportunities for residents to be more independent, just at the house level, making coffee for yourself if you want coffee, having choice and all that. So again what we noticed that at times staff may be sceptical about what their role is, why they

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should be doing this, and in that case, nothing different will happen. (Metropolitan Department of Human Services manager)

For local government participants, staff skills were identified as potentially creating

barriers to change and inhibiting joined up whole of Council planning. Negotiation and

persuasion skills were identified as critical to bring all officers to a shared understanding

of disability inclusion and change. The following comment provides evidence of what

occurs when these skills are not visible in the workforce and the impediments to

experimenting with inclusion in local areas that have been created:

The issue with a lot of people who work in the disability field is they’re so busy trying to fight the cause. But at the end of the day you’ve got to meet people where they’re at. If you’re working with an organisation that’s just not ready to move, or you’re working with a community that’s just not ready to move, you’ve got to meet that community where those people are at and basically guide them through that process. I think a lot of disability officers know what they know and they just expect everyone else to know the same thing and when people don’t, they get frustrated with them, and it’s like trying to impose [outcomes]. (Metropolitan local government officer)

Local government participants expressed views regarding staff training and development

and the level of resource that needs to support change. The following comments related

to the negative impact that the failure to continue disability awareness training had on one

local government area:

Now as an organisation we suffered until about a year ago from the fact that three or four years before that we had an HR manager who was focused basically on the industrial side of HR … and we could not get her to really engage on the fact that we needed the range of diversity training. We got it in the end but it was never really willing and that did set us back because before that we’d always had HR managers who rise up there in the forefront of it. I think the minute you slacken off on training it gets reflected in the workforce. (Metropolitan local government manager)

On a broader level, the same issue was raised by another local government participant but

in terms of the resource and strategy involved with supporting workforce change and

current inadequacies associated with the State Plan. This is evidenced by the following

comment:

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I think what’s quite huge is this workforce planning and responding to the implications of shifting policy. There’s no money goes into this sort of policy direction and how you do then deal with the existing systems in culture, workforce issues and skill sets. (Interface local government manager)

Impediments to experimentation

The absence of a comprehensive population and service data base and a detailed

implementation plan was identified by participants as impeding experimentation on a

limited basis and the following section expands on participant views.

Insufficient resources

State and local government participants, and participants with a disability, identified lack

of human and financial resources and resource adequacy as significant barriers to

trialability.

From a Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office

perspective this was described in terms of the inadequacy of central resources for such a

significant policy change. This is evidenced by the comments that:

I think one of the difficult things is the way, once again probably comes back to the level of resourcing for community building, which is so flimsy, that we’ve got in terms of our structure within disability services as most of the program area responsibilities sit under this branch …. at the end of the day you’ve got three of us doing it as well and our ability to manage the community building programs and embed them and have the right infrastructure and communication. We work across all this other stuff both internally in terms of supporting these different areas about their reform processes and having a lot of input there and then working externally across other government departments. It’s quite unmanageable ... (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

One local government officer also referred to the resource impact of the State Plan’s

implementation process and the lack of consideration to resourcing in implementation.

That’s where the State Disability Plan does fail there because it’s great, a fantastic plan but a lot of agencies, not just local government, need the support to get there

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and I don’t think that was sort of taken into account. (Interface local government officer)

Another local government officer referred to Department of Human Services comments

at a function to launch the Disability Act 2006 that “there’s no resources there to support

you” which lead this officer to remark:

That makes it very difficult for true inclusiveness to occur. It seems like we’re here and they want utopia straight away. There’s no lead in to get to utopia, everyone wants it. I don’t think the general public would want to not be inclusive and have access for all but you need support to get there. (Interface local government officer)

As an identified partner in the State Plan, several local government officers commented

that resource issues constrain implementation in a number of ways. One noted that “I

don’t think there are enough resources within local government as it currently functions”

and “The fact that some councils don’t have those resources - I just don’t know how

they’re responding appropriately” (Metropolitan local government officer).

Interface and rural council participants highlighted that resource issues affect

implementation and experimentation in a significant way as “We do have our ten year

build up plan which I think is beneficial and very, very necessary. But with not much

money and buildings forty years of age, its extraordinarily difficult to make the changes

necessary” (Interface local government officer). Similarly another commented on the

necessity for the Department of Human Services to contribute and assist with funds to

implement state initiated plans where the lack of local funds will not enable trialability:

So that’s a real bind because in some rural communities that little hall might be all you’ve got in terms of public infrastructure. There isn’t anything else. So to me, all the State Plan principles are pretty hollow if somewhere in the state government there’s not a commitment to help local communities upgrade. There’s a hall being opened tomorrow here that’s just been upgraded. I read in the paper that DVC have put in $23,000 towards upgrading … I thought oh great … I’ve just checked this morning does it now have an accessible toilet! The answer is no. Because a local community started on the smell of an oily rag, they got a little bit of help from DVC but there was no one in the little group who was

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passionate enough about access to say this has to be part of the upgrade. (Rural local government officer)

The impact of resources was summarised by a local government manager as resulting in

frustration and a lack of capacity to address the funding gap. This is evidenced by the

comment that:

…if the challenge for the State Plan is to meet what has been achieved in parts of the US and parts of Europe it absolutely comes down to dollars end of story, no other thing and that’s actually what we are about in this local government area … it’s also a massive start up to and you know I sort of feel [talking about] inclusion isn’t going to do it. (Metropolitan local government manager)

A participant with a disability provided an analytical comment regarding the lack of

sufficient funds to implement the State Plan and trial inclusion initiatives. The comment

focussed on the state political process where neither of the major political parties has

expressed significant commitment to increased expenditure to implement disability

policy. This participant noted that “…there is no recurrent funding…. There’s a black

hole, both parties have admitted openly that there’s a black hole and they don’t run to fill

it because there aren’t a lot of votes in it” (Participant with a disability).

Underdeveloped partnerships

However participants from all local government areas represented in the study and

Department of Human Services head and regional officers identified examples of

partnership related issues also impeding experimentation of social inclusion. Concerns

centred on the resources and time required to establish effective partnerships and the

tension between funding models and partnership. One comment also referred to the

issues for the Department of Human Services in developing partnership across

Government Departments to effect change.

The point made by a local government manager was that interpersonal relationships and

contextual policy need to come together to achieve change. This is evidenced by the

comment that:

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At the end of the day it doesn’t matter how strong the policy is, no matter how, you know I mean how good our plan is until I can sit down and build a relationship with people and they want to open up and build up that trust and start learning it’s going to be really hard. You need that complimented by major policy change at the state level you know, you need them both. (Metropolitan local government manager)

The complementary point made by a Department of Human Services Officer was that

partnership development and dialogue is a long and ongoing process that takes some time

to embed and become systematised. This is evidenced by the following comment:

Relationship building takes such a long time and you just seem to build up a relationship with somebody and that person moves on and then you’ve got to start all over again. I think if we took MetroAccess away now I think a lot of the good initial sort of developmental stage would just go. I don’t think councils would pick it up. They don’t have the resources to pick it up. (Metropolitan Department of Human Services officer)

A local Government counterpart from the same region identified that

I don’t think that the state government, or the department at least, has that good linkage or worked out a [partnership] strategy whether that’s through the Municipal Association of Victoria. I sometimes think they just do locally, it’s just one of those things that we need to start. (Metropolitan Department of Human Services manager)

Outlining a further layer of implementation challenge, a local government manager from

a different region suggested that state government is unaware of the role of local

government and that this is an impediment to partnering which leads to experimenting

with social inclusion.

This is evidenced by the comment that:

The attitude towards local government here is really quite, almost ignorant. Certainly the most recent DVC policy documents that have come out have stated a role for local government very specifically and that’s comparable to the A Fairer Victoria policy. Going back then it was just a very philosophical statements about all working together. But even then my experience of going along to state meetings where state government was involved they talk about all of government working together but that doesn’t include local government. They [state

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government] don’t actually understand where local government fits in that picture and to me that’s a real shame because you know local government is integral to the success of those things. State government at the moment actually causes quite a bit of undermining to the accomplishments of local government just because they do work in isolation. (Rural local government manager)

This gap was also reinforced by a local government manager from a different region.

The inability of state and local government to partner more effectively was described as

reducing the capacity for planning and strategic solutions. This is evidenced by the

comment that:

It’s such a potential for a really strong collective partnership you know, there is that research and planning side of things. That’s where I think state and local government can really complement each other in our planning framework and be quite strategic. I think it’s a big ask for any of our community organisations and groups to actually take as there’s just no capacity to do that kind of work. But local government and state government, and Commonwealth for that matter, have a capacity to really work together on that. I would say that that’s a huge gap. (Interface local government manager)

The same local government manager raised the issue of whether funding arrangements

between state and local government in a purchaser/provider model can ever enable true

and equal partnership to develop as:

How genuine are we when we talk about locally driven partnerships? How does that sit in the world of measures, outputs, outcomes, existing processes of systems and efficiencies and all of that which is probably more within the realm of state government than on the ground where we see the diversity in terms of local strategies and initiatives? (Interface local government manager)

A rural local government officer recognised that partnership is a significant factor that

supports implementation and experimentation with strategies for social inclusion. But at

the same time the history of local partnerships was effected by past state government

decisions and the memory of those issues still reduces the capacity or willingness to

partner. This is evidenced by the following comment:

And this is so based on partnerships and nothing can really happen without partnerships. But I think in some ways we’re still in the rebuilding phase in that there were all those years when there was so much divide and rule that partnerships really took a battering. I’m not saying they ever completely

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disappeared but it became so much harder when people were constantly competing for tenders and things like that…. Well people have got long memories and local government amalgamations is probably the other big thing. But for people around here it’s like it happened yesterday and it doesn’t matter if you say well actually it was twelve years ago or whatever. Some people are still licking their wounds. (Rural local government officer)

Absence of a comprehensive population and service data base

Local Government participants from each study area identified that population data are

difficult and expensive to source in spite of being a fundamental element of evidenced

based planning and policy implementation system.

A metropolitan local government participant noted that:

We’ve got some very general stats about so many people in our municipality have a disability but I think people are just plucking that figure out of the one in five have a disability then comparing it against the number of people in the municipality and working it out that way. (Metropolitan local government officer)

An interface local government participant noted the difficulty of obtaining population

data via the Department of Human Services as evidenced by the comment that:

Yeah and it’s so expensive as well. I mean when you look at the data snapshots - I think DHS have given me north and west snapshots. I know progressively they do break it down at different times but to say ‘oh no you can’t have that’ … yes I understand there’s costs involved but surely those are the type of things at the state level they can start to resource and put some funding in? (Interface local government officer)

A local government participant from a rural area identified the challenge in not having

population data in rural areas to assist planning and delivery. This is evidenced by the

comment that:

Data is an issue because our communities are small and disability data doesn’t drill down to any significant level. If we’re really lucky it will drill down to the statistical local area level and even that is too broad. It’s good background information but it’s too broad to be specific. So we do have issues drilling down far enough. Most of the data is just at LGA level which is good for the whole

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long term strategic vision for the community but in terms of place based plans it’s useless. (Rural local government officer)

Frustration was expressed by one local government participant who identified that the

Department of Human Services has a capacity to provide population data at more

localised levels depending on the program and resources available. In the following

comment, reference is made to the capacity and resources available in another program

area (Neighbourhood renewal) that demonstrates that better disability data can be

developed given additional resources:

We were at a forum the other day with DHS … [where they did] a presentation on the demographics of the neighbourhood renewal areas and the incidence of disability is double…But neighbourhood renewal comes with a lot of money, a lot of resources and you sort of really do need that level of resources to drill down into a community that deep I think (Metropolitan local government officer)

In relation to the availability of service data, participants from the Department of Human

Services Disability Services Division identified the difficulty of accessing data with one

participant acknowledging, “With our planning we don’t use lots of data” (DHS metro

region manager). A Head Office participant commented that service data could be very

useful information for experimenting with social inclusion in local areas but that the data

are not analysed or presented by local government area. This is evidenced by the

following comment:

… lack of population data and service data, because they collect information from all the services and they collect information on disability type, living arrangements, services used, things that people access, a whole range of really what could be useful information. However they don’t extrapolate that on a local government area basis of course. What they do is they pull together the data regionally and send it to the regions. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

This was confirmed by a rural Department of Human Services officer who also

questioned the data collection parameters and the capacity of current data to demonstrate

outcomes. This is evidenced by the following comment:

What concerns me is that there’s some really great data that’s being gathered in this individual planning process. We’re learning a lot about people. We’re

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learning about what they want to do with their lives, what are the barriers for them to be able to do that currently. We tend to be handing out money so that they can achieve these things but we’re not actually collating any of that data. (Rural Department of Human Services officer)

The same officer noted that much service data being collected currently had been

designed as compliance data rather than for its relevance to planning or supporting the

implementation of the State Plan.

No we’re not good at collecting data, I don’t think. But in saying that a lot of our data is being collected from agencies to ensure that they’re meeting their funding and service agreement contract. It’s compliance data really and look there’s probably some really good data within that as well, that we’re not really extrapolating to benefit our planning. A great example is respite. I work alongside the person who manages our respite portfolio and she’s constantly being asked from the regional disability executive level ‘what basis do you have for setting up this new respite service’. She says well I don’t but I’m just going on a hunch or the fact that I’ve had six phone calls from families in the last month that are saying I need a service. So I set up a service now that’s how it’s working. (Rural Department of Human Services officer)

Comments from the rural Department of Human Services officer also indicated that better

data collection and analysis would provide service delivery and development that would

benefit people with disabilities and increase inclusion in innovative ways. This is

evidenced by the following comment:

Within the State Plan there is a difficulty because you’ve got two priorities that are almost in conflict with one another. You have individual planning stuff and individual funding and then you’ve got community strengthening and community development which doesn’t have a lot of funding attached. This is part of my argument around, let’s try and get some of the data from the individual planning stuff because we might find that we have ten people here who we are paying a support worker to take them to the gym every week. If that gym is such a popular thing that people with disability want to access, then why aren’t we employing somebody at the gym who knows how to interact with these people? (Rural Department of Human Services officer)

From a local government perspective, improved service data would increase local area

knowledge, but only if a data sharing system were put in place. This is evidenced by

comments from a local government participant:

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if [DHS were] doing something, like when they were doing the review of Futures for Young Adults, they’d have an update that they’d send out. You know even if they had some kind of data update where they sent it to you … so you just keep track of things you know, not anything too detailed but some basics … even shifting stuff like number of people who have shifted into the area maybe into new community residential units. (Metropolitan local government officer)

Absence of a comprehensive and systematic implementation plan

Local Government participants from each study area identified that the absence of a

comprehensive and systematic implementation plan created a significant impediment to

experimenting with social inclusion policy in local settings. It was identified as having

created confusion over the target group and different strategies for service and non

service users. It was criticised by participants as having failed to generate sufficient

community debate and interest and for not developing systems to drive change or monitor

progress. It has neither lifted initiatives that have been successfully trialled locally to a

State wide level, nor created systematic consultation and development mechanisms for

people with disability. These issues will be discussed in the following section.

The State Plan’s target group was debated between the Department of Human Services

Disability Services Division and the Municipal Association of Victoria prior to the State

Plan’s inception as evidenced by the following comment:

And we had that philosophical debate for eighteen months with the Municipal Association of Victoria saying we deal with the 18 per cent of the population that has a disability you deal with the 5 per cent who receive services. And we were saying well yes we deal with 5 per cent but we also deal with the 18 per cent because that’s what our community building strategy is actually about. The two need to come together because the 5 per cent are marginalised in their local communities. They are probably one of the most marginalised groups and we need to work on how we actually try to include them as part of community. They need to be included as part of the broader 18 per cent that local government is focussing on in terms of opening up access and inclusion. So you know it has been a really difficult and tense kind of debate at various levels and still continues in many of the local governments. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

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In some respects this tension remains because more people with disabilities now live in

the community but neither the State Plan’s implementation partners nor the community

have fully discussed the implications of the policy. Nor have the implementation plans

been identified for the whole cohort of people with disabilities to be more socially

included.

A Department of Human Services officer summarised this implementation dilemma in

the following terms:

We’ve deinstitutionalised lots and lots of people. We’ve got them out into the community and I think we’ve plateaued a bit now. I think we’re ready to have that next step. But the next step is that community needs to be more open and willing and able to take on people with disabilities. But I think from what I hear there has been a great shift but we still have a long way to go. (Department of Human Services metropolitan region officer)

A local government manager characterised this dilemma in the following way, “we

haven’t systematically as a community got our head around how do we support our

families you know, individuals or living on a daily basis”. (Interface local government

manager)

The absence of a comprehensive and systematic implementation plan has left many key

implementation issues unresolved. State and local government, people with disabilities

and their carers, service providers and members of the community are not clear about the

implications of increasing social inclusion in relation to roles and resources. The lack of

a state wide implementation system for local areas is acknowledged as problematic for

the Department of Human Services Disability Services Division as evidenced by the

comment that:

I don’t think we’ve got all the levels quite right and the coverage across different, you know sorts of activities, infrastructure. We’ve invested quite strongly in local communities. I don’t think we’ve done as well in looking at how we work at systemic levels. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

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The same officer also identified that a strategic implementation plan was needed to drive

systematic change but that the resources to accomplish social inclusion from within a

service delivery State Government Department was problematic. This is evidenced by

the comment that:

I guess one of my concerns about innovations is how we work at a systemic level and how we build up this knowledge about the issues. How do we drive it into a systemic framework where we can actually start to challenge or address the issues at the levels that they need to be addressed. To make a real change. We are still grappling with that. And the reality is we sit inside Disability Services, of which the core is about service provision to a very large sector. So our work is this miniscule, very important but a miniscule part of a much larger kind of beast if you like. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

In spite of positive comments from all participants regarding the role that the Rural and

MetroAccess programs have played in enabling local experimentation of social inclusion,

the question remains as to how a programmatic approach can shift processes, partnerships

and resources to create and embed state wide change. This is evidenced by the following

comment:

RuralAccess developed in a particular space in time was its own program and did its own thing. MetroAccess has come in and now we’ve got to try and bring the two together. We have to try and get strong synergy across the state because they’re the same program but they have in some ways very separate identities and see themselves. So there’s a range of challenges. It’s just that we need to invest some time in working through the issues associated with how we bring them together, how we develop similar systems, how we develop better communication, joining up of issues, collaboration across the issues, across the program area, across the local state regional level. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

Similarly concerns were expressed by local government participants as evidenced in the

following comment:

I think the broad principles [of the State Plan] are wonderful and I haven’t really found anyone who’s disagreed with them. But one of the things we talked about in the working groups a fair bit was implementation strategies. I guess for me that’s the problem with this beautiful document. We talked about the need for different layers and a really good operational plan and there was an implementation plan developed for the first three years. I think it went to 2005

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from memory but I haven’t seen anything since then. (Regional local government officer)

While there is Department of Human Services recognition regarding the need to

systematise change and to work collaboratively with local government to trial social

inclusion an implementation and change management gap remains. This is evidenced by

the following comment:

I think for me the challenge ahead is really about how we embed and support the program to thrive and what’s required to do that and how we connect up across whole of government to support the range of issues that the workers are dealing with. Building the capacity of communities to be inclusive and identifying what resources are required to do that. How we can best support with the limited resources that we’ll have available and … where we need to put energy in the future, which partnerships need to be the critical partnerships that we invest in. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

The evidence suggests that the trialability of the State Plan remains relatively fragmented

and localised with little strategy for embedding good practices consistently across the

state. This point was described by a local government officer making their observations

from a planning forum to increase social inclusion:

There’s just no collaboration, not a lot of communication happening, everyone is just trying to do the best that they can with the resources that they’ve got. So one of the biggest needs that came out of that was people saying we want to start talking more … we need someone to coordinate that. We need someone to be sitting there even just putting together lists of all the services that are out there …. I think also maybe it’s different when you’re a bit more metro based but as you go out further the services don’t even sit in the municipality sometimes. They’re a regional service that basically is somewhere quite a way away and so there’s not even a physical front for a service necessarily. So it’s really fragmented and I think that the thing that was lost through the 90s was the funding that enabled the services to do community development. In the mid 80s people were funded to network. It was an okay thing to do and you were expected to do it. (Metropolitan local government officer)

One participant with a disability demonstrated that the implementation of the State Plan

has not been achieving consistent results for people with disabilities across the state

because local experimentation is not replicated consistently. This is evidenced by the

comment that:

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People move into this local area with disabilities. I had a friend and said that he should come here. I said ‘You’re not getting anything there, no services and the transport is zilch, your opportunities are zilch, and you can’t go anywhere once you go out of your own house because everything’s too far away. So he moved here. Now he’s got home help, he can move out within 500 metres he’s got the market, the station. So his opportunities went up from zilch … I could walk out here and actually be with people, rather than just watching people go by. (Metropolitan participant with a disability)

Similarly, the same participant identified that improvements in one local area will not just

transfer to others. The absence of an implementation plan to experiment with social

inclusion to achieve state wide results is a key implementation issue. This is evidenced

by the comment that:

Trouble is, I can’t see what’s happening at (a wider) council level now. Say, I influenced the kurbs, but does it translate that the whole of this local area understands that now? I brought up about the road raises and that’s happened. But will that translate into other councils? (Metropolitan participant with a disability)

Another concern for participants with disabilities has been the failure of the State Plan to

include strategies to engage people with disabilities in the trialling of social inclusion in

local areas. One participant with a disability commented that:

So often I hear ‘what’s best for this person’, ‘what’s best for that person’ and ‘perhaps you should be doing this’ or ‘should be doing that’ and my standard answer is why don’t you ask them, why don’t you ask them. (Interface participant with a disability)

There was a strong theme in responses from people with disabilities that the State Plan

needs strategies that engage in assertive outreach to find people with disabilities who are

isolated because “If you are isolated in your home, how are you going to join anything?”

(Metropolitan participant with a disability).

The next section reports on the data collected from study participants on perceptions of

observability.

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Observability Rogers’ definition of observability

According to Rogers, observability is “… the degree to which the results of an innovation

are visible to others” (Rogers, 2003, p.16). If it is easy for adopters to see the results of

innovation, they are more likely to adopt it because it stimulates peer discussion.

The observability of the State Plan

There is limited publicly available evaluation material reporting on State Plan, Metro or

RuralAccess program outcomes. An Implementation Plan 2002-05 and 2006-08 outlined

commitments.

State and local government participants and participants with disabilities in each case

study location were given the opportunity to comment on the degree to which the State

Plan’s emphasis on social inclusion was visible to others. All participants commented on

Rogers’ characteristic of observability. Participants with disabilities contributed more on

this characteristic of implementation than any other. While participants were divided on

the extent to which social inclusion was observable they did identify what supported and

impeded the observability of social inclusion. These points will be expanded on in the

following sections.

Participant views on whether results are visible to others Local government and Department of Human Services regional participants identified

instances of visible social inclusion strategy implementation. However, examples

focussed on physical changes or changes that provided benefits to people with physical or

sensory disabilities. Specific built form examples of visible improvements were provided

by local government participants. The first comment identified below demonstrates a

number of physical changes that were made to enable increased social inclusion:

A lot of public parks trails that are accessible and they don’t just end on you and there are accessible toilets. You see community programs with signage available

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for people, not only in different languages but also for people with visual impairment. Our website offers opportunities for different versions for people who require it. There’s a hearing loop in the council building which people can access and I’m in the process at the moment writing a policy to lend it out as well to other community groups. (Interface local government officer)

Similarly another local government participant highlighted improvements to public

buildings but was not as able to identify visible change related to education, employment,

housing, recreation. This participant also identified the impact that resources have on

achieving visible improvements for people with disabilities, some of which, like

provision of toilets are fundamental to increased participation:

I think we’re slowly making progress. I find it really hard to answer globally because there are so many issues whether you’re talking education, employment, housing, recreation. In terms of things like access to the build environment it feels like we’re slowly making progress. We have got some landmark projects which will be much more accessible than former projects. Things like the pool being redeveloped or the entertainment centre or even down here at the Port are all positives. The downside of that I guess is that there is still major resource issues in terms of basic infrastructure that’s substandard. I’m talking toilet blocks and access to your little country halls, that kind of thing. No one really wants to know about that. Rural council is not a big rate base, struggling to fix bridges, all that sort of thing. A big capital program to upgrade toilet blocks is not likely. They try to gradually do it but talking a ten year plan instead of a two year plan. The approach is if it’s substandard knock it down, basically that’s honest. (Regional local government officer)

Other participants were able to highlight programmatic responses that have delivered

visible outcomes in local areas. One of these was a partnership program to enable people

in electric wheelchairs to recharge the batteries in their chairs and is evidenced by the

following comment:

I suppose I use the example of recharge … [although] at first I actually didn’t think recharge was a truly inclusive sort of project because it was working with people who were able minded. It wasn’t working with the hard core of disability. But I can see now that because she has got that win, and because she has got that profile now of doing a great job, she will just be able to build and build on that. So I can see some strategy now in pursuing the recharge … because it’s just a win for her and hopefully she will be able to then tackle that harder end of disability where people can’t communicate and it’s more complex. (Metropolitan Department of Human Services officer)

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The second example involved a photo exhibition in local libraries that encouraged people

of all abilities to use the libraries and involved some physical access improvements. This

is evidenced by the following comment:

Two years ago people in their scooters wouldn’t have been able to go up to the local shop and ask the shop owner could they plug their recharge. So that’s a tangible thing. Last year we had a group of young people from neighbourhood renewal site that learnt how to use a camera and they exhibited their photography in a Vic Uni exhibition so that was possible through MetroAccess. We had a group of people who attended a day program attend their local library and learnt how to use the library system and feel comfortable with the library. So the library staff became aware of people with disabilities and what the issues are and they adapted their library so there has been definitely some tangible evidence. (Metropolitan Department of Human Services officer)

Participant views on the supports to achieving visible results

A Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer

suggested that the achievement of visible results can be attributed to the allocation of

state government resources to local areas and partnership development through the Metro

and RuralAccess initiatives. The following comments evidence this view:

We’ve got a community building function in every local community in Victoria working on disability issues so that’s one measure of success for me, that it’s actually there. We’ve got an infrastructure in place and there’s a range of outcomes starting to emerge from those strategies. There would be people with disabilities and community members and organisations across every local community that would know of MetroAccess, had some engagement around work they were developing, had achieved some positive outcomes as a result, there may also be a range of people in organisations in every community that don’t know MetroAccess exists and that’s just a reality of you know of time and effort and all those kinds of things. But I think it’s been successful in the time that we’ve had. I think we can build that success and we need to build on the success and develop it at different levels and get better at understanding what is our measure of success. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

And that:

I think people see some amazing success with the RuralAccess initiative and they see it doing stuff that we haven’t been able to do before so that sort of is helping it along in terms of embedding it in practice and we’re seeing much stronger

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partnerships associated with the regional office and the services to which will help it. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

In spite of the examples provided of visible improvements demonstrating increased

implementation of social inclusion policy, most participants suggested that change was

slow and hard to see. Participants described the lack of a comprehensive and systematic

implementation plan and evaluation framework as demonstrating that results were not

visible.

One local government participant commented that:

I just think it takes a very long time. I think change is so slow. I think it can be frustrating for officers not really seeing much change. I think it certainly is. I certainly think it’s the way to go and having more resources like MetroAccess coming in to support the disability planner and making that stuff happen. (Metropolitan local government officer)

A further frustration was expressed by a local government participant because

improvements in local areas were not systematically shared or transferred to other areas

across the state. This is evidenced by the comment that:

People are replicating. I’ve been one of the first at MetroAccess, people replicating the same projects that other people are doing and that frustrates the living daylights out of me because we should be out there talking about a data base. There should be a central data base system where we can all share information and learn from each other and not reinvent the wheel. (Interface local government officer)

A fundamental question, in the absence of a state wide evaluation framework was

summarised by a local government participant who commented “Well the question of

course is observable to whom” (Metropolitan local government manager).

Issues such as housing, transport and practices in community and health services were

described by all participants as not demonstrating visible results and in some instances

demonstrating that nothing had improved as a result of the State Plan.

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Housing Housing generated a number of comments from local government participants and

participants with disabilities.

One local government officer identified that while there had been improvements in

housing that should be benefiting people with disabilities, we have retained a housing

model for people with disabilities with an institutional look and feel. This is evidenced

by the following comment:

I think that’s quite a good way to go. While there’s a lot happening in the housing area yet there’s a lot of ignorance about it too. People just don’t realise how it can be very cheap to build in accessible housing principles at the beginning but it’s very, very expensive to retrofit …. You know we’ve moved away from the big institutions to the mini institutions. We’ve got the community residential unit with five bedrooms sitting in the community, not really of the community in most cases depending on the quality of the staff and some other systemic things. But a lot of the people in the community residential units are extremely isolated. Same pattern identified in Britain and other places and some really creative projects of other ways of doing stuff you know. That model is really so old fashioned. (Rural local government officer)

Another local government participant commented thatcurrent housing models are

inadequate given that:

Anecdotally a lot of people with disabilities are quite frankly camping. They’re in other people’s living rooms. They’re in a third bedroom or something and they’re moving around from one person to another and that’s just not housing. (Metropolitan local government manager)

A participant with a disability argued that the failure in the housing model for people

with disabilities commenced at deinstitutionalisation and that the service system has

failed to provide a model that supports people with disabilities in a comprehensive

manner. This is evidenced by the comment that:

We look at the institutions as you call them which all closed down and they were third world. But they were better than nothing because most of our people then went out onto the streets and then found themselves, where departmental people took them out and put them into boarding houses …. they weren’t there to see what happened to them. They weren’t there to get them out of the park and to

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clean them up and to get them sorted. We’ve done that, the work only starts, really starts when you’ve implemented it you know. (Interface participant with a disability)

These comments indicate that the State Plan’s implementation of social inclusion has not

produced visibly better housing options for people with disabilities in local communities.

Transport

Transport generated a number of comments from state and local government participants

and participants with disabilities.

For one local government participant, the lack of transport options for people with

disabilities presents as a consistent and unresolved issue that requires significant state

government intervention as evidenced by the following comment:

If there’s something we talk about with the Disability Advisory Committee that we’re going to do something about, the first thing is always transport - it’s always transport. In the neighbourhood renewal area … the number one priority not just for people with disability … was transport. You’ve probably seen the maps that show public transport on the week days and public transport on the weekend and basically the map disappears on the weekends. (Metropolitan local government manager)

Department of Human Services managers are aware of the significance of transport yet

the State Plan does not identify active strategies to make a visible difference:

Transport is an important issue but it’s sometimes an unrewarding issue in terms of working through and trying to find a solution. I know that there is lots of funding from state government going to roads, especially in growth areas but there’s always something to work out in transport. It used to be on the agenda but it may become just one big topic and that’s why I’m calling it unrewarding because it takes time to work out. (Metropolitan Department of Human Services Manager)

Similarly, a rural Department of Human Services officer commented on the negative

impact that transport has had on changing the service system to ensure that people with

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disabilities living in community residential units are out in the community. This is

evidenced by the following comment:

One of the biggest frustrations I hear from workers is the perennial issues - can’t do anything about transport, can’t do anything about these Community Residential Units … There’s a set of core issues that at a local level they can only take so far and then other levels need to be brought in to try and create some leverage. What we’re trying to do is get better at the structures that we’ve got in place that help staff to actually bring those issues together and create a mechanism to move them forward. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

For participants with disabilities, railways provide a preferable transport option in the

metropolitan area, and according to one participant with a disability:

… railways have been more accessible. Taxis are still not up to scratch, even today, the whole system needs overhaul. Maxi cabs are a great idea but a lot of cab drivers say ‘no I won’t take that person, I’ve got a thing in the city’. I know that some cabs have stopped the way they allocated jobs. They just allocate the job and don’t tell what it involves so they have to take the job … Well you know market driven systems … something on at the airport … big sporting events … something on …you can guarantee that you won’t get a maxi cab. They can get 8-10 people in the back. And it doesn’t matter even if you’ve booked. You can pre-book a week earlier, and they will ignore the booking, so the booking has no priority and you have no recourse when they don’t call. No obligation to take it. (Metropolitan participant with a disability)

Similarly, a participant with a disability in a rural area has found both cabs and trains

problematic as demonstrated in the following comment:

I have to wait while the school runs are on because maxi taxis are busy. I hop on a train with a first class ticket and I get put in the baggage compartment, no windows, no air-conditioning, no toilets, no nothing, no heating, not even a seat for my carer she’s got to sit on a bag and usually somebody else’s bag. That only happened once, but sitting on a train in the designated area for wheelchairs means you are right outside the toilet and so you hear people go and you smell people go and a young lady came and she was vomiting in the toilet and you could hear all the sound effects … It’s terrible and … that’s what people with disability encounter all the time. It’s what other people take for granted as being able to sit in the normal part of the train and they wouldn’t envisage having to put up with all those things. The train pulling in and saying sorry mate you can’t get on today and just pulling off and leaving you standing there, no one else. For a normal person that is just not acceptable … We have got better trains now and trains are

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being changed and things are happening but they do happen slowly. (Regional participant with a disability)

Practices in community and health services

In spite of the State Plan goal to implement social inclusion, a number of participants

commented that visible changes were hard to observe in community and health services.

One local government officer commented that:

It is a pretty awful system and a system where some awful things have been happening and continue to happen whether or not that’s documented. There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence about poor practice or worse and yet those disability organisations continue to be funded. There’s a whole lot of governance issues. Part of it’s about governance and you’ve got organisations which might have committees of management or boards which are basically made up of carers who have been doing it for years and years and years. They haven’t necessarily got the skills or experience to meet the current expectations of a governance body. I think that in some rural areas, that’s part of the problem. So you’ve got staff who are operating in the way they’ve always done things but the world has moved on and they haven’t. Whereas in Melbourne you’ve got much more generational change happening and it’s probably easier. Not always, but usually easier to find inroads whether it’s through changes in staff or changes in management or both. (Rural local government officer)

It was acknowledged by a Department of Human Services Disability Services Division

Head Office officer that the failure to reform the disability service sector has created

barriers for people with disabilities as evidenced by the following comment:

I’d say the service system creates barriers for people. I reckon that’s probably one of the biggest barriers because you have people sitting inside a gated community and there are guards that you have to get past. I think in terms of what’s different about disability for me is that the service system is a huge barrier. The fact that you often don’t get to talk to or communicate with or engage with a person with a disability in the first instance. You engage with the service and they create often a barrier for you to actually then get to a person with a disability. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

Similarly a rural Department of Human Services officer commented that:

Another of our regional projects was about community participation and assisting people with disabilities to get more involved in basic community activities

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provided by generic services like community houses or sports clubs or whatever. So it was about bringing together people who were disability providers and people with disabilities and people from mainstream community groups. But duty of care kept coming up from disability providers as a barrier with them saying ‘Johnny can’t do such and such because we’ve got a duty of care’. (Rural local government officer)

Impediments to identifying visible results

Lack of an evaluation framework

A number of participants identified that the lack of an evaluation framework was a

significant impediment to identifying visible results for the State Plan’s implementation

of social inclusion. This was summarised by a local government participant who

commented:

That’s one of the problems I think - what are we working towards? How do we know that we are 50 per cent there or 70 per cent there or 90 per cent there? So again it’s that challenge of qualitative and quantitative indictors to measure how we’re progressing. I think that’s one of the frustrating bits. It really left us to open interpretations and judgment about how we are progressing. (Interface local government manager)

The lack of baseline data were identified as problematic by another local government

officer who noted that:

It would have been useful for a study to have been done on each municipality before MetroAccess was implemented. So then in five years time we could see what’s happened…Because I know in the Access All Abilities program we had this very basic tool that we use to gauge how far sporting clubs have moved along that continuum in terms of awareness. From no awareness to awareness and how much we’d built the capacity of that group. Very simple tools but I still think well maybe something like that could have been used pre-MetroAccess to say well what is the feel of the community at the moment and actually measure that somehow. (Metropolitan local government officer)

The lack of base data were also identified as problematic by a Department of Human

Services Head Office participant who said that:

We want them to look at the development of community indicators around our programs because it’s just not been an area that we’ve focused well enough on. I

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think we probably operate on the basis of anecdotal evidence at the moment. (Department of Human Services Disability Services Division Head Office officer)

In terms of solutions, a local government participant acknowledged that action research

would provide a flexible basis for evaluation because:

You can’t really nut out the operational process until you get to the stage of doing it. Everything is action learning, action research for me. You’ve got to start somewhere but be aware that it is just a model and you’re working with people and you’re going to need to be able to adjust and make changes to suit whatever the situation is that you’re coming across. (Rural local government manager)

The capacity to evaluate a partnership based initiative was also the subject of some

comment. A local government participant identified that more visible results may

emerge from a joint planning and partnership implementation strategy. This is evidenced

by the following comments:

I see that research and planning partnership opportunity between state and local government can really actually address some of those issues but it’s not there. So it means that we do what we can but it doesn’t have the broad kind of potential that it could have. But if there’s a genuine cooperation for instance between state government and councils, specifically on inclusion development research and planning, well I think we might move forward more quickly. Become an informed and shared body of knowledge with broader and more strategic and comprehensive meaning. (Interface local government manager)

The impact of not having an evaluation framework is that implementation fragments and

falls back to individual programs and staff. As the rhetoric of the State Plan has been to

implement social inclusion in a more holistic way, then the lack of an evaluation

framework is a considerable impediment to achieving visible results. This position was

outlined by a local government participant who commented:

What I think is maybe missing with all of that is where does it all meet, where does it all come together, what mechanism have we put in place that we all somehow connect it to something that we’re moving towards. The remains a lot of fragmentation around that and it becomes basically individual programs. (Interface local government manager)

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Chapter summary

This chapter reported on how State and local government managers, officers and people

with disabilities, who participated in this study, described the State Plan’s capacity to

increase the inclusion of people with disabilities in local settings in relation to Rogers’

characteristics of innovations.

Using Rogers’ framework, participant data demonstrated that while the State Plan

provides relative advantage for State and local government participants, its compatibility

was only identified by State government participants and it is implemented differently

across local government areas. In addition, participants identify that the lack of

definition for key concepts in the plan creates barriers to trialling and observing social

change. Figure 2 summarises participant views on the relationship between the

implementation of the State Plan to achieve social inclusion and Rogers’ characteristics

of innovations.

The study data demonstrated that Rogers’ diffusion of innovation theory provides a way

of understanding the factors that support and impede the implementation of the State Plan

for achieving a more inclusive society for people with disabilities.

The State Plan’s vision for inclusive communities and its commitment a human rights

platform and expansion of the policy to include all people with disabilities irrespective of

their service recipient status is a relative advantage over previous policy and strongly

supported by participants. The value placed on partnership and the decision to place

resources within local government to achieve change was also seen as consistent with the

values and roles of local government and the staff working within both local and State

Government. Participants said that the State Plan was better than disability policy it

supersedes. The relative advantage of the current State Plan over preceding policy was

the only consistently observable characteristic of innovation which was seen as

facilitating implementation.

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Figure 2 Participant views and the characteristics of innovations

The compatibility of the State Plan priorities and objectives with those of participants

was seen as being variable. While they generally supported the commitment to social

inclusion, partnership and human rights, in practice implementation strategies had

implications current objectives and practice. In particular, there was perceived

organisational tension between individual service models for people with disabilities who

are clients of the State and the development of partnership and community building

strategies for social inclusion. Different funding mechanisms, strategies and skills were

implied by the shift to partnerships and community building. A greater focus on working

with community and business groups rather than providing services to people with

disabilities was required. Although some identified that this might lead to reductions in

demand and cost, in general this new direction was significantly different from current

Victorian State Disability Plan: Vision to create

inclusive communities

Relative Advantage Better than the idea it supersedes

Compatibility Inconsistent with organisational values, past

experiences and needs

Complexity Hard concept to understand or use

Trialability Experimented with on a limited basis locally

but complexity reduces sustainable trials

Observability Visible local results but few systematic state

wide outcomes

Local social change but no mechanism to

achieve comprehensive

state wide change

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objectives and practice. On the other hand, local government participants were attracted

to this greater focus on universal, community focused intervention.

Overall the incompatibilities between current objectives and practice and those implied

by the State Plan were significant. Similarly there were significant differences in

perspective between State and local participants. From Rogers perspective, this is likely

to impede the adoption of innovation

The complexity of the State Plan vision for increased social inclusion was identified by

participants as being understandable in principle but creating confusion for

implementation. This confusion was identified in relation to the absence of a specific

definition for social inclusion, confusion regarding target groups and underdeveloped

resources in partnership support, skills development and funding. As a result of this

complexity, the capacity of the State Plan to deliver trialable and observable outcomes on

a statewide basis was also reduced. This complexity, coupled with the absence of a

common evidence based implementation framework creates barriers for State and local

government managers and officers framing appropriate interventions across all

dimensions of inclusion to achieve sustainable statewide social change. Participant issues

identified in relation to complexity cascaded and directly impacted on the capacity of the

State Plan to support trialability and observability.

The State Plan was seen as being trialable through programmatic resources such as Metro

and RuralAccess. Supports to implementation included:

� the universal policy platform which was consistent with local government

participant objectives,

� State Government resources for programs,

� a partnership with local government,

� leadership and staff support.

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Impediments were identified as

� resource adequacy,

� the lack of joint partnership activities,

� disjointed leadership effort and

� insufficient effort to increase staff skills.

Of higher concern to participants was the absence of a comprehensive population and

service data base or a comprehensive and systematic implementation plan. As such, the

trialability of the State Plan would not be supported by participant comments.

The observability of the State Plan implementation was queried by participants based on

their experience of outcomes regarding housing, transport and practices in community

services. But it was the lack of an evaluation framework that most concerned participants

and resulted in the characteristic of observability not being met.

The data supports the view that, with the exception of relative advantage, Rogers’

characteristics of innovations are not comprehensively met. This has diminished the

speed with which the State Plan could implement increased social inclusion. Rogers’

theory does not distinguish between the relationships of each characteristic to achieving

social change. The characteristics are described as being part of a system of change. The

results of this study indicate that each characteristic is integral in achieving social change

but that without all characteristics being achieved, state wide social change is less likely.

In this study, the State Plan’s failure to address definitional complexity has negatively

affected the views of participants on the characteristics of trialability and observability.

In Rogers’ framework, addressing the State Plan’s definitions, resources and

measurement elements would increase the opportunity for statewide change.

However, the specific supports and impediments identified by participants in relation to

trialability provide clear direction regarding improvements to the State Plan that could

foster greater success in implementation. Rogers’ characteristics of innovation could all

be met if the State Plan set a specific and measurable definition of social inclusion,

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developed a resource plan, comprehensive population and service data base,

comprehensive and systematic implementation plan, designed joint partnership activities,

identified leadership opportunities and increased staff skills.

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CHAPTER 6

DISCUSSION

Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the factors which have assisted or impeded the

implementation of social inclusion policy for people with disabilities in local settings.

An analysis of the Victorian State Disability Plan and participant views of its

implementation in local settings was conducted for this purpose.

An original application of Everett Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory was developed

to investigate the factors which assisted or impeded the implementation of strategies to

promote social inclusion for people with disabilities. Rogers argued that innovation is

more or less likely to be adopted depending on the presence of five characteristics in the

implementation process. These characteristics of innovation refer to the extent to which

the innovation has perceived relative advantage over preceding approaches, compatibility

with existing values, experiences and needs experiences and needs, complexity in its

meaning and use, trialability as it can be experimented with on a limited basis, and

observability and ability to produce visible results.

The findings of this study have suggested that Rogers’ framework was useful for

reviewing the experience of implementing the State Plan in local settings. It helped to

identify how assistive factors can be strengthened and impediments to implementation

ameliorated. Based on Rogers’ theory, strengthening the characteristics of innovations

should increase the likelihood of the State Plan vision for social inclusion being more

consistently and rapidly adopted and diffused.

More broadly, there are limitations with the applicability of Rogers’ framework to the

evaluation of innovations such as the State Plan. The State Plan provided an enabling

framework rather than specific design specifications for action. As such implementation

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then depended on a range of additional features such as partnerships, specific resources,

local leadership, implementation planning and staff development. These issues were not

well covered in Rogers’ model which is more tailored to specific technology innovations.

In the following section, the factors that were found to have assisted and impeded

implementation of the State Plan to increase social inclusion of people with disabilities in

local settings are reviewed. The overall capacity of the State Plan to promote social

inclusion is then discussed.

The factors that assist or impede the implementation of social inclusion for people with disabilities in local settings

A number of factors were identified as assisting the implementation of strategies to

promote social inclusion in local settings. These include the State Plan’s references to

inclusive values, governance, civic participation and universalism, continuity with past

policy, the involvement of senior organisational and/or political leadership, resource

commitments and partnership development. The factors identified as impeding the

implementation of social inclusion in local settings include poor communication, an

inadequate definition of social inclusion, the lack of a strategic implementation and

evaluation plan, output based funding models and lack of support for partnership and

workforce development.

In relation to Rogers’ framework, the Victorian State Plan, and its implementation in

local settings, was generally considered to provide a relative advantage over previous

policy. However, it was considered to have variable compatibility with current values,

experiences and needs and the concept of social inclusion was seen as having a high level

of complexity. As a result the extent to which implementation strategies were trialable

and observable was problematic. It is likely that the implementation of strategies to

facilitate social inclusion for people with disabilities in local settings has not progressed

as rapidly or as comprehensively as the State Plan’s vision would suggest. The following

section discusses these findings.

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State Plan Values and Principles

When describing aspects of the State Plan that have assisted the implementation of social

inclusion, state and local government participants referred to the significant benefits of

the expression of inclusive values through the vision statement. This significance was

described as having an enabling impact and providing relative advantage for those

involved in its implementation. The values of the State Plan were described as being

personally motivating for those implementing it. As a policy it was believable and one to

which philosophical commitment could be given. The expressed values of the State Plan

were seen to be highly motivating for staff.

On an organisational level, the expression of inclusive values also provided relative

advantage for implementation in local settings where councils are charged with the

legislative responsibility to govern for all and to engage in planning with all groups

within the community. As such, the State Plan fits the legislative context within which

staff and councillors in local government operate. It provides a rationale for working

with people with disabilities as a community of interest within local areas.

State Government polices and plans included social inclusion as a key value. This was

identified as setting standards and expectations for State and local government

organisations and community members. These shaped the dialogue and actions that

support change. By naming social inclusion as key policy objective, whole of

community discussion could be focussed on how inclusion should be enabled in local

settings rather than whether it should be. As such state government policy and planning

was seen to have a role in leading community discussion on the rights and responsibilities

of all citizens in relation to each other. Similarly, the inclusion of all members of local

communities in planning, decision making and advocacy was seen to provide relative

advantage on a number of levels.

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At an individual level addressing disability planning and strategies for inclusion in local

settings personalised the experience of disability and provided a real contribution to

community education. By understanding the participation barriers for people living in

local settings, there is a higher likelihood that needs could be seen as those of real people

living in a family or social network. The response to needs becomes more tangible and

the need for change perceived to be more powerful.

At a community level, placing disability planning and implementation in local settings

emphasised the similarity of the needs of people with disabilities and other population

groups in the community. It promoted and facilitated the development of multi-

dimensional social inclusion plans. Plans based on more universal principles which

apply to the whole population were less likely to stigmatise and marginalise people with

disabilities and more likely to gain support to address disadvantage. It is arguable that

the relative advantage of a plan that emphasises governance and community participation

is twofold. Resulting changes are more likely to be transformational and embedded in a

systemic approach to tackling social disadvantage. The fundamental advantage of an

embedded universal approach to social inclusion for people with disabilities in local

settings is that it supports civic participation and equity.

Overall, the values underpinning the State Plan were strongly supported and seen as

providing relative advantage compared to previous policy. Participants did not identify

any impediments to implementing the State Plan which were related to its principles and

values.

Continuity and leadership

Policy continuity between the State Plan and previous Victorian disability policy values,

experiences and needs was identified by participants as having assisted the

implementation of social inclusion in local settings. Continuity was described as

providing compatibility between past and current policy. The fact that the State Plan was

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seen to have continuity with the past increased its acceptance and reduced resistance to

implementation.

Leadership by local officials and politicians was seen as particularly important in driving

willingness to continue the long process of addressing disadvantage for people with

disabilities. Assisting the implementation of social inclusion in local settings was

identified as being more likely to succeed when senior managers lead change and when

the role of local government was promoted as being more that just roads, rates and

rubbish.

The role of senior organisational or political leaders was identified by participants as

providing a public face to the community discussion on social inclusion. It provided

authority, responsibility and accountability for others within the organisation to

implement policy. Effective leadership was seen as building on the values of the State

Plan and its continuity with past policy to reduce discrimination and disadvantage.

Without such local leadership, the responsibility for bridging between current

organisational and community values and priorities fell to individuals to create a counter

culture. Senior organisational or political leaders were seen as important for legitimising

local change and promoting an organisational culture of inclusion.

However, the State Plan also introduced a significant discontinuity with the past. It

shifted the focus from the provision of services for people with disabilities to service

redesign and community strengthening to promote inclusion. This discontinuity was not

unanimously supported or understood by participants. Both state and local government

participants expressed some concerns that lack of compatibility with the previous

emphasis on service provision could be impeding implementation. There were concerns

that there may be tensions between service redesign and community strengthening

strategies to promote inclusion.

Both service redesign and community strengthening strategies are described in the State

Plan as priorities. Yet many participants identified unresolved issues regarding the

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capacity to see services and community building as part of a fluid, mutually reliant

continuum. Participants, including state government and local government officials and

people with disabilities, consistently considered that organisational capacity and skills to

work on community strengthening were problematic.

The perceived culture of specialist services and provision in the Department of Human

Services was also seen as a significant tension with the shift to a greater focus on

community strengthening to promote social inclusion. Significant differences between

planning based on service provision or on community strengthening were identified. A

range of new information about opportunities for inclusion and the needs of people with

disabilities is needed for planning based on community strengthening. This has

implications for workforce development, funding models and evaluation that are quite

different from those arising from strategies based on service delivery. There were

concerns that the implications for organisational and systems change implied by this shift

had not yet been adequately considered or implementation strategies developed.

It is also important to note that there were differences in the way the State Plan was

interpreted. On the one hand, participants generally supported the values of the State

Plan and saw it as providing policy continuity interpretations varied within organisations.

The underpinning principles of the State Plan were supported because they were seen as

promoting social inclusion. From this perspective the State Plan provided the

opportunity to promote inclusion through the community planning and good governance

provisions in the Local Government Act. On the other, the focus often remained on the

provision of services to individuals. For a number of participants the shift in emphasis to

community strengthening was seen principally as an opportunity for managing demand

for overburdened disability services.

Communication was also seen as a significant impediment to the successful

implementation of the State Plan. The absence of a comprehensive and strategic

communication plan with regular reporting and updates impeded a shared understanding

of compatibility with current practices, needs and experiences. Criticisms included the

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fact that the existing implementation plan did not provide participants with strategies to

promote and communicate the policy and outcome measurement across all State

Government Departments, between State Government Department head offices and

regional offices and across levels of government.

Although the State Plan promoted a whole of government model, significant difficulty

was described in working collaboratively across state and local organisational boundaries

and across different program areas such as health, community services, recreation,

education, employment, transport and housing. Existing boundaries and silos were

difficult to break down. In part this reflected difficulties in establishing better inter

organisational and inter departmental processes for strategy development and

implementation planning to promote social inclusion. It was easier to continue to think

about service delivery within specific areas of responsibility rather than the challenges of

community strengthening. These tensions were further exacerbated when strategies had

to be translated from Head Office to regional offices and then to local government.

Funding models and constraints also provided impediments for the implementation of the

State Plan. In some instances, the scope to assist social inclusion was necessarily bound

by pre-ordained funding constraints. This impeded the trialling of initiatives that people

with disabilities have indicated would increase their inclusion in local settings. Without

resource clarity, based on a comprehensive implementation plan, the interventions to

increase local social inclusion seemed fragile and somewhat unpredictable.

While increased social inclusion was strongly supported as an outcome, and the

underpinning values of the State Plan were widely endorsed, current practices were

relatively incompatible with the new practices necessary to increase social inclusion. In

particular, the shift from a focus on service delivery to a much greater emphasis on

community strengthening had a range of implications for planning, funding, strategy

development, work roles and collaboration across functional areas which had not been

systematically communicated or addressed.

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Complexity The complexity of the underpinning conceptual shift to community strengthening and

social inclusion embodied in the State Plan was a significant impediment to its

implementation. The State Plan articulates a vision for “a stronger and more inclusive

community” where “everyone has the same opportunities to participate in the life of the

community, and the same responsibilities towards society as all other citizens of

Victoria” (Department of Human Services 2002). However it does not define inclusive

community, which population groups should have increased opportunities, or the

planning, funding, organisational development or workforce models which are required

to make a shift from a service delivery culture to a community strengthening approach.

The complexity of the term social inclusion and the lack of definition associated with it

impeded and confused State Plan implementation, and reduced the potential for state

wide social change. Diverse and inconsistent definitions of social inclusion were often

used in local settings or no operational definition was adopted as the basis for

interventions. The use of the term inclusion was ambiguous. Definition sometimes

centred on outcomes such as participation, friendship and/or involvement in legitimate,

meaningful or visible roles in the community. At other times it was seen as a

fundamental principle to guide the way the process of planning was conducted.

It was clear that the idea of social inclusion and its everyday implications for education,

employment, recreation, transport, housing and social engagement had not been the

widespread subject of discussion and debate in the community. Similarly, while the State

Plan was obviously focussed on promoting social inclusion for people with disabilities, it

did not explicitly define which population groups were included. Nor did it link or

differentiate strategies for people with disabilities based on their location, impairment

type and complexity or given their population profile. As a result strategies and

interventions were fragmented and inconsistently described, communicated and

understood. This failure to define the dimensions of social inclusion made it difficult to

do more than implement localised interventions. In addition, the impact and

sustainability of interventions was difficult to establish, monitor or improve. The failure

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to address complexity was nominated by many participants as directly reducing the

capacity of the State Plan to deliver comprehensive trials or observable social inclusion

impacts.

Trialability

The State Plan required that significant innovation occur in local settings if social

inclusion through community strengthening was to be implemented. The extent to which

this new approach was trialled was an important indicator of the capacity the State Plan

to be widely disseminated and implemented in local settings. In this respect, resource

commitment was identified as a key factor assisting the implementation of social

inclusion in local settings. It was a key factor because, by contributing to trialability and

demonstrating that social inclusion can be introduced and made to work in particular

instances, it could then be generalised.

Program responses like Metro and RuralAccess were a conduit for trialling initiatives that

could demonstrate how social inclusion could be better implemented in local settings.

This included the ways in which intersectoral partnerships needed to form to enable

change. Resources were also identified as taking the shape of local leadership and

organisational commitment. Senior leaders in local government organisations were also

seen as significant in progressing resources needed for trialability and in actively

advocating for inclusion in a universal manner.

Partnership development was more often identified by participants from local

government or people with disabilities as a factor assisting the trialability of social

inclusion in local settings than participants from state government. Most of the examples

given by study participants involved local planning that identified changes to increase

social inclusion that were followed through by partner contributions. Similarly, the

preparedness of the state government to provide small capital grants was identified as a

concrete way to enable a local community house to be more accessible.

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There were a number of factors that impeded the extent to which new strategies were

trialled. The absence of a strategic implementation plan was a critical factor also in

reducing the likelihood of local trials, thereby undermining the capacity of the State Plan

to make significant social change on a state wide basis. To succeed, the State Plan needs

a greater emphasis on operational planning. This requires increased data availability,

resources, support for partnership collaboration and workforce development.

The availability and analysis of population data provides the foundation for evidence

based planning. But the current State Plan does not contain a profile of the population of

people with disabilities, let alone more specific layers or combinations of data based on

gender, life stages, culture, indigenous profile. This was consistently criticised and

identified as a significant implementation barrier. In addition, impairment type and

complexity analysed against these population characteristics has not been included. This

is in spite of the fact that such analysis could provide insight into the more specific

changes required on a state wide and local level to increase social inclusion.

The high levels of diversity within the population of people with disabilities means that

action to increase social inclusion needs to be equally diverse. It needs to take into

account the impact of population needs in the social, economic, natural and built

environments of local settings. In respect of those people with disabilities not in the state

government service system, the lack of comprehensive population based planning and

monitoring increases the potential for large numbers of people with disabilities to remain

isolated.

The mapping of the services, activities and opportunities for participation available in

local settings as well as the availability, analysis and trending of service data was

identified as a current implementation impediment. Without comprehensive data,

interventions are at best generic and at worst fail to meet population needs. Although

service and issues mapping has been part of the Metro and RuralAccess program officer’s

roles, the capacity of one officer to locate and analyse data whilst addressing individual

inclusion issues and undertaking community development is unrealistic. In addition, the

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data required are not available in a form that can be drawn together to support local

planning.

While the availability of resources promoted implementation trials, there were concerns

about the inadequacy of resources particularly for local government. In some instances

the overall availability of resources to support change was identified as a significant

barrier. In other instances the impediment related to the ways in which existing resources

were applied and whether the best results were being achieved for the level of

investment. Frustration regarding the lack of local discussion regarding state government

resource allocation was high, particularly given that local consultative mechanisms

between state and local government, disability and other community services and people

with disabilities and their carers were not routine and resourced.

The financial position of rural councils was highlighted as impeding the consistent

implementation of social inclusion. This was based on resource availability as was the

uneven distribution of resources available to support social inclusion and indicate how

the State Plan would deliver social inclusion for all people with disabilities in all local

settings.

The potential to bring resources together to support locally based partnership and

collaboration was seen as a high priority but one that is beyond the scope of the current

Metro and RuralAccess program. The lack of intergovernmental resources to support

partnership and collaboration between tiers of government and local community agencies

was also identified as an impediment.

The concept of partnership and collaborative planning to achieve inclusive outcomes for

people with disabilities was enmeshed in the State Plan and it is part of most

international, contemporary disability policy. Yet the processes of partnership

development and structures of collaborative planning are rarely examined in any detail or

resourced to the level that might make them effective and assistive. In this study,

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participants identified that timeframes imposed on consultation and engagement was

identified as an impediment to implementation.

Social inclusion in local settings needs active facilitation to bring along local

organisations. The current experience of trying to implement changes in local areas,

however, was described as fragmented and indicates that fundamental development work

to support and sustain partnership based work is yet to be completed. The need for

collaboration between councils, the Municipal Association of Victoria and the state

government was identified as a priority to address barriers to social inclusion in areas of

state responsibility such as, but not limited to transport, housing and services.

The lack of joined up state of local government strategic implementation plans to

increase social inclusion for people with disabilities in each local government area made

it difficult to ensure that fundamental issues in areas of state responsibility were being

implemented. In turn, local initiatives seemed less effective. Lack of transport in local

settings was a typical example that reduced the capacity to take up social inclusion

opportunities that were available.

Observability

If an innovation is to be widely accepted, its advantages need to be directly observed.

The lack of an evaluation system to analyse and recommend improvements to State Plan

actions made it difficult to determine the success of the State Plan. Without a clear

definition of social inclusion, and a plan specifying the needs of people with disabilities

across lifestages, gender, culture, indigenous and impairment type and complexity across

local social, economic, built and natural environments and compliance with service

outputs, evaluative measurement is difficult.

Without an evaluation system, anecdotal evidence, personal opinion and visible physical

changes in public places have tended to be used to characterise progress. This approach

is neither comprehensive nor population based. Such bias also favours improvements to

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inclusion for people with physical and sensory disabilities and does not provide a

mechanism for people with intellectual disabilities or acquired brain impairments to

experience improvements that increase their social inclusion in a systematic same way.

Although this study noted that significant amounts of service data were collected, it was

described as contract compliance data and it was not routinely provided back to local

governments, disability and community services or people with disabilities to aid

planning. The lack of a systems approach to the service/community development

continuum also means that service data gathered through the individual planning process

are not being passed on to contribute to local area planning. Table 2 summarises

participant views on the factors that impede and assist the implementation of strategies to

promote social inclusion for people with disabilities in local settings.

Comparisons and implications

The focus on inclusion as a centrepiece in the current State Plan is consistent with the

earlier focus on deinstitutionalisation (Wolfensberger, 1975). By the turn of this century,

many theorists were highlighting the need for social inclusion and citizenship to be linked

through public sector roles, program and the language of policy (Albrecht, 2004; Barton,

2004; Oliver, 2004).

The State Plan marked an important shift in policy because it advocated a universal

approach. It incorporated important arguments regarding social inclusion and citizenship,

the extent to which policy enables universal access and participation or the extent to

which the experience of disability is determined through the creation and application of

policy (Drake 1999). Without a universal approach, Drake argued it should not be

surprising that people with disability remain excluded as they are the minority within a

community and their views do not necessarily reflect the prevailing norms and values.

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Table 2

Participant views on the factors that assist or impede the implementation of strategies to increase social inclusion for people with disabilities in local settings:

Characteristic of innovation Factors that assist: Factors that impede:

Relative Advantage: the degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the idea it supersedes

Inclusive values were identified by all Local and State Government participants as assisting implementation because they created a common philosophical platform between state and local government in local settings. Partnership was identified as a means to creating change and broadening the reach of disability policy beyond previous policy iterations.

The philosophy of social inclusion was identified as a common value and applying it in a local setting provided tangible personal and organisational commitment that was helpful.

Values were described as permeating individual and community responses to disability and enable social justice implementation through a universal philosophical framework.

Governance, civic participation and universalism were more often mentioned by local government participants as providing relative advantage over past State Disability Plans. This focus was valued because it provided alignment to the community planning and good governance elements of the Local Government Act.

A universal approach was described as providing greater leverage for change.

No impediments to implementation regarding the relative advantage of the State Plan were identified by participants

Compatibility: the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with the existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential adopters

Continuity with past values, experiences and needs was identified by some state government participants as an assisting factor and that the State Plan was compatible with

Poor communication was identified as potentially impeding the State Plan’s implementation with respect to the extent to which managers and officers in other state government departments

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previous policy. It was also identified by some as a good mechanism for reducing budget expenditure. For others, however, it created tension regarding the role of community development work in a service delivery department.

Local government participants made fewer comments on the compatibility of the State Plan in terms of continuity because neither past nor current disability policy is mandated for implementation by local government.

would have an understanding of the State Plan and share a sense of compatibility with past policy. The same comments applied to communication between the Department of Human Services Head Office and regional offices.

Communication and cultural change issues were raised by state government participants as the culture of individual service was identified as dominant in the thinking of the Department and sector and requiring specific interventions.

Complexity is: the degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to understand and use

No participants commented that social inclusion was clearly defined in the State Plan.

Inadequate definition of social inclusion was identified by all participants as impeding implementation as a result of the complexity of the term and failure to specify what it should mean for members of the disability community.

Participants variously defined inclusion in relation to participation, meaningful roles, social connections or structural change.

The question of the State Plan’s target group for inclusion was raised by both state and local government participants, with different interpretations about the extent to which impairment complexity should influence implementation.

Participants said that the lack of definition of the central concept in the State Plan was confusing and hard to operationalise. Implementation was often subject to individual interpretation.

Trialability: the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with on a limited basis

Resource commitments were identified by all participants as critical in being able to trial more inclusive approaches in local settings. Programs such as Metro and RuralAccess were highly regarded in this respect. However, this was contrasted with the challenges in some local

Funding models were identified by local government participants as continuing to have an output rather than process focus and reinforcing competition for scarce funds rather than brokering partnership projects. It was noted by one local government officer that smaller agencies in local settings struggle

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governments where resources struggle to meet basic needs.

Senior organisational and/or political leadership was identified by local government participants and people with disabilities. This was particularly so in advocacy for resources, organisational change to embed inclusion in all practices or initiating partnerships to enable trials.

Partnership development was identified as critical, particularly between state and local government managers and officers.

with minimal resources and lack the capacity to participate in additional projects, even if facilitated by local government.

No strategic implementation plan was identified by all participants as a significant barrier to trialling on a State wide basis and achieving more significant social change. It was noted that significant structural changes are required to increase inclusion and that the preliminary work or a plan to put this into effect has not been developed.

Partnership development was identified by all participants as critical to achieving change but as a very inadequate aspect of implementation. The lack of joint intergovernmental planning, skills development or policy forums was cited as creating impediments to implementation and effective trialling.

Skill development was identified by all participants as impeding the trialability of social inclusion.

Observability: the degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to others

No factors were identified as assisting the achievement of observable outcomes.

The lack of a strategic implementation plan and evaluation system was identified as a fundamental problem for implementing social inclusion and being able to observe differences for people with disabilities in local settings.

State government participants criticised the lack of use of service related data in local settings to identify needs and local government participants criticised the lack of population and service data available at Local Government Area level.

The lack of trend data was identified as impeding implementation and the lack of reporting and data raised concerns that social inclusion may be being differentially implemented.

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But it is not enough to advocate the principle of universalism. Links between social

inclusion and good governance are pivotal to the social model of health which identifies

people with disabilities as pivotal in redesigning the social, economic, built and natural

environment barriers that are disabling. Good governance is a theme that emerges in

more recent literature from inside and outside the disability literature. For Barton (2004),

the social model of disability is characterised as providing a relationship between

individuals and their environments and a way to address socio-economic conditions and

relations that block inclusion. For Gleeson (2004), inclusionary landscapes reflect the

desire for a secure place in social networks built less on physical infrastructure and more

on networks, relationships and social interaction.

The current study is important because it has demonstrated that while there was

widespread support for the principles of the State Plan, implementation was limited by

the complexity of the policy and factors that constrained trialability and observability. A

key challenge in promoting the State Plan was that service planning and redevelopment

remained a separate stream of activity to community strengthening activities. The

implementation plan needs to be reviewed and evaluated with the involvement of

multiple partners within and outside government. These factors have contributed to

participant confusion regarding the State Plan’s target groups and whether the Plan was

intended to focus on people with disabilities who are receiving services (and are by

implication living with higher needs or more complex conditions) or on all people with a

reported disability living in community settings.

Goggin and Newell (2005) highlighted the inherent tension in disability policy when it is

targeted and programmatic. They argued that rather than increasing social inclusion,

there is risk that people with disabilities become more marginalised. Similarly, Drake’s

argument (1999) that a disability model focussed on individual change through care,

therapy and treatment is counterproductive because it neglects to recognise the need for

access to facilities, activities, social roles and relationships.

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Because the State Plan describes the dual priorities of service planning and

redevelopment and community strengthening activities as separate and running in

parallel, the implementation paradigm has become confused. This confusion is

exacerbated by the lack of target group definition and the absence of population based

structure to the State Plan and related actions. Based on the literature, an improvement to

the Plan would be the development of a framework that identified changes in social,

economic, physical and cultural dimensions with consideration to the needs of people

with disabilities at different stages of life and given cultural, gender and impairment

complexity.

This model would enable the impact of impairment type and complexity, gender, cultural

and indigenous experiences to be factored into either individual care planning or local

access issues in a more connected way. This places people with disabilities in the centre

of the social inclusion process. It includes a more holistic consideration of individual and

community planning to promote social inclusion.. As Bigby and Fyffe point out, there is

a need for both micro and macro, personal and community change to enable social

inclusion (2006).

Cuthill and Fien (2005) suggest that increasing the participation of people with

disabilities in this environment requires deliberate and systematic planning. In this

respect, future versions of the State Plan should reflect a more negotiated and specific

implementation plan with clearer roles, relationships and actions attributed to partner

organisations. Lack of specification of the needs of people with disabilities in

dimensions such as private and public sector facility design, employment practices,

educational practices and programs and public sector service delivery, is an impediment

to more enlightened policy development and implementation. According to Drake (1999)

it relegates people with disabilities to the role of passive recipients of welfare.

Gillen (2004) has argued for joined up whole of government approaches to include action

that would incorporate planning, transport, education and health in an inter-sectoral

manner. He also argued that an alternative way for local government to be organised

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would be around governance, outcomes, services and standards. These are the issues that

a revised implementation plan could consider to overcome some of the impediments

identified by participants.

Alternatively, Randolph (2004) has called for local mechanisms to build synergies

between complementary projects, or to rationalise projects and increase project

integration. A shared priority plan would guide all funding into local areas with local

consortia being established. Similarly, Blackman and Woods conclude that public policy

and public management run the risk of only producing technical improvements to

services to individuals through a lack of systematic planning rather than offering the

community choices or social futures. They say that “Intervening in complex social

problems needs less prescription of detail and more intelligent accountability through

reports and inspections for a smaller number of dimensions” at a local level (Blackman &

Woods, 2004, p.59).

On the other hand, Parsons has described coherent and coordinated policy as involving

the “craft of integrating competing and opposing forms of knowledge and coordinating

the multiplicity of organisations and interests to form a coherent policy fabric” (Parsons,

2004, p.44). To steer and weave complex issues and interventions, there must be

specified targets, objectives and outcomes. It is arguable that planning needs to pay

attention to both specifying the desired strategies and outcomes and the mechanisms to

ensure that local participants, including people with disabilities are included in this

planning process.

The State Plan talks about a more inclusive society and the inclusion of people with

disabilities in all aspects of community life. The failure to define what social inclusion

means based on a continuum of care framework in all aspects of social, economic, natural

and built local environments has been identified by participants as an impediment. This

observation from participants is consistent with the argument put by Van de Ven (2004)

that inclusion means access to age, gender and culturally appropriate roles status and

activities, productive relationships and relationships with family and friends. It is also

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consistent with general Victorian state government policy on social inclusion

(Department of Victorian Communities, 2005).

Impairment, impairment complexity, lifestage, gender, culture and indigenous

experiences form a complex web of difference and demonstrate that people with

disabilities are not a homogenous group (Barton, 2004). The current experience of

systematic exclusion still expressed by people with disability in local settings makes the

need for clear definitions even more important (National People with Disabilities and

Carer Council, 2009). This underlines the importance of defining the key term in this

policy and using this definition to explore a finer grain of planning and action that will

make a real and measurable difference in local settings.

The failure to define social inclusion in the State Plan, particularly the link between

social support and well being, leaves a significant gap in the policy framework. The

literature is consistent in identifying that social support contributes to a sense of security

and enables companionship and intimacy (Bondevik & Skogstad, 1996), provides

protective factors for people adjusting to or coping with chronic disease (Stansfeld, 2001)

and that friendship is often the most important aspect of feeling socially included in local

community life (McVilly et al., 2006).

Failing to define social inclusion makes it harder to achieve inclusion and participation in

other aspects of daily life. For example, Carney (2001) argues that when loneliness and

isolation are reduced, people are able to create identities that constitute the social self.

The social self is a crucial element of social inclusion. Bruhn and Phillips (1987) explain

this eloquently in terms of Erikson’s stages of development and the need for faith,

autonomy, affiliation, hope, self esteem and trust to be developed.

In addition, the failure to specify friendship as a goal of social inclusion policy weakens

the foundation of learning and access to the community and this is particularly so for

people with specific impairment types. Friendship has been demonstrated to have a

significant impact across all life stages for people with intellectual disabilities. Barriers

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to friendship access and formation disadvantages children with intellectual disabilities in

pre-school (Howell, Hauser-Cram & Kersh, 2007), academic, functional and social

benefits for adolescents (Carter, Hughes, Guth & Copeland, 2005) and poverty and

structural disadvantage in older women (Harris, 2003).

Participants identified that the absence of a strategic implementation plan impeded the

trialability of social inclusion in local settings. The factors identified that impede

trialability in this study resonate with contributions to the public policy implementation

literature. Pressman and Wildavsky’s (1984) argument that incompatibility, program

preferences, competing commitments, priorities, leadership and role differences, legal

and procedural differences and lack of power can undermine implementation is a good

example.

By not articulating these differences in a population based model, and drilling down to

analyse data based on population and location, the capacity of disability policy to effect

social inclusion is limited. Generic models of social inclusion fail to develop effective

interventions (Thomas, 2004) and all interventions are perceived to be add ons in

overburdened public sector budgets rather than the foundations of universal participation

(Clear, 2000; Tregaskis, 2004).

Intergovernmental planning and service delivery roles complicated disability policy

implementation and tensions arise from a system that seeks citizen participation but then

mediates it by micro-economic reform and managerialism. While social inclusion

features in many national, state and local government policies, measures for community

strengthening and well being are still in development and remain a secondary indicator to

financial and economic performance (Wiseman, 2004). For Wiseman, inclusive

communities need to be built from access to core public infrastructure as no amount of

bolt on community capacity building will achieve the policy objective without resources.

Gleeson (1999) argues that the failure to comprehensively engage with and build

community capacity to participate results from inadequate funding. Without substantial

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work practice reform or the extension of social networks or independence, people with

disabilities in community settings continue to live largely institutionalised lives.

Goggin and Newell’s (2005) recommendation is to incorporate disability into political

and governance arrangements and to re-orient public debate and policy making to

routinely engage people with disabilities. They say that the involvement of people with

disabilities in local governance in a significant step towards social inclusion as it

empowers people to navigate the roles and resources of government. This position is

consistent with Reddel’s (2004) views that there is a need to develop a model of social

governance that comprises policy, discourse, negotiation and arbitration to negotiate

complexity.

Support for the reorientation of disability services is consistent with the direction of

disability policy since the introduction of deinstitutionalisation in the 1970s. However,

the State Plan fails to specify how service reform will interface with proposed community

building in local settings. Nor does it focus on people with disabilities outside the service

system, the growing numbers of people in the community with disabilities, and those

likely to acquire disabilities through the rapid ageing of the Australian community.

Service reforms are an appropriate response to increasing opportunities for inclusion for

people in care or receiving state government support. But many people live alone in the

community without services through necessity, choice or ineligibility.

Commitments to increase universal provision of public transport, buildings, education,

life long learning, employment, arts, culture, political and spiritual life are highly relevant

to people with disabilities, yet the results of Shut Out, the National Disability Strategy

Consultation Report (2009), demonstrate that these commitments have not been

implemented. This recent study of the experiences of disability in local communities in

Australia reveals continuing exclusion across all dimensions of community life.

While the identification of a community building framework to support funded

community building initiatives in the State Plan is positive, it does not represent a

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comprehensive response. The focus of this proposed framework is defined through the

Disability Services Community Building Program (Department of Human Services,

2010), again bringing a programmatic response to a universal problem. Similarly,

although the State Plan identified liaison with the Municipal Association of Victoria and

the establishment of the Office for Disability as supporting universal planning, the

implementation details were not included.

As a result, and notwithstanding its underpinning principles, the State Plan reads more

like a state government disability services departmental plan than a state inclusion plan.

Most of the tangible resources are allocated to supporting the state service framework

rather than increasing social inclusion for all people with disabilities. This explains why

participants commented on the characteristics of innovation as they did and leads to a

discussion about the reasons why disability is a complex policy area and the

implementation of state wide social change requiring partnership participation is

challenging.

This research is significance on a number of levels. Firstly, it has utilised Rogers’

diffusion theory as a conceptual framework and in spite of being drawn from a different

field, has been able to identify the factors that assist or impede implementation of social

inclusion for people with disabilities. Secondly, it demonstrated that even social policy

with widespread support can fail in comprehensive implementation where

implementation participants find the change goals too complex or unable to be trialled or

observed. Thirdly, it identified specific interventions that could increase the rate of

diffusion, or implementation of this policy and fourthly outlined the elements of a model

that could be followed on an intergovernmental level to improve outcomes.

Future research

This thesis identified the factors that assisted and impeded the implementation of social

inclusion for people with disabilities in local settings based on Rogers’ characteristics of

200

innovations. It identified a model of social inclusion to increase the capacity for local

planning initiatives, support intergovernmental partnership and effect social change.

Table 3 outlines future research needs for strengthening social inclusion in local settings

with a number of topics yet to be researched. These have been identified within Rogers’

characteristics of innovation framework.

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Tab

le 3

Futu

re r

esea

rch

need

s C

hara

cter

istic

s of

inno

vatio

ns

Futu

re r

esea

rch

need

s

Rel

ativ

e ad

vant

age

Iden

tify

the

attit

udes

of c

omm

unity

mem

bers

to p

eopl

e w

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itativ

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202

base

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m.

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rted.

203

Chapter summary This chapter has identified and discussed the factors found in this study to have assisted or

impeded the implementation of social inclusion policy in local settings through the State

Plan. Rogers’ characteristics of innovations provided a useful theoretical framework and

analytical tool. It has enabled the identification of improvements to the State Plan that will

increase successful implementation and the capacity for local planning, strengthen

intergovernmental partnership and achieve social change. It has also identified a number of

areas for future research based on Rogers’ diffusion theory.

Factors identified by participants that already assist the implementation process include the

State Plan’s reference to civic participation and universalism. Policy continuity, leadership,

resources and partnership development should also be continued. Factors that currently

impede successful implementation and so require increased effort include communication, a

definition of social inclusion and a strategic implementation and evaluation plan.

Additional work is needed on the impact of funding models and the need for more deliberate

partnership and workforce development strategies. Participant views demonstrate that

individual and organisational alignment of policy values is significant in providing the

relative advantage needed to embrace change.

A universal platform based on access for all has been identified as a feature that should

continue in the State Plan to increase social inclusion. Those implementing complex policy

need to identify links and relationships between past experiences, but also need added

assistance in changing work practices. Leadership, consistency, communication and

interdepartmental and intergovernmental collaboration are critical elements in

implementation. They need to be reinforced by adequate funding and resources. In order to

take state wide policy and implement it in local settings, implementation partners need clear

and shared definitions and policy goals. As such, the term social inclusion needs to be

defined and operationalised so that it can be trialled in spite of the diverse nature of

impairment type, complexity and population characteristics. Partnership development needs

204

to be acknowledged and resourced as an area of implementation work in its own right.

Workforce development requires similar effort. A comprehensive population and service

data analysis is a critical and currently missing element of the current State Plan. Its

establishment would inevitably give rise to a wider range of responses across and between

tiers of government that would contribute to more effective implementation.

Without a system for planning, implementing and evaluating, change for people with

disabilities is likely to remain incremental rather than comprehensive. The points that

emerged from this study are also consistent with the literature which identifies that social

inclusion needs to be integrated into the fabric of local settings. People with disabilities will

only comprehensively be included in local settings when their needs are understood and

integrated into a process for local planning and governance. Local settings require the

involvement of all three tiers of government. As a result, a far more integrated and

connected model of public sector planning, implementation and evaluation is required.

Participant comments illustrate that implementing social inclusion requires a far finer grain

of planning than has been the case since the State Plan was adopted in 2002. Implementation

based on this extended understanding of diverse needs requires commensurate resources in

return. In the process, a better balance needs to be achieved between service reform and

community building initiatives with a universal approach replacing the current emphasis on

programmatic responses.

The concluding chapter summarises the major findings and outlines the elements of a model

of social inclusion based on Rogers’ diffusion of innovation theory to guide future

intergovernmental work to increase the implementation of social inclusion of people with

disabilities in local settings.

205

CHAPTER 7

CONCLUSIONS

Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to review the outcomes of a study that identified and analysed

factors that assisted or impeded the implementation of social inclusion policy for people with

disabilities in local settings. It developed an original application of Rogers’ diffusion of

innovation theory for this purpose. It also explored the extent to which broader planning and

policy frameworks, in this case the State Plan, impacted on the success of local planning

initiatives, supported intergovernmental partnership and effected social change.

The following sections summarise the literature review outcomes, research questions and

major findings and highlight the strengths and limitations of the research.

Literature review outcomes

The identification of specific research questions, and subsequent methodological decisions

were based on a review of the literature. This encompassed definitions of social inclusion,

the significance of this for contemporary disability policy, the experience of disability and

social inclusion in the Australian community. The review of the literature in chapters 2 and 3

established that policy measures need to go beyond declarations, legislation and services to

implement social inclusion. It demonstrated the value of applying Rogers’ theory to

understand the factors that assist and impede implementation of the State Plan.

Based on the literature review, it is clear that social inclusion has been a goal of Australian

disability policy since the 1970s (Wolfensberger, 1975) but that service system focussed

implementation has had limitations. In some respects it has reinforced marginalisation of

people with disabilities (Goggin & Newell, 2005). Australia’s ratification of the UN

206

convention on the rights of people with disabilities in 2008 signalled commitment to a more

universally embedded approach to social inclusion linked to concepts of citizen participation

consistent with the social model of disability (Albrecht, 2004; Drake, 1999).

It is also clear from the literature that social inclusion is a multi-dimensional concept. Failure

to define it in a planning and policy context affects the consistency and measurability of

initiatives and outcomes. Yet, in spite of diverse definitions, it is generally agreed that social

inclusion provides benefit to all community members in relation to human rights, social

justice and citizenship as well as supporting individual and community health and well being

(Berkman, 1985; Marmot & Wilkinson, 1998, 2001). It is described in the literature as a

providing a protective factor for people adjusting to or coping with chronic impairments and

limiting secondary depression. It provides a sense of security, companionship and intimacy

that reduces emotional problems (Berkman & Syme, 1979; Bondevik & Skogstag, 1996;

Bruhn & Phillips, 1987; Stansfeld, 2001). Reinforcing the value of universal citizen

participation in local settings, social inclusion has also been identified as enabling self

actualisation and the maintenance of social identity (Carney, 2001; Pearlin, 1985).

The development of policies and strategies to improve social inclusion for people with

disabilities is complex and difficult problem (Althaus, Bridgman & Davis, 2007). It is

affected by both conceptual and philosophical debates. This is particularly about how social

inclusion is defined and structural barriers associated with the way programs for people with

disabilities are planned and delivered. Community building has assisted greater social

inclusion, structural disadvantage experienced by people with disabilities needs to be

recognised in implementing change. This requires greater attention to the policy

implementation process (Pressman & Wildavsky 1984; Althaus, Bridgman & Davis 2007).

The broader social and economic context also has a significant impact on specific policy

areas (Nevile 1998; Parsons, 2004). The context demonstrated how the greater focus on

economic criteria since the 1970s has had a negative impact on disability policy Just as

deinstitutionalisation of people with disabilities was gathering pace, a philosophical emphasis

on individualism and mutual obligation further disadvantaged people already experiencing

207

disadvantage (Kinnear, 2000). It is arguable that these broader policy trends adversely

impacted on the capacity to implement inclusive policies for people with disabilities

(Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2003; Goggin & Newell, 2005; Swain, 2004).

As the influence of neo classical economic theory waned in this century, some contributions

to the literature identified opportunities to implement more inclusive policies in local

settings. Local government has the role and opportunity to diversify local governance

through the development of skills, knowledge and experience in individuals and

enhancements to deliberative and systematic planning (Cuthill & Fien, 2005). Such

opportunities are reflected in the philosophy of the State Plan in Victoria (Department of

Human Services, 2002) where building local communities in partnership with local

government is an innovative and key strategy.

Notwithstanding the adverse impact that broader policy settings may have on disability

policy, it is clear that there is now widespread support for greater emphasis on social

inclusion for people with disabilities and a range of other groups experiencing disadvantage.

Social inclusion has a number of elements. It is an end in itself, which can be defined by a

range of opportunities to participate in everyday life. It is also a principle which defines the

way programs and services for people with disabilities should be planned and implemented.

In particular, it is now widely recognised that people with disabilities should have a say in

the way services and local communities are planned and implemented.

As a result, disability policy generally reflects a commitment to the principles and outcomes

of social inclusion. This study has demonstrated that much less is known about the

effectiveness of strategies to improve social inclusion. While aspiring to greater social

inclusion, in practice policies for people with disabilities have generally continued to focus

on the delivery of services for specific population groups such as those with sensory,

physical or intellectual disabilities. More recently there has been interest in more broadly

based whole of government (Department of Premier and Cabinet, 2005, 2008) planning

strategies. These have emphasised cross sectoral planning across areas like housing,

employment, transport, education and health to improve social inclusions. This has seen

208

increased interest in the use of community strengthening strategies. There is comparatively

little research on the effectiveness of these strategies in improving social inclusion for people

with disabilities. The research conducted here sought to increase understanding of these

issues.

The literature on diffusion of innovations suggests that there are a number of attributes of

innovations which help or impede widespread implementation and diffusion. Rogers (2003)

developed a useful five attribute model which has significant potential utility for

understanding which innovations are adopted and which is not. He proposed that those

innovations which are widely implemented are seen as providing a relative advantage over

previous approaches; compatibility with existing values, needs and experience; relatively

simple to understand and implement, easy to trial and develop; and observable evidence of

benefit. This framework was adapted in this study to investigate issues associated with the

implementation of policy to improve social inclusion for people with disabilities in local

settings.

Research questions

The Victorian State Disability Plan focused on improving social inclusion for people with

disabilities by introducing a greater emphasis on community strengthening, local planning

and intersectoral collaboration. It therefore provided an excellent opportunity to investigate

the gaps around implementation issues for disability policy and on social inclusion

highlighted through the review of the literature. Rogers’ (2003) framework was used to

study the implementation of the State Plan in three local areas.

The specific questions to guide the research were:

� How have study participants experienced the relative advantage, compatibility,

complexity, trialability and observability of the State Plan’s implementation?

� What has assisted the implementation of social inclusion in local settings?

209

� What has impeded the implementation of social inclusion in local settings?

Adopting Rogers’ theory of the diffusion of innovations provided a mechanism for

understanding the capacity of the current State Plan to impact on the success of local

planning initiatives, support intergovernmental partnerships and effect social change. It has

also provided clear directions for the development of a model of social inclusion to improve

current outcomes, increase social inclusion and achieve more rapid social change.

Major findings

Analysis of participant data using Rogers’ theory of the diffusion of innovations

demonstrated that while the State Plan provided relative advantage for state and local

government participants, its compatibility with state government priorities was inconsistent

and it has been implemented differently in local settings. In addition, lack of definition

created barriers to trialling and observing social change. Data support the view that, with the

exception of relative advantage, Rogers’ characteristics of innovations were not

comprehensively observable and that this has diminished the capacity of the State Plan to

achieve its vision of increase social inclusion for people with disabilities in Victoria.

The factors identified as assisting the implementation of social inclusion in local settings

were as follows. In relation to relative advantage, the State Plan’s references to a human

rights platform and partnership were significant. In relation to compatibility, references to

continuity with past policy and the involvement of senior organisational and/or political

leadership were significant. These were variable for state and local government participants.

In relation to trialability, references to resource commitments and partnership development

were significant. In relation to complexity, references to the need for a definition of social

inclusion were significant. In relation to trialability, the absence of a comprehensive

population and service data base or a systematic implementation plan was significant. These

in turn hindered the establishment of an evaluation system to capture observable outcomes.

It is notable that, in spite of being part of local disability plan implementation processes, that

210

participants with disabilities did not feel equipped to respond to the relative advantage,

compatibility or complexity of the State Plan although they were vocal on issues of

trialability and observability.

The overarching actions that would strengthen the State Plan’s capacity to deliver state wide

change included the establishment of coordinated intergovernmental and community

consultative mechanisms, a framework for specifying targets in all dimensions of inclusion,

joint workforce development and a comprehensive system for population and service data

analysis.

These elements of a model of social inclusion were identified based on the research findings

and literature review. It utilised the structure of Rogers’ characteristics of innovations to

identify the activities needed by national, state and local governments to accelerate the rate of

change in local settings. The emerging model demonstrates how each level of government

could strengthen the characteristics of innovations so that social inclusion could be more

comprehensively and effectively implemented.

Elements of a social inclusion implementation model

Rogers’ theory of the diffusion of innovations says that innovations, like increasing the social

inclusion of people with disabilities in local settings, will be more likely to occur when the

characteristics of innovations are met. If integrated local planning is a critical innovation in

this new policy environment, then an equally innovative social inclusion implementation

model is required to create and accelerate change. This research has found that the relative

advantage of disability planning to increase social inclusion for people with disabilities in

local settings would be assisted by a consistent expression of values through consistent

intergovernmental policy, programs, legislation and regulation.

Complexity is also generated because the relationship between population groups and

dimensions such as service access, education training and employment, housing transport,

211

recreation and sport, the urban environment and civic participation is not defined. Concepts

that are not defined cannot be implemented, evaluated or improved.

The compatibility of disability planning to increase social inclusion for people with

disabilities in local settings would be assisted by policy continuity, senior organisational and

political leadership and enhanced by strategic communication planning. The complexity of

the term social inclusion in the State Plan has reduced the trialability and observability of

initiatives for people with disabilities in local settings. The complexity of the policy

objective (social inclusion) is generated because what it might mean, given diversity of

impairment type and complexity that interacts with life stage, gender, cultural and indigenous

needs is not defined.

The trialability of disability planning to increase social inclusion for people with disabilities

in local settings would be assisted by the establishment of a strategic implementation plan.

This plan should include local level population and service data and analysis, resources and

support for partnership, collaboration and workforce development. Trialability would also be

assisted by the establishment of a strategic communication plan to enhance communication

between and within all levels of government, between all levels of government and

community and service organisations and between all levels of government, community and

service organisations and people with disabilities.

The observability of disability planning to increase social inclusion for people with

disabilities in local settings would be assisted by a comprehensive evaluation system.

Appendix E identifies the elements of a social inclusion implementation model. It

demonstrates how coordinated action at each level of government could strengthen the

characteristics of innovations so that social inclusion policy for people with disabilities could

be more comprehensively and effectively implemented. A summary of the elements of this

model are outlined below.

212

In relation to increasing the relative advantage of disability policy focused on social

inclusion, national state and local governments have consistent roles. These include

consistent including international and national human rights and legislative references in all

policy, programs, legislation and regulation. It includes the development and coordination of

strategic communication and education plans aimed at celebrating the contribution of people

with disabilities to the community and supporting the systematic inclusion of people with

disabilities in public discourse and decision making.

