Ecas has provided a written response to the Commission on Scottish Devolution, chaired by Lord Calman. In the letter we call for consideration to be given to devolving to the Scottish Parliament further powers relating to equalities and discrimination, in order to better integrate discrimination law with other related areas of Scottish law for disabled people. The text of the letter is copied below and a copy of the letter is available in the document list on this website.

"Commission on Scottish Devolution - Evidence from Ecas
This is a submission to the Commission on behalf of Ecas, an Edinburgh-based charity which has been representing the interests of disabled adults since its foundation in 1902. Ecas undertakes research and campaigning about issues that affect disabled people. The policy area of equal opportunities for disabled people is a significant aspect of this work and, drawing on this experience, it is our submission that the people of Scotland would be better served if this area, which is currently reserved to Westminster, were now devolved to the Scottish Parliament.
Ecas engages with the UK Government, Scottish Government, local government, other NGOs and disabled individuals on varied policy areas, including transport for disabled people, health and social care, sport and leisure opportunities, access to services, and political consultation and representation mechanisms. The issue of equal opportunities is the thread which runs through all these policy areas.
We often refer to a number of different Acts of the Scottish Parliament, and associated Regulations, as part of this work and it is our experience that Scottish legislation does not always dovetail well with the main equal opportunities legislation, the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 (as amended). Scottish statutes which protect the interests of disabled people, such as the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000, the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007, include provisions which are specifically tailored to Scotland's jurisdiction and administration. The DDA, on the other hand, provides for a number of equal opportunities and antidiscrimination duties which apply across Great Britain and these are not specifically tailored to Scotland. By devolving disability discrimination legislation to the Scottish Parliament, we believe that its interaction with these Scottish Acts might become both fuller and easier to interpret.
In order to be effective, it is important that disability discrimination legislation is easily understood by disabled people and by those organisations, such as Ecas, which represent them. Whilst we acknowledge that the UK Government is tackling this issue in its proposals to streamline and simplify discrimination law by introducing an Equality Bill, we suggest that the timing of this review may provide a good opportunity for Scotland to develop its own antidiscrimination legislation.
We wish to provide the following specific examples. Ecas regularly campaigns for better disabled transport provision. One of our recent campaigns concerned the availability of wheelchair spaces on Class 170 Scotrail trains, running on the 'Fife Circle' route. These spaces are shared in some instances by cyclists who wish to store their bicycles, giving rise to issues of competing priorities. We are aware that on many occasions the foldable bike racks are left unfolded, creating a barrier for people in wheelchairs to access the service. As a disability discrimination issue, this matter was reserved to the UK Government and we sought clarification via our local MP, Gavin Strang, from the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport, Tom Harris MP, and from the Department for Transport. We also sought clarification from Transport Scotland and the Scottish Ministers, because transport is a devolved policy area in Scotland and Transport Scotland are responsible for bicycle racks and for regulating Scotrail generally.
In our view, the separate pieces of advice we received, in terms of the policy positions, were not joined up and were conflicting in some respects. We believe that artificially dividing the responsibility for disability transport between those responsible for equal opportunities for disabled people (UK Government) and those responsible for other transport issues (Scottish Government) is inefficient and confusing for all concerned.
Similar situations arise with buses where the relevant legislation for wheelchair spaces is the Public Service Vehicles (Conduct of Drivers, Inspectors, Conductors and Passengers) (Amendment) Regulations 2002 (which is reserved legislation) and many matters affecting disabled passengers are under the authority of the Transport Commissioner for Scotland, who is appointed by the UK Secretary of State for Transport (SofS). SofS receives advice on policy matters affecting disability from the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC), and the Scottish Transport Minister is similarly advised by the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland (MACS). When the Transport Minister consulted us on dissolving MACS, which he decided against, we recommended that MACS and DPTAC be amalgamated; the potential for confusion with Westminster following DPTAC's advice and Holyrood following MACS' advice about the same wheelchair space on a bus or train is obvious, and regrettably it does happen.
We believe education, health and social care and sport and leisure are other devolved policy areas which inevitably impact on disabled people and that this artificial split in responsibility between the two governments has an adverse effect on the creation of coherent and effective policy. It had been hoped that the creation of the Office of Disability Issues (ODI), with cross-departmental responsibilities would, to some extent, alleviate these problems. However, it now appears that the ODI's influence does not extend to the Scottish Government.
For these reasons, we suggest that the Commission gives consideration to the possibility that equal opportunities and antidiscrimination legislation should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament."