Our plan

Our Disability Inclusion Action Plan

Our first Disability Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP) as a department learns from the individual plans of our former agencies. It also acknowledges the challenge to ensure that our plan is integrated as part of core business, not an add-on competing for attention and resources.

Our aims

Although DIAPs currently have a four-year life, they must become integrated into organisational culture and practice. To achieve this, we commit to the below.

• We will be constantly aware of, proactive and responsive to disability matters.

This will ensure we are inclusive of people with disability in our workplaces and in our engagement with the community.

• ‘Action for Inclusion’

We will take deliberate steps to identify challenge areas and take planned and resourced actions to address them. This will come in the form of projects.

Our approach

Projects are at the heart of our DIAP

• Many projects will be identified at Board, Division or Directorate level as priorities.
• Other projects can be developed by groups such as our Disability Employee Network (DEN) and staff committed to bringing about positive cultural change in their areas.

Ongoing consultation

• To address the needs of staff with disability effectively, we will directly engage our people. All projects must engage with key stakeholders in a meaningful way through the life of the project – from design to evaluation.
• The DEN will be consulted about all projects impacting staff with disability.
• Key disability stakeholders will be engaged with for all service-related projects.

Focus areas

Our plan is to achieve the following aims under the four focus areas set by the NSW Disability Inclusion Plan (outlined in the Welcome section).

Positive attitudes and behaviours

• We will continue to develop a workplace culture in which we think and act inclusively.
• We commit to continuing to develop disability awareness skills in our frontline workers across our range of services to ensure we engage with community members with disability with sensitivity and respect.

Stronger communities

• Through our services, we will support and contribute to actions that make our communities physically accessible and socially inclusive.
• We will work with people with disability who are involved with our services to support them to be successful in living safe and rewarding lives in their communities.

Meaningful employment

• We will continue to refine our recruitment methods to ensure that people with disability experience accessible and fair selection processes.
• We will continue to develop a workplace culture in which people with disability have equal access to career development opportunities and opportunity to give their best work.
• We aim to be an employer of choice for people with disability.

Better systems and processes

• We commit to ensuring our systems and processes are universally accessible.
• We commit to employing the principles of inclusive or universal design to shape all our systems and processes.

Why our DIAP is web-based

Our DIAP will evolve throughout the life of the plan. Having it online helps to ensure it’s:

• accessible – user-friendly and easy to understand.
• up-to-date – so we can keep you informed about projects and successes.
• accountable – it will help you see what progress is being made.

Accountability

How we support DIAP projects

We will ensure projects stay on track by supporting them in a range of ways.

• Each project will have a registered Executive Sponsor who will provide progress reports at agreed intervals.
• A Senior Executive Governance Group (SEGG) reviews all project proposals and all subsequent progress reports. The Chair of our Disability Employee Network (DEN) is a member of this group and there are representatives from each division of our department.
• The Disability Inclusion team will be available to provide information, guidance and advice.
• By posting project details and progress reports online, we affirm our commitment to transparency and accountability.
• There is a dedicated mailbox that will ensure any inquiry is addressed promptly – actionforinclusion@facs.nsw.gov.au.

How you’ll know progress is being made

The DIAP has a number of ways to ensure accountability:

1. All projects proposals must detail:
   1. The project objective – what the project seeks to achieve and what outputs will be delivered.
   2. The challenge – what change challenge will the project address.
   3. Why this is important – the benefits envisioned and why they are important.
   4. What success will look like – what changes a successful project will deliver.
   5. How success will be measured.
2. The SEGG has set four-monthly meetings at which it will review progress reports from all active, or completed, DIAP projects. It will also meet at other times as needed.
3. All registered projects will be posted online; and will be updated with progress reports at least at six-monthly intervals.
4. An annual ‘How are we doing?’ report will be posted online, with our Secretary’s endorsement.
5. The consultation strategy will ensure that internal and external stakeholders are invited to review the DIAP’s progress annually.

All completed projects must be reviewed. We will ask whether the project has succeeded, and what we can learn to inform future work to improve what we do.

Laws and systems

The context for all NSW disability inclusion actions plans is embedded in the below conventions and laws.

International

• UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Australian

Federal

• Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Commonwealth)
• Disability Services Act 1986 (Commonwealth)
• National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 (Commonwealth)
• National Disability Insurance Scheme
• National Disability Strategy

State

• Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW)
• Disability Inclusion Act 2014 (NSW)
• Government Sector Employee Act 2013 (NSW)
• NSW Disability Inclusion Plan
• NSW Public Sector Capability Framework