In relation to increasing compatibility, intergovernmental roles are differentiated. All tiers

of government should be establishing coordinated key performance indicators to measure the

success of strategies administered at different levels of government across policy, programs,

legislation and regulation. They should also be seeking to increase the participation of

people with disabilities through employment or procurement processes. National and state

government should be routinely addressing disability issues at joint intergovernmental

forums and committing senior staff and resources to improve cross portfolio implementation.

Local government has opportunities to address and report on progress in social inclusion

policy in national and state peak bodies and can also increase cross organisational

involvement in disability planning to address the social, economic, physical and cultural

aspects of social inclusion in local settings.

In relation to reducing the complexity of the term social inclusion, national state and local

governments need to scope, develop and adopt a definition of social inclusion as the basis for

joint policy implementation. All tiers of government also need a shared understanding of the

impact that impairment type and complexity, lifestage, gender, cultural and indigenous

characteristics have on social inclusion and the specific changes required of society to

support the capacity to participate.

In relation to increasing trialability, intergovernmental roles are differentiated. All tiers of

government need consistent approaches and definitions for legislation, regulation, policies

and programs, key performance indicators, funding and service agreement key performance

indicators, consultative mechanisms, public sector employment practices, workforce

213

development and a national recognition approach where targets are exceeded. National and

state governments to develop comprehensive and accessible data down to local government

postcode levels that profile impairment type and complexity, lifestage, gender, cultural and

indigenous characteristics. Programs and resources that support

trials that aim at increasing social inclusion in local settings should be continued. Models for

funding public and private sector capital improvements should be established to increase

physical access and benchmark projects established to demonstrate how universal access

systems could be operationalised.

State and local governments could increase trialability by collaborating on the development

of local disability plans, sharing service data, establishing operational plans and practice

notes for enhancements to building standards, public, community transport and taxis and

establishing an independent clearinghouse to identify and promote successful social inclusion

initiatives, case studies and implement a strategic communication plan in local areas.

Local governments could introduce more assertive outreach and social marketing to identify

people with disabilities in local communities, introduce structures, communication and

engagement techniques to increase the participation of people with disabilities in community

planning, local governance, complaints mechanisms, advocate for adequate national and state

funds for related services, programs and supports. Local governments could also ensure that

all council run facilities have assistive devices and communication aids available and that all

information is available in multiple formats. Local governments could facilitate social

inclusion audits with community members with disabilities to identify improvements to

social, economic, physical and cultural aspects of local areas. They could also use

community grants and local leadership training as opportunities to increase participation in

sporting, cultural and other community organisations.

In relation to observability, national state and local governments have consistent roles. These

include establishing and monitoring social inclusion targets and key performance indicators

for all policies and programs, establishing standards for social inclusion in all aspects of

community life and utilising the same definitions, targets and standards so that measurements

214

can cascade from a national to a local community setting. Significantly, regular, independent

and comparative reporting of progress needs to be publicly available as well as a mechanism

to enact related change.

Strengths and limitations

The strength of this study was the adoption of Creswell’s claim (2003, p.3) that a general

framework incorporating philosophical assumptions regarding knowledge, strategies of

enquiry and methods should guide all facets of research. A second strength was the adoption

of Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory which provided a theoretical framework for

collecting and analysing study data. As outlined in more detail in chapter 4, this framework

resulted in the adoption of a qualitative approach and a case study method to identify the

experiences of policy implementation and the factors that provide assistance or impediments.

As a result, the study was able to elicit the views of key implementation partners (state and

local government and people with disabilities) and to triangulate this information with the

literature and public policy documents to propose a model of social inclusion to improve the

experience of people with disabilities in local settings. Given the researcher’s profile and

background, Creswell’s description of advocacy/participatory knowledge claims suited the

pursuit of “an action agenda for reform” where participant voices could contribute and

establish the evidence for reform and change (2003, p.9-10).

The interview themes and data analysis were guided by Rogers’ characteristics of

innovations which meant that the study could be replicated and the data were recorded in a

concise and accessible manner. Having outlined the strengths of the study, it is equally

important to outline the limitations and the impact that they may have had on the results.

The sample size for this study was relatively small but this limitation was addressed in a

number of ways. It drew the sample from three locations, ensured that managers and officers

from state and local government were involved from each local setting and that the people

215

with disability included in the study were experienced in the policy implementation process

through their involvement in local disability advisory committees.

The sample was established based on expert advice, given the absence of an independent

evaluative framework to indicate success or failure in local planning for social inclusion, and

the resulting interviews produced rich and complex data. The limitation of the study to three

categories of implementation partners excluded service providers, community organisations

and carers. This limitation was primarily put in place given the study’s focus on the

“building inclusive communities” strategy within the State Plan and the need to complete

data collection within a specific period of time. The inclusion of service providers,

community organisations and carers would have multiplied participants significantly and

preference was given to gaining participant views in diverse geographic locations.

Conclusion

While social inclusion was described by study participants as projecting the right values and

forming the best basis for disability policy, the literature has demonstrated how multi-

dimensional and contested it remains as a concept. A multi-dimensional and contested

concept is difficult to put into operation and even more difficult to evaluate or improve. This

emphasised the need for the State Plan to define social inclusion linked to a comprehensive

planning, implementation and evaluation framework.

Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory has assisted this thesis to explore the concept of

social inclusion, identify what will assist implementation of the State Plan and reduce the

impediments so that sustainable social change can occur. By studying the experience of

State Plan implementation partners in three Victorian local settings through Rogers’

characteristics of innovations, a new perspective on implementation has emerged. This

perspective will fill a current gap in the literature and provide a new way of modelling social

inclusion implementation in disability policy in the future.

216

And while this thesis has addressed the identified research questions, the opportunities for

further research are ongoing and indicate the extent of knowledge gaps in the diverse field of

disability and the complexity of implementation. It would seem appropriate to conclude with

a comment by Rogers that “…change agents and diffusion scholars must understand how

potential adopters perceive new ideas. Such perceptions count in determining the nature of

the diffusion process” (Rogers, 2003, p.266).

217

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Appendices

Appendix A Local Government Act 1989 – Council roles

PART 1A-LOCAL GOVERNMENT CHARTER

3D. What is the role of a Council? (1) A Council is elected to provide leadership for the good governance of the municipal district and the local community. (2) The role of a Council includes- (a) acting as a representative government by taking into account the diverse needs of the local community in decision making; (b) providing leadership by establishing strategic objectives and monitoring their achievement; (c) maintaining the viability of the Council by ensuring that resources are managed in a responsible and accountable manner; (d) advocating the interests of the local community to other communities and governments; (e) acting as a responsible partner in government by taking into account the needs of other communities; (f) fostering community cohesion and encouraging active participation in civic life.

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Appendix B Samples of invitation to participate

Information and invitation to participate for DHS Head Office.

RE: LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND DISABILITY: BUILDING INCLUSIVE

COMMUNITIES

I am writing to invite your participation in a study reviewing how the State Disability

Plan 2002 - 2012 is being implemented in Victorian local government areas to build

inclusive communities for people with disabilities.

The study will compare and analyse the views of state and local government

representatives and people with disabilities currently working on implementation issues

through local government advisory committees in seven to ten local government case

study areas. The study aims to identify how policy is made and implemented, the factors

that contribute to implementation and identify the reasons for differential outcomes for

people with disabilities in local communities.

This study is being conducted as a requirement for Ms Fiona Reidy’s PhD and is being

supervised by Professor Hal Swerissen, School of Public Health La Trobe University and

Dr Chris Bigby, School of Social Work and Social Policy La Trobe University.

It is anticipated that study activities will be conducted between October and December

2006.

If you agree to be involved, you will be asked to participate in:

1. An individual interview of approximately 1.5 hours duration.

The focus for the interviews will be to identify current implementation mechanisms to

increase inclusion by strengthening local communities and related implementation

230

attributes. Field notes will be taken during interviews and transferred into records of

interview to enable coding and analysis. These records of interview will be available to

interviewees on request.

If you consent, the interviews will be tape recorded to verify the accuracy of field notes

during coding and analysis only and as such will the recordings will be erased following

completion of analysis.

During the study, field notes, tape recordings and any records of interview will be stored

in a locked filing cabinet in the office of the researcher Ms Fiona Reidy at La Trobe

University. The computer records will also be kept on a secure, pass word protected

computer in the office of the researcher Ms Fiona Reidy at La Trobe University. No-one

apart from Ms Reidy, Professor Swerissen and Dr Bigby will have access to the field

notes, tape recordings and records of interview. Following the study, field notes and

records of interview will be securely stored in line with La Trobe University policy and

maintained for a period of 5 years.

Although the researchers will know who you are for the duration of this study, your name

or organisational name will not be included on the written forms, field notes, records of

interview, computer records or results of the project. You will therefore remain

anonymous to everyone apart for the researchers. The results of this study will appear in

a thesis to be written by Ms Reidy, in journal publications and in presentations at

conferences, but you will not be identified in any of these reports. You will be provided

with a summary of the study on completion.

While you will not directly benefit from participation in this project, your participation

will contribute to a better understanding of the factors that could improve disability

policy implementation and the inclusion of people with disabilities in local communities.

In addition, there are no disadvantages, penalties or adverse consequences for not

participating or withdrawing from the research.

231

Any questions regarding this project titled: ‘Local Government and Disability: Building

Inclusive Communities’ can be directed to the Senior Investigator, Professor Hal

Swerissen, School of Public Health, La Trobe University on 9479 1743.

Ms Reidy will be contacting you shortly to confirm your interest in participating in this

study.

Yours sincerely

Hal Swerissen Head of School

Public Health

Date:

232

Information and invitation to participate for State and Local Government

organisations.

RE: LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND DISABILITY: BUILDING INCLUSIVE

COMMUNITIES

I am writing to invite your participation in a study reviewing how the State Disability

Plan 2002 - 2012 is being implemented in Victorian local government areas to build

inclusive communities for people with disabilities.

The study will compare and analyse the views of state and local government

representatives and people with disabilities currently working on implementation issues

through local government advisory committees in seven to ten local government case

study areas. The study aims to identify how policy is made and implemented, the factors

that contribute to implementation and identify the reasons for differential outcomes for

people with disabilities in local communities.

This study is being conducted as a requirement for Ms Fiona Reidy’s PhD and is being

supervised by Professor Hal Swerissen, School of Public Health La Trobe University and

Dr Chris Bigby, School of Social Work and Social Policy La Trobe University.

It is anticipated that study activities will be conducted between October and December

2006.

If you agree to be involved, you will be asked to organise:

1. Completion of a written organisational reflection exercise designed to identify

examples of inclusive outcomes achieved for people with disability in the local

community against the dimensions of inclusion.

233

2. Two individual follow up interviews of approximately 1.5 hours duration each

with a senior management representative and an officer conducting operational

disability planning and/or implementation.

The reflection exercise will be analysed to provide good practice examples of inclusive

practices for people with disabilities in local communities in relation to dimensions

including disability supports, health and community services, recreation and community

life, education, employment, transport and housing. In addition, it will identify the extent

to which inclusive policy implementation currently takes impairment type and complexity,

lifestage, gender and culture into account in practice.

The reflection exercise results for your organisation will also provide some focus for the

interviews, which will seek to identify current implementation mechanisms to increase

inclusion by strengthening local communities and implementation attributes. Field notes

will be taken during interviews and transferred into records of interview to enable coding

and analysis. These records of interview will be available to interviewees on request.

If you consent, the interviews will be tape recorded to verify the accuracy of field notes

during coding and analysis only and as such will the recordings will be erased following

completion of analysis.

During the study, field notes, tape recordings and any records of interview will be stored

in a locked filing cabinet in the office of the researcher Ms Fiona Reidy at La Trobe

University. The computer records will also be kept on a secure, pass word protected

computer in the office of the researcher Ms Fiona Reidy at La Trobe University. No-one

apart from Ms Reidy, Professor Swerissen and Dr Bigby will have access to the field

notes, tape recordings and records of interview. Following the study, field notes and

records of interview will be securely stored in line with La Trobe University policy and

maintained for a period of 5 years.

234

Although the researchers will know who you are for the duration of this study, your name

or organisational name will not be included on the written forms, field notes, records of

interview, computer records or results of the project. You will therefore remain

anonymous to everyone apart for the researchers. The results of this study will appear in

a thesis to be written by Ms Reidy, in journal publications and in presentations at

conferences, but you will not be identified in any of these reports. You will be provided

with a summary of the study on completion.

While you will not directly benefit from participation in this project, your participation

will contribute to a better understanding of the factors that could improve disability

policy implementation and the inclusion of people with disabilities in local communities.

In addition, there are no disadvantages, penalties or adverse consequences for not

participating or withdrawing from the research.

Any questions regarding this project titled: ‘Local Government and Disability: Building

Inclusive Communities’ can be directed to the Senior Investigator, Professor Hal

Swerissen, School of Public Health, La Trobe University on 9479 1743.

Ms Reidy will be contacting you shortly to confirm your interest in participating in this

study.

Yours sincerely

Hal Swerissen Head of School

Public Health

Date:

235

Information and invitation to participate for people with disabilities on local

advisory committees.

RE: LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND DISABILITY: BUILDING INCLUSIVE

COMMUNITIES

I am writing to invite your participation in a study reviewing how the State Disability

Plan 2002 - 2012 is being implemented in Victorian local government areas to build

inclusive communities for people with disabilities.

The study will compare and analyse the views of state and local government

representatives and people with disabilities currently working on implementation issues

through local government advisory committees in local government case study areas.

The study aims to identify how policy is made and implemented, the factors that

contribute to implementation and identify the reasons for differential outcomes for people

with disabilities in local communities.

This study is being conducted as a requirement for Ms Fiona Reidy’s PhD and is being

supervised by Professor Hal Swerissen, School of Public Health La Trobe University and

Dr Chris Bigby, School of Social Work and Social Policy La Trobe University.

It is anticipated that study activities will be conducted between July and December 2006.

If you agree to be involved, you will be asked to participate in an interview of

approximately 1.5 hours duration.

The interviews, will seek to identify current implementation mechanisms to increase

inclusion by strengthening local communities and implementation attributes. Field notes

will be taken during interviews and transferred into records of interview to enable coding

and analysis. These records of interview will be available to interviewees on request.

236

If you consent, the interviews will be tape recorded to verify the accuracy of field notes

during coding and analysis only and as such will the recordings will be erased following

completion of analysis.

During the study, field notes, tape recordings and any records of interview will be stored

in a locked filing cabinet in the office of the researcher Ms Fiona Reidy at La Trobe

University. The computer records will also be kept on a secure, pass word protected

computer in the office of the researcher Ms Fiona Reidy at La Trobe University. No-one

apart from Ms Reidy, Professor Swerissen and Dr Bigby will have access to the field

notes, tape recordings and records of interview. Following the study, field notes and

records of interview will be securely stored in line with La Trobe University policy and

maintained for a period of 5 years.

Although the researchers will know who you are for the duration of this study, your name

will not be included on the written forms, field notes, records of interview, computer

records or results of the project. You will therefore remain anonymous to everyone apart

for the researchers. The results of this study will appear in a thesis to be written by Ms

Reidy, in journal publications and in presentations at conferences, but you will not be

identified in any of these reports. You will be provided with a summary of the study on

completion.

While you will not directly benefit from participation in this project, your participation

will contribute to a better understanding of the factors that could improve disability

policy implementation and the inclusion of people with disabilities in local communities.

In addition, there are no disadvantages, penalties or adverse consequences for not

participating or withdrawing from the research.

Any questions regarding this project titled: ‘Local Government and Disability: Building

Inclusive Communities’ can be directed to the Senior Investigator, Professor Hal

Swerissen, School of Public Health, La Trobe University on 9479 1743.

237

Ms Reidy will be contacting you shortly to confirm your interest in participating in this

study.

Yours sincerely

Hal Swerissen Head of School

Public Health

Date:

238

Appendix C Samples of informed consent Informed consent for DHS Head Office representatives.

Project Title:

Local Government and Disability: Building Inclusive Communities

Senior Investigators:

Professor Hal Swerissen School of Public Health

La Trobe University

Dr Chris Bigby School of Social Work and Social Policy

La Trobe University

Researcher:

Fiona Reidy Post-graduate student

School of Public Health

La Trobe University

The study will compare and analyse the views of state and local government

representatives and people with disabilities currently working on implementation issues

through local government advisory committees in seven to ten local government case

study areas. The study aims to identify how policy is made and implemented, the factors

that contribute to implementation and identify the reasons for differential outcomes for

people with disabilities in local communities.

239

This study is being conducted as a requirement for Ms Fiona Reidy’s PhD and is being

supervised by Professor Hal Swerissen, School of Public Health La Trobe University and

Dr Chris Bigby, School of Social Work and Social Policy La Trobe University.

If you agree to be involved, you will be asked to participate in:

2. An individual interview of approximately 1.5 hours duration.

The focus for the interview will be to identify current implementation mechanisms to

increase inclusion by strengthening local communities and related implementation

attributes. Field notes will be taken during interviews and transferred into records of

interview to enable coding and analysis. These records of interview will be available to

interviewees on request.

If you consent, the interviews will be tape recorded to verify the accuracy of field notes

during coding and analysis only and as such will the recordings will be erased following

completion of analysis.

During the study, field notes, tape recordings and any records of interview will be stored

in a locked filing cabinet in the office of the researcher Ms Fiona Reidy at La Trobe

University. The computer records will also be kept on a secure, pass word protected

computer in the office of the researcher Ms Fiona Reidy at La Trobe University. No-one

apart from Ms Reidy, Professor Swerissen and Dr Bigby will have access to the field

notes, tape recordings and records of interview. Following the study, field notes and

records of interview will be securely stored in line with La Trobe University policy and

maintained for a period of 5 years.

