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| TX: 22.04.04 鈥 DISABILITY CAMPAIGNER WHO ACCUSED THE BIG CHARITIES OF 鈥淗YPOCRISY鈥 BECOMES A DIRECTOR OF SCOPE PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON |
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| THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 大象传媒 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY ROBINSON Until recently Andy Rickell was chief executive of one of the main disability rights campaign organisations - the British Council of Disabled People. He's been one of the leading critics of the seven big disability charities, accusing them of hypocrisy for claiming to represent disabled people while only employing a small proportion of disabled staff themselves. Now this week Andy Rickell has started a new job and it's raised a few eyebrows. He's become a senior director at the cerebral palsy charity Scope, an organisation that he has repeatedly attacked. So why has Andy Rickell, who has cerebral palsy himself, made this move? RICKELL It was clear that Scope were looking to make the sort of changes that I'd been wanting to see and I felt that it was right to work with them in order to help them to make those changes. ROBINSON You hope to make these changes in your post as director of diversity and corporate planning, exactly how? RICKELL An essential part of what I'm about will be about significantly increasing the number of disabled people that are employed at Scope, particularly at senior levels. That will involve working with a number of other major organisations - other large companies, large public bodies and so on - in order to provide a sort of virtual academy whereby disabled people with potential for management can be supported and enabled, acquire the skills, both academically and on the job, in order to progress into senior roles. That's a major problem with, particularly the large disability organisations, there are very few disabled people at senior level having a major impact on the culture of those organisations. ROBINSON Now some disability rights activists, as I'm sure you know, have accused you of selling out and of betrayal and they say that your very presence in fact gives credibility to an organisation which they claim has oppressed disabled people by running, what they call, segregated schools and care homes, what do you say to all that? RICKELL We have to start from where we are and it's inevitable that the world is not ideal and therefore if we're going to make a change to where we want to be, we're going to have to start somewhere where we don't be. But we have to start there, if we just say that we don't like the way things are how are they ever going to change if the people that want to make those changes are unclear about how to do that. Ideally I'm the right sort of person who understands the sort of changes we want to see to actually assist the organisation in doing that. ROBINSON And yet you are the only disabled senior manager in the whole organisation and it is a big organisation, what does that feel like? RICKELL At this stage fairly unusual but my job is to change that. As I say you've got to start from where you are. ROBINSON Aren't you just a token? RICKELL That is potentially what I am. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating - if I'm still the only senior manager in two, three years time then I think there's a problem. ROBINSON And what will you do? RICKELL Before that point I'll be making it very clear about how the organisation needs to move on radically in order to actually adopt the sort of changes that it has said it wants to do. ROBINSON The group that you used to work in - The British Council of Disabled People - is run with very limited resources and now you're moving to Scope, which is a multimillion pound charity, do you think that some of the money that Scope and these other big disability charities have ought to be given to campaigning groups so that it can be controlled by disabled people? RICKELL Undoubtedly I think the sort of money that Scope has should be much more under the control of disabled people, whether it's within Scope or in other organisations. That's the crucial issue - it's the extent to which the money is directed for what disabled people want to see and for their rights. ROBINSON It has also been suggested that in fact you've taken this job for the money, that you have been on very low pay for a very long time and you've now moved to a big wealthy charity on an undisclosed salary and that - who can blame you, we all have our price. RICKELL I don't have a price. One of the prices of coming to take this job has been the flak I've taken from doing so. My job, my central purpose, is that disabled people achieve equality and I'm prepared to take on those difficult roles that are about changing society in order to that. The fact that Scope has a lot of money means it has a lot of resources to put behind that and that I think is what part of my job is about - reorientating those resources to push for what disabled people actually really want. ROBINSON Does it pay you a lot of money compared to what you had been earning? RICKELL Yes, that has a lot to do with the fact about the genuine underfunding that organisations, like the British Council of Disabled People, have suffered, it is an unfair system, the way in which funding from government has tended to be orientated, they have tended to choose the nicer organisations rather than those that have been more critical of government policy. ROBINSON So Scope are about to become a little bit nastier under your influence? RICKELL Interesting you should use the word "nastier", I'd probably like to use a different word but I know 鈥 ROBINSON I was thinking the opposite of nice. RICKELL No I know exactly what you mean and I anticipate that's what's going to happen. ROBINSON Andy Rickell, thank you. RICKELL You're welcome. Back to the You and Yours homepage The 大象传媒 is not responsible for external websites |
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