Although the researchers will know who you are for the duration of this study, your name

or organisational name will not be included on the written forms, field notes, records of

interview, computer records or results of the project. You will therefore remain

anonymous to everyone apart for the researchers. The results of this study will appear in

240

a thesis to be written by Ms Reidy, in journal publications and in presentations at

conferences, but you will not be identified in any of these reports. You will be provided

with a summary of the study on completion.

While you will not directly benefit from participation in this project, your participation

will contribute to a better understanding of the factors that could improve disability

policy implementation and the inclusion of people with disabilities in local communities.

In addition, there are no disadvantages, penalties or adverse consequences for not

participating or withdrawing from the research.

Any questions regarding this project titled: ‘Local Government and Disability: Building

Inclusive Communities’ can be directed to the Senior Investigator, Professor Hal

Swerissen, School of Public Health, La Trobe University on 9479 1743.

If you have any complaints or queries that the investigator has not been able to answer to

your satisfaction, you may contact the Secretary, Faculty Human Ethics Committee,

Faculty of Health Sciences, La Trobe University, Victoria, 3086 (9479 1794 or

b.doherty@latrobe.edu.au).

I ………………………………………… have read and understood the information

above, and any questions I have asked have been answered to me satisfaction.

I do / do not agree to participate in this project, realising that I may withdraw at any time

up to 4 weeks after the interview has been conducted. In the event that I withdraw my

consent, I understand that all records will be removed and destroyed and I will complete

the attached withdrawal of consent for use of data form.

I do / do not agree to my interview being tape recorded.

241

I do / do not agree that the research data collected during the project may be included in

a thesis, presented at conferences and published in journals providing that my name, and

the name of the organisation I represent, is not used.

A copy of this signed consent form will be sent to you for your records.

NAME OF PARTICIPANT (in block letters): …………………………………………..

Signature: …………………………………………………Date: ………………………..

NAME OF SENIOR INVESTIGATOR (in block letters): PROFESSOR HAL

SWERISSEN

Signature: …………………………………………………Date: ………………………..

NAME OF SENIOR INVESTIGATOR (in block letters): DR CHRIS BIGBY

Signature: …………………………………………………Date: ………………………..

NAME OF RESEARCHER (in block letters): FIONA REIDY

Signature: …………………………………………………Date: ………………………..

242

WITHDRAWAL OF CONSENT FOR USE OF DATA FORM Project Title: LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND DISABILITY: BUILDING INCLUSIVE

COMMUNITIES

I, …………………………., wish to WITHDRAW my consent to the use of data

arising from my participation. Data arising from my participation must NOT be

used in this research project as described in the Information and Consent Form.

I understand that data arising from my participation will be destroyed provided

this request is received within four weeks of the completion of my participation in

this project. I understand that this notification will be retained together with my

consent form as evidence of the withdrawal of my consent to use the data I have

provided specifically for this research project.

Participant’s name (printed): …………………………………………………………

Signature:

Date:

243

Informed consent for State and Local Government organisational representatives.

Project Title:

Local Government and Disability: Building Inclusive Communities

Senior Investigators:

Professor Hal Swerissen School of Public Health

La Trobe University

Dr Chris Bigby School of Social Work and Social Policy

La Trobe University

Researcher:

Fiona Reidy Post-graduate student

School of Public Health

La Trobe University

The study will compare and analyse the views of state and local government

representatives and people with disabilities currently working on implementation issues

through local government advisory committees in seven to ten local government case

study areas. The study aims to identify how policy is made and implemented, the factors

that contribute to implementation and identify the reasons for differential outcomes for

people with disabilities in local communities.

This study is being conducted as a requirement for Ms Fiona Reidy’s PhD and is being

supervised by Professor Hal Swerissen, School of Public Health La Trobe University and

Dr Chris Bigby, School of Social Work and Social Policy La Trobe University.

244

If you agree to participate, you will be asked to organise:

1. Completion of a written reflection exercise designed to identify examples of

inclusive outcomes achieved for people with disability in your local

community against the dimensions of inclusion.

2. Two individual follow up interviews of approximately 1.5 hours duration each

with a senior management representative and an officer conducting

operational disability planning and/or implementation.

The reflection exercise will be analysed to provide good practice examples of inclusive

practices for people with disabilities in local communities in relation to dimensions

including disability supports, health and community services, recreation, education,

employment, transport and housing. In addition, it will identify the extent to which

inclusive policy implementation currently takes impairment type and complexity, lifestage,

gender and culture into account in practice.

The reflection exercise results for your organisation will also provide some focus for the

interviews, which will seek to identify current implementation mechanisms to increase

inclusion by strengthening local communities and implementation attributes. During the

interviews, you have a right to refuse to answer any questions, stop the interview or

withdraw from the project. Field notes will be taken during interviews and transferred

into records of interview to enable coding and analysis. These records of interview will

be available to interviewees on request.

If you consent, the interviews will be tape recorded to verify the accuracy of field notes

during coding and analysis only and as such will the recordings will be erased following

completion of analysis.

During the study, field notes, tape recordings and any records of interview will be stored

in a locked filing cabinet in the office of the researcher Ms Fiona Reidy at La Trobe

245

University. The computer records will also be kept on a secure, pass word protected

computer in the office of the researcher Ms Fiona Reidy at La Trobe University. No-one

apart from Ms Reidy, Professor Swerissen and Dr Bigby will have access to the field

notes, tape recordings and records of interview. Following the study, field notes and

records of interview will be securely stored in line with La Trobe University policy and

maintained for a period of 5 years.

Although the researchers will know who you are for the duration of this study, your name

or organisational name will not be included on the written forms, field notes, records of

interview, computer records or results of the project. You will therefore remain

anonymous to everyone apart for the researchers. The results of this study will appear in

a thesis to be written by Ms Reidy, in journal publications and in presentations at

conferences, but you will not be identified in any of these reports. You will be provided

with a summary of the study on completion.

While you will not directly benefit from participation in this project, your participation

will contribute to a better understanding of the factors that could improve disability

policy implementation and the inclusion of people with disabilities in local communities.

In addition, there are no disadvantages, penalties or adverse consequences for not

participating or withdrawing from the research.

Any questions regarding this project titled: ‘Local Government and Disability: Building

Inclusive Communities’ can be directed to the Senior Investigator, Professor Hal

Swerissen, School of Public Health, La Trobe University on 9479 1743.

If you have any complaints or queries that the investigator has not been able to answer to

your satisfaction, you may contact the Secretary, Faculty Human Ethics Committee,

Faculty of Health Sciences, La Trobe University, Victoria, 3086 (9479 1794 or

b.doherty@latrobe.edu.au).

246

I ………………………………………… have read and understood the information

above, and any questions I have asked have been answered to me satisfaction.

I do / do not agree to participate in this project, realising that I may withdraw at any time

up to 4 weeks after the interview has been conducted. In the event that I withdraw my

consent, I understand that all records will be removed and destroyed and I will complete

the attached withdrawal of consent for use of data form.

I do / do not agree to my interview being tape recorded.

I do / do not agree that the research data collected during the project may be included in

a thesis, presented at conferences and published in journals providing that my name, and

the name of the organisation I represent, is not used.

A copy of this signed consent form will be sent to you for your records.

NAME OF PARTICIPANT (in block letters): …………………………………………..

Signature: …………………………………………………Date: ………………………..

NAME OF SENIOR INVESTIGATOR (in block letters): PROFESSOR HAL

SWERISSEN

Signature: …………………………………………………Date: ………………………..

NAME OF SENIOR INVESTIGATOR (in block letters): DR CHRIS BIGBY

Signature: …………………………………………………Date: ………………………..

NAME OF RESEARCHER (in block letters): FIONA REIDY

Signature: …………………………………………………Date: ………………………..

247

WITHDRAWAL OF CONSENT FOR USE OF DATA FORM Project Title: LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND DISABILITY: BUILDING INCLUSIVE

COMMUNITIES

I, …………………………., wish to WITHDRAW my consent to the use of data

arising from my participation. Data arising from my participation must NOT be

used in this research project as described in the Information and Consent Form.

I understand that data arising from my participation will be destroyed provided

this request is received within four weeks of the completion of my participation in

this project. I understand that this notification will be retained together with my

consent form as evidence of the withdrawal of my consent to use the data I have

provided specifically for this research project.

Participant’s name (printed): …………………………………………………………

Signature:

Date:

248

Informed consent for people with disabilities on local advisory committees.

Project Title:

Local Government and Disability: Building Inclusive Communities

Senior Investigators:

Professor Hal Swerissen School of Public Health

La Trobe University

Dr Chris Bigby School of Social Work and Social Policy

La Trobe University

Researcher:

Fiona Reidy Post-graduate student

School of Public Health

La Trobe University

The study will compare and analyse the views of state and local government

representatives and people with disabilities currently working on implementation issues

through local government advisory committees in seven to ten local government case

study areas. The study aims to identify how policy is made and implemented, the factors

that contribute to implementation and identify the reasons for differential outcomes for

people with disabilities in local communities.

This study is being conducted as a requirement for Ms Fiona Reidy’s PhD and is being

supervised by Professor Hal Swerissen, School of Public Health La Trobe University and

Dr Chris Bigby, School of Social Work and Social Policy La Trobe University.

249

It is anticipated that study activities will be conducted between July and December 2006.

If you agree to participate, you will be asked to complete:

1 A written audit tool designed to identify examples of inclusive outcomes achieved

for people with disability in your local community against the dimensions of

inclusion.

2 An individual follow up interview of approximately 1.5 hours duration.

The written audit will be analysed to provide good practice examples of inclusive

practices for people with disabilities in local communities in relation to dimensions

including disability supports, health and community services, recreation, education,

employment, transport and housing. In addition, it will identify the extent to which

inclusive policy implementation currently takes impairment type and complexity,

lifestage, gender and culture into account in practice.

The audit results for your local community will also provide some focus for the

interviews, which will seek to identify current implementation mechanisms to increase

inclusion by strengthening local communities and implementation attributes. Field notes

will be taken during interviews and transferred into records of interview to enable coding

and analysis. These records of interview will be available to you on request.

If you consent, the interviews will be tape recorded to verify the accuracy of field notes

during coding and analysis only and as such will the recordings will be erased following

completion of analysis.

During the study, field notes, tape recordings and any records of interview will be stored

in a locked filing cabinet in the office of the researcher Ms Fiona Reidy at La Trobe

University. The computer records will also be kept on a secure, pass word protected

computer in the office of the researcher Ms Fiona Reidy at La Trobe University. No-one

apart from Ms Reidy, Professor Swerissen and Dr Bigby will have access to the field

250

notes, tape recordings and records of interview. Following the study, field notes and

records of interview will be securely stored in line with La Trobe University policy and

maintained for a period of 5 years.

Although the researchers will know who you are for the duration of this study, your name

will not be included on the written forms, field notes, records of interview, computer

records or results of the project. You will therefore remain anonymous to everyone apart

for the researchers. The results of this study will appear in a thesis to be written by Ms

Reidy, in journal publications and in presentations at conferences, but you will not be

identified in any of these reports. You will be provided with a summary of the study on

completion.

While you will not directly benefit from participation in this project, your participation

will contribute to a better understanding of the factors that could improve disability

policy implementation and the inclusion of people with disabilities in local communities.

In addition, there are no disadvantages, penalties or adverse consequences for not

participating or withdrawing from the research.

Any questions regarding this project titled: ‘Local Government and Disability: Building

Inclusive Communities’ can be directed to the Senior Investigator, Professor Hal

Swerissen, School of Public Health, La Trobe University on 9479 1743.

If you have any complaints or queries that the investigator has not been able to answer to

your satisfaction, you may contact the Secretary, Faculty Human Ethics Committee,

Faculty of Health Sciences, La Trobe University, Victoria, 3086 (9479 1794 or

b.doherty@latrobe.edu.au).

I ………………………………………… have read and understood the information

above, and any questions I have asked have been answered to me satisfaction.

251

I do / do not agree to participate in this project, realising that I may withdraw at any time

up to 4 weeks after the interview has been conducted. In the event that I withdraw my

consent, I understand that all records will be removed and destroyed and I will complete

the attached withdrawal of consent for use of data form.

I do / do not agree to my interview being tape recorded.

I do / do not agree that the research data collected during the project may be included in

a thesis, presented at conferences and published in journals providing that my name, and

the name of the organisation I represent, is not used.

A copy of this signed consent form will be sent to you for your records.

NAME OF PARTICIPANT (in block letters): …………………………………………..

Signature: …………………………………………………Date: ………………………..

NAME OF SENIOR INVESTIGATOR (in block letters): PROFESSOR HAL

SWERISSEN

Signature: …………………………………………………Date: ………………………..

NAME OF SENIOR INVESTIGATOR (in block letters): DR CHRIS BIGBY

Signature: …………………………………………………Date: ………………………..

NAME OF RESEARCHER (in block letters): FIONA REIDY

Signature: …………………………………………………Date: ………………………..

252

WITHDRAWAL OF CONSENT FOR USE OF DATA FORM

Project Title: LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND DISABILITY: BUILDING INCLUSIVE

COMMUNITIES

I, …………………………., wish to WITHDRAW my consent to the use of data

arising from my participation. Data arising from my participation must NOT be

used in this research project as described in the Information and Consent Form.

I understand that data arising from my participation will be destroyed provided

this request is received within four weeks of the completion of my participation in

this project. I understand that this notification will be retained together with my

consent form as evidence of the withdrawal of my consent to use the data I have

provided specifically for this research project.

Participant’s name (printed): …………………………………………………………

Signature:

Date:

253

Appendix D Schedule of interview questions

SCHEDULE OF QUESTIONS FOR DHS HEAD OFFICE REPRESENTATIVES:

1 Current implementation mechanisms to increase inclusion by strengthening

local communities

The State Disability Plan has 5 key priority strategies and one is to increase inclusion of

people with disabilities by strengthening local communities.

When the State Plan 2002-2012 was being developed, how did the Department see this

priority strategy being implemented?

Was this different for staff at Head Office and the Regions?

How?

This priority calls on a community development skill set. How equipped were

department staff to develop and implement this policy?

Are they better equipped today?

Why not or how?

How useful have programmatic responses such as AAA and Metro/RuralAccess been to

increasing community inclusion? How do you know this?

In your experience, what has helped strengthen local communities to increase inclusion

for people with disabilities?

In your experience, what has hindered community strengthening and inclusion for people

with disabilities?

Has this community strengthening priority strategy for increasing the inclusion of people

with disabilities in community life been successful? How or why not? What’s more

effective?

254

What do you think would happen if the funding for AAA and Metro/Rural/deaf access

diminishes or is cut?

How has local planning, partnership development and implementation developed since

2002?

Has disability planning been integrated with community planning approaches in local

areas?

Is it consistent with the State Policy A Fairer Victoria or has it been addressed

separately?

Has this been a good or bad thing and why?

What has ‘whole of Govt’ meant for this policy implementation area?

Has DHS been able to broker whole of govt responses to issues like transport, housing,

education … either centrally or in local areas?

Has the inclusion work or community planning work that you’ve seen been based on a

comprehensive understanding of the community and in this instance does the local

disability profile given impairment type (intellectual, physical, sensory, ABI and

psychiatric) and impacts of lifestage, gender and culture?

Do you think that all implementation partners share an understanding of these diverse

needs as a basis for planning and action to improve inclusion? How has understanding

been achieved or how could this be improved?

Is planning and implementing local responses to increase the inclusion of people with

disabilities different or more complex than responding to the needs of others in the

community? What do you think gets addressed and what gets left out? Why?

255

2 Implementation attributes:

What are the advantages for DHS in planning and implementing actions that increase the

inclusion of people with disability in community life?

Is an inclusive and holistic approach to disability planning and implementation consistent

with the existing values, past experiences and needs of the Department?

Is inclusion (strengthening local communities) a difficult policy concept to achieve for

people with disabilities?

Are there any examples where increased inclusion has been successfully trialled? How

have these successes been shared or promoted?

Has the State Disability Plan had any observable impacts in relation to strengthening

local communities to increase inclusion of people with disabilities?

If you could do anything differently now, given your knowledge of implementation, what

would you do and why?

Any other comments?

256

Schedule of questions for State and Local Government organisational

representatives:

Note: Questions marked ** were not pursued past the first few interviews as

participants did not feel able to answer them.

1 Current implementation mechanisms to increase inclusion by strengthening

local communities

The State Disability Plan has 5 key priority strategies and one is to increase

inclusion of people with disabilities by strengthening local communities.

How relevant is the State Disability Plan strategy to increase inclusion of people with

disabilities by strengthening local communities for this local community and does it link

to the local disability plan? How or why not?

What has helped strengthen local communities to increase inclusion for people with

disabilities here?

What has hindered community strengthening and inclusion for people with disabilities

here?

Is community strengthening an effective strategy for increasing the inclusion of people

with disabilities in community life? How, why not, what’s more effective?

How useful have programmatic responses such as AAA and Metro/RuralAccess been to

increasing community inclusion? What will happen if the funding for these responses

diminishes or is cut?

Which local organisations and people with disabilities partner to implement actions that

result in increased inclusion and how does that planning and implementation occur?

257

Is disability planning integrated with community planning approaches consistent with the

State Policy A Fairer Victoria or is it addressed separately?

** Is community planning based on a comprehensive understanding of the community

and in this instance does the local disability profile given impairment type (intellectual,

physical, sensory, ABI and psychiatric) and impacts of lifestage, gender and culture?

** Is planning and implementing local responses to increase the inclusion of people with

disabilities different or more complex than responding to the needs of others in the

community? What gets addressed and what gets left out?

2 Implementation attributes:

Are there organisational advantages in planning and implementing actions that increase

the inclusion of people with disability in community life?

Is an inclusive approach to disability planning and implementation consistent with the

existing values, past experiences and needs in this local area?

Is inclusion a difficult policy objective to achieve for people with disabilities?

Are there any examples where increased inclusion has been successfully trialled?

Has the State Disability Plan had any observable impacts in relation to strengthening

local communities to increase inclusion of people with disabilities?

258

Schedule of questions for people with disabilities on local advisory committees:

1 Current implementation mechanisms to increase inclusion by strengthening

local communities

Note: Questions marked ** were not pursued past the first few interviews as participants

did not feel able to answer them.

The State Disability Plan has 5 key priority strategies and one is to increase

inclusion of people with disabilities by strengthening local communities.

How relevant is the State Disability Plan strategy to increase inclusion of people with

disabilities by strengthening local communities for this local community and does it link

to the local disability plan? How or why not?

What has helped strengthen local communities to increase inclusion for people with

disabilities here?

What has hindered community strengthening and inclusion for people with disabilities

here?

Is community strengthening an effective strategy increasing the inclusion of people with

disabilities in community life? How, why not, what’s more effective?

How useful have programmatic responses such as AAA and Metro/RuralAccess been to

increasing community inclusion? What will happen if the funding for these responses

diminishes or is cut?

Which local organisations and people with disabilities partner to implement actions that

result in increased inclusion and how does that planning and implementation occur?

259

Does disability planning seem integrated with community planning approaches consistent

with the State Policy A Fairer Victoria or is it addressed separately?

** Is community planning based on a comprehensive understanding of the community

and in this instance does the local disability profile given impairment type (intellectual,

physical, sensory, ABI and psychiatric) and impacts of lifestage, gender and culture?

** Is planning and implementing local responses to increase the inclusion of people with

disabilities different or more complex than responding to the needs of others in the

community and what gets addressed and what gets left out?

2 Implementation attributes:

What do you see as the advantages in planning and implementing actions that increase

the inclusion of people with disability in community life?

Is an inclusive approach to disability planning and implementation consistent with the

existing values, past experiences and needs in this local area?

Is inclusion a difficult policy objective to achieve for people with disabilities?

Are there any examples where increased inclusion has been successfully trialled?

Has the State Disability Plan had any observable impacts in relation to strengthening

local communities to increase inclusion of people with disabilities?

260

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ocra

cy.

�

�

�

Con

sult

and

enga

ge p

eopl

e w

ith d

isab

ilitie

s in

publ

ic d

isco

urse

and

ens

ure

that

thei

r par

ticip

atio

n re

sults

in p

olic

y,

prog

ram

s, le

gisl

atio

n an

d re

gula

tion

that

refle

ct th

eir e

xper

ienc

es o

f im

pairm

ent t

ype

and

com

plex

ity a

nd g

iven

thei

r life

st

age,

gen

der,

cultu

re a

nd in

dige

nous

stat

us.

�

�

�

Doc

umen

t how

all

gove

rnm

ent p

olic

y, p

rogr

ams,

legi

slat

ion

and

regu

latio

n w

ill m

eet t

he n

eeds

of p

eopl

e w

ith

disa

bilit

ies,

reso

urce

s tha

t will

be

allo

cate

d to

ach

ieve

soci

al in

clus

ion

and

eval

uatio

n pr

oces

ses.

�

�

�

Esta

blis

h un

iver

sal m

echa

nism

s to

embe

d so

cial

incl

usio

n fo

r peo

ple

with

dis

abili

ties i

n a

civi

c pa

rtici

patio

n m

odel

ra

ther

than

a p

rogr

amm

atic

mod

el w

ith sp

ecia

l res

ourc

e al

loca

tions

.

�

�

�

261

Com

patib

ility

Lev

el o

f G

over

nmen

t in

volv

ed

Ele

men

ts o

f a so

cial

incl

usio

n m

odel

N

S

L

Esta

blis

h so

cial

incl

usio

n ta

rget

s and

key

per

form

ance

indi

cato

rs fo

r all

polic

ies a

nd p

rogr

ams t

o en

sure

that

incl

usio

n fo

r peo

ple

with

dis

abili

ties i

s em

bedd

ed a

nd sy

stem

atis

ed.

��

�

�

Alig

n so

cial

incl

usio

n ta

rget

s and

key

per

form

ance

indi

cato

rs to

incr

ease

soci

al in

clus

ion

for p

eopl

e w

ith d

isab

ilitie

s w

ithin

all

polic

y, p

rogr

ams,

legi

slat

ion

and

regu

latio

n ac

ross

all

portf

olio

s and

juris

dict

ions

. �

�

�

Dev

elop

gui

delin

es a

nd p

ract

ice

note

s to

assi

st m

anag

ers a

nd o

ffic

ers i

mpl

emen

ting

soci

al in

clus

ion

acro

ss p

ortfo

lios

and

juris

dict

ions

. �

�

�

Iden

tify

oppo

rtuni

ties t

o in

crea

se so

cial

, eco

nom

ic a

nd c

ultu

ral i

nclu

sion

of p

eopl

e w

ith d

isab

ilitie

s thr

ough

recr

uitm

ent

and

proc

urem

ent p

roce

sses

. �

�

�

Rou

tinel

y ad

dres

s soc

ial i

nclu

sion

for p

eopl

e w

ith d

isab

ilitie

s at C

ounc

il of

Aus

tralia

n G

over

nmen

t (C

OA

G) m

eetin

gs

and

othe

r joi

nt n

atio

nal -

stat

e m

inis

ters

mee

tings

. �

�

Ret

ain

soci

al in

clus

ion

as th

e ce

ntre

piec

e of

Nat

iona

l Dis

abili

ty S

trate

gy n

egot

iatio

ns.

�

�

Com

mit

and

ensu

re se

nior

dep

artm

enta

l par

ticip

atio

n in

inte

rdep

artm

enta

l com

mitt

ees t

o m

onito

r soc

ial i

nclu

sion

im

plem

enta

tion

acro

ss p

ortfo

lios.

�

�

Rou

tinel

y ad

dres

s and

repo

rt on

soci

al in

clus

ion

for p

eopl

e w

ith d

isab

ilitie

s at A

ustra

lian

Loca

l Gov

ernm

ent A

ssoc

iatio

n an

d M

unic

ipal

Ass

ocia

tion

of V

icto

ria m

eetin

gs.

�

Com

mit

seni

or o

ffic

er p

artic

ipat

ion

in in

terd

epar

tmen

tal c

omm

ittee

s to

mon

itor s

ocia

l inc

lusi

on im

plem

enta

tion

acro

ss

coun

cil d

ivis

ions

, bus

ines

s pla

ns a

nd c

apita

l wor

ks p

rogr

ams.

�

262

Com

plex

ity

L

evel

of

Gov

ernm

ent

invo

lved

E

lem

ents

of a

soci

al in

clus

ion

mod

el

N

S

L

Scop

e an

d de

velo

p a

com

mon

def

initi

on o

f soc

ial i

nclu

sion

as a

shar

ed b

asis

for d

isab

ility

pol

icy

deve

lopm

ent a

nd

impl

emen

tatio

n in

Aus

tralia

. ��

�

�

Scop

e an

d de

fine

the

rela

tions

hip

and

cons

ider

atio

ns th

at im

pairm

ent t

ype

and

com

plex

ity, l

ife st

age,

gen

der,

cultu

ral

and

indi

geno

us n

eeds

hav

e to

soci

al in

clus

ion

in th

e so

cial

, eco

nom

ic, n

atur

al, b

uilt

and

cultu

ral d

imen

sion

s of

com

mun

ity li

fe.

�

�

�

Tri

alab

ility

Lev

el o

f G

over

nmen

t in

volv

ed

Ele

men

ts o

f a so

cial

incl

usio

n m

odel

N

S

L

Req

uire

that

all

legi

slat

ion,

regu

latio

n, p

olic

y an

d pr

ogra

ms d

evel

op a

nd m

eet s

ocia

l inc

lusi

on ta

rget

s and

key

pe

rfor

man

ce in

dica

tors

to in

crea

se th

e in

clus

ion

of p

eopl

e w

ith d

isab

ilitie

s. �

�

�

App

ly n

atio

nally

con

sist

ent c

onsu

ltativ

e m

echa

nism

s for

peo

ple

with

dis

abili

ties a

t all

leve

ls o

f gov

ernm

ent,

com

mun

ity

and

serv

ice

orga

nisa

tions

. �

�

�

Intro

duce

nat

iona

lly c

onsi

stent

wor

kfor

ce d

evel

opm

ent s

tand

ards

bas

ed o

n a

com

mon

def

initi

on o

f soc

ial i

nclu

sion

and

so

cial

incl

usio

n ta

rget

s and

key

per

form

ance

indi

cato

rs.

�

�

�

Incr

ease

the

empl

oym

ent o

f peo

ple

with

dis

abili

ties i

n th

e pu

blic

sect

or a

nd im

plem

ent s

trate

gies

to in

crea

se

parti

cipa

tion

in o

ther

sect

ors.

�

�

�

Incl

ude

wor

kfor

ce d

evel

opm

ent a

nd so

cial

incl

usio

n ta

rget

s and

key

per

form

ance

indi

cato

rs in

all

fund

ing

and

serv

ice

agre

emen

ts b

oth

with

in th

e di

sabi

lity

field

and

for a

ll ot

her g

oods

and

serv

ices

fund

ed o

r pro

cure

d by

pub

lic fu

nds.

�

�

�

263

Esta

blis

h a

natio

nal r

ecog

nitio

n pr

ogra

m to

ack

now

ledg

e an

d hi

ghlig

ht p

rogr

ess w

hen

soci

al in

clus

ion

targ

ets a

nd k

ey

perf

orm

ance

indi

cato

rs fo

r peo

ple

with

dis

abili

ty a

re e

xcee

ded.

��

�

�

Initi

ate

furth

er A

BS

surv

ey w

ork

and

qual

itativ

e st

udie

s to

deve

lop

a st

rong

er e

vide

nce

base

for i

nitia

tives

to e

xten

d so

cial

incl

usio

n ba

sed

on im

pairm

ent t

ype

and

com

plex

ity, l

ife st

age,

gen

der,

cultu

re a

nd in

dige

nous

stat

us.

�

�

Prod

uce

a so

cial

atla

s pro

vidi

ng n

atio

nal,

stat

e, lo

cal a

nd c

olle

ctor

dis

trict

leve

l pro

files

of p

eopl

e w

ith d

isab

ilitie

s bas

ed

on im

pairm

ent t

ype

and

com

plex

ity c

ross

tabu

late

d w

ith li

fe st

age,

gen

der,

cultu

re a

nd in

dige

nous

stat

us a

nd se

rvic

e us

age.

�

�

Prod

uce

rese

arch

pap

ers b

ased

on

soci

al a

tlas d

ata

to g

uide

loca

l pla

ce b

ased

initi

ativ

es to

impr

ove

soci

al in

clus

ion

for

peop

le e

xper

ienc

ing

spec

ific

impa

irmen

t typ

e an

d co

mpl

exity

, life

stag

e, g

ende

r, cu

lture

and

indi

geno

us st

atus

. �

�

Con

tinue

pro

gram

s and

reso

urce

s tha

t sup

port

the

trial

ling

of so

cial

incl

usio

n in

loca

l set

tings

. �

�

Esta

blis

h an

inte

rest

free

loan

fund

to su

ppor

t pub

lic a

nd p

rivat

e se

ctor

cap

ital i

mpr

ovem

ents

that

incr

ease

soci

al

incl

usio

n in

loca

l set

tings

such

as,

but n

ot li

mite

d to

, ram

ps, l

ifts,

toile

ts, a

ssis

tive

devi

ses a

nd te

chno

logy

, sig

nage

. �

�

Initi

ate

and

prom

ote

exem

plar

y be

nchm

ark

proj

ects

to d

emon

stra

te h

ow u

nive

rsal

des

ign

prin

cipl

es, a

cces

sibl

e an

d ad

apta

ble

hous

ing,

com

mun

ity tr

ansp

ort a

nd e

duca

tion,

trai

ning

and

em

ploy

men

t can

be

oper

atio

nalis

ed in

uni

vers

al

syst

ems.

�

�

Initi

ate

and

colla

bora

te o

n th

e de

velo

pmen

t of l

ocal

are

a di

sabi

lity

incl

usio

n pl

ans b

etw

een

stat

e an

d lo

cal g

over

nmen

t.

�

�

Shar

e da

ta fr

om in

divi

dual

serv

ice

plan

ning

that

cou

ld re

sult

in th

e fo

rmat

ion

of g

roup

act

iviti

es o

r the

inte

grat

ion

of

peop

le w

ith p

artic

ular

inte

rest

s int

o es

tabl

ishe

d lo

cal a

ctiv

ities

at l

ocal

leve

ls.

�

�

Esta

blis

h op

erat

iona

l pla

ns a

nd p

ract

ice

note

s for

stat

e ge

nera

ted

enha

ncem

ents

to b

uild

ing

stan

dard

s, pu

blic

tran

spor

t an

d ta

xi im

prov

emen

ts, e

duca

tion

and

hous

ing.

�

�

Col

labo

rate

on

loca

l tria

ls to

impr

ove

com

mun

ity tr

ansp

ort.

�

�

Esta

blis

h an

inde

pend

ent c

lear

ing

hous

e to

iden

tify

and

prom

ote

soci

al in

clus

ion

initi

ativ

es in

loca

l are

as, e

stab

lish

cons

iste

nt c

ase

stud

ies a

nd im

plem

ent a

stra

tegi

c co

mm

unic

atio

n an

d pr

ofes

sion

al d

evel

opm

ent p

rogr

am a

s the

bas

is fo

r

�

�

264

wor

kfor

ce d

evel

opm

ent i

n th

e pu

blic

, com

mun

ity a

nd se

rvic

e se

ctor

s.

Intro

duce

ass

ertiv

e ou

treac

h an

d so

cial

mar

ketin

g to

iden

tify

peop

le w

ith d

isab

ilitie

s in

loca

l com

mun

ities

.

��

Impl

emen

t stru

ctur

es, c

omm

unic

atio

n an

d en

gage

men

t tec

hniq

ues t

hat e

nabl

e pe

ople

with

all

impa

irmen

t typ

es to

pa

rtici

pate

in c

omm

unity

pla

nnin

g.

�

Impl

emen

t com

mun

icat

ion

and

enga

gem

ent t

echn

ique

s tha

t ena

ble

peop

le w

ith a

ll im

pairm

ent t

ypes

to p

artic

ipat

e in

lo

cal g

over

nanc

e an

d re

giste

r com

plai

nts o

r im

prov

emen

t ide

as.

�

Esta

blis

h ad

voca

cy to

arg

ue fo

r suf

ficie

nt n

atio

nal a

nd st

ate

gove

rnm

ent f

unde

d se

rvic

es, p

rogr

ams a

nd su

ppor

ts.

�

Ensu

re th

at a

ll co

unci

l run

faci

litie

s hav

e as

sist

ive

devi

ces a

nd te

chno

logi

es a

vaila

ble

to e

nabl

e pa

rtici

patio

n an

d th

at a

ll w

ebsi

te a

nd p

rinte

d in

form

atio

n is

ava

ilabl

e in

mul

tiple

form

ats.

�

Con

duct

soci

al in

clus

ion

audi

ts in

col

labo

ratio

n w

ith p

eopl

e w

ith d

isab

ilitie

s and

loca

l ser

vice

s, co

mm

unity

or

gani

satio

ns a

nd tr

ader

s to

com

plem

ent l

ocal

ac c

ess a

udits

that

focu

s on

phys

ical

, soc

ial,

econ

omic

, cul

tura

l and

en

viro

nmen

tal a

cces

s to

loca

l are

as.

�

Impl

emen

t soc

ial i

nclu

sion

aud

its to

iden

tify

barr

iers

that

lim

it in

clus

ion

to lo

cal c

omm

unity

cen

tres,

neig

hbou

rhoo

d ho

uses

, lib

rarie

s, pa

rks,

sea t

ing,

toile

ts, w

ater

way

s, pl

aygr

ound

s, w

alki

ng a

nd c

ycle

pat

hs, r

echa

rge

poin

ts, s

ports

fa

cilit

ies,

loca

l sho

ppin

g st

rips a

nd c

entre

s, fe

stiv

als,

cultu

ral a

ctiv

ities

, vol

unte

erin

g pr

ogra

ms,

envi

ronm

ent

enha

ncem

ent p

rogr

ams,

coun

cil s

ervi

ces a

nd o

ther

loca

l ser

vice

s.

�

Use

com

mun

ity g

rant

s and

loca

l lea

ders

hip

train

ing

as m

echa

nism

s to

incr

ease

the

incl

usio

n of

peo

ple

with

dis

abili

ties i

n lo

cal c

omm

uniti

es.

�

Supp

ort l

ocal

spor

ting,

cul

tura

l and

oth

er c

omm

unity

org

anis

atio

ns to

incr

ease

the

incl

usio

n of

peo

ple

with

disa

bilit

ies.

�

265

Cha

ract

eris

tic o

f inn

ovat

ion:

Obs

erva

bilit

y L

evel

of

Gov

ernm

ent

invo

lved

E

lem

ents

of a

soci

al in

clus

ion

mod

el

N

S L

Esta

blis

h an

d m

onito

r soc

ial i

nclu

sion

targ

ets a

nd k

ey p

erfo

rman

ce in

dica

tors

for a

ll po

licie

s and

pro

gram

s del

iver

ed b

y na

tiona

l, st

ate

and

loca

l gov

ernm

ents

. ��

�

�

Esta

blis

h st

anda

rds f

or so

cial

incl

usio

n in

the

dim

ensi

ons o

f com

mun

ity li

fe.

�

�

�

Bas

e al

l pla

ns o

n th

e ag

reed

soci

al in

clus

ion

defin

ition

s, ta

rget

s and

stan

dard

s tha

t can

be

mea

sure

d do

wn

to a

loca

l go

vern

men

t set

ting.

�

�

�

Prov

ide

regu

lar,

inde

pend

ent a

nd c

ompa

rativ

e re

porti

ng o

f pro

gres

s and

mak

e th

is in

form

atio

n av

aila

ble

to th

e pu

blic

. �

�

�

Dev

elop

a m

echa

nism

to e

nact

cha

nge

as a

resu

lt of

repo

rting

. �

�

�

Not

e: N

repr

esen

ts A

ustra

lian

gove

rnm

ent a

ctio

ns, S

repr

esen

ts V

icto

rian

gove

rnm

ent a

ctio

ns a

nd L

repr

esen

ts V

icto

rian

loca

l go

vern

men

t act

ions