The voice of disabled people

Disabled people and their families’ experiences are key to everything we do. That’s why co-production is so important to us. We’re committed to collaborating with disabled people on our organisational projects and programmes, at every level from research through to delivery.

We’ve applied co-production to 17 projects, including establishing our Scope Disability Equality Awards, developing our fundraising appeal Power up and Play and evaluating our employment services. Our new strategy is also being coproduced with disabled people

In 2023, we published our first Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy, which was co-produced with disabled people. There are 16 million disabled people in the UK. The disabled community is diverse and made up of people with different identities, experiences and backgrounds. We can’t achieve equality for all disabled people without including everyone.

We want equality, diversity and inclusion to be at the heart of everything we do. Our campaigns must reflect the multiple marginalisation faced by members of the disabled community and tackle inequality. Our services must be accessible and inclusive to all. We must be a workplace where everyone can thrive and feel that they belong.

We will continue to embed EDI in our work. Everyone at Scope has a role to play and as we implement our EDI strategy, we will continue to listen, learn and keep improving.

We now have 70,000 disabled and non-disabled campaigners taking action with us. Over the last 7 years we have campaigned relentlessly in our quest to achieve Everyday Equality.

In 2020, the pandemic disrupted all our lives. But it is disabled people who have been hit hardest. 3 in 5 people who died from Coronavirus were disabled. Millions of disabled people were shielding, cut off from friends and family and taking an enormous emotional toll.

We Won’t Be Forgotten

We campaigned relentlessly to raise awareness with Government and decision makers about the disproportionate impact of the pandemic.

398 pieces of media coverage were secured, reaching over 70 million people and ensuring disabled peoples’ voices were prominently heard
and our campaigners took 60,000 actions.

This contributed to positive changes, including securing supermarket delivery slots for disabled people and an extension of the Warm Homes Discount.

Our campaign was shortlisted for Communications Campaign of the Year at the Charity Times Awards.

And we supported the DCP’s #LeftInLockdown campaign to help restore disabled children’s rights around Education, Health and Care Plans.

Our support during the pandemic

The impact of the pandemic meant we had to adapt our plans and change the way we work.

We kept all our services running at full capacity, wherever we could. We knew that this was a time when many disabled people needed them most. We helped disabled people navigate the pandemic through our helpline and digital services. Our Coronavirus information hub on our website received 176,000 unique page views between March 2020 and April 2021.

We work with 114 Scope storytellers who get involved with a wide range of our activities. From speaking out in the media, to giving evidence to parliamentary select committees, to helping to promote Scope’s services and fundraising appeals.

The Scope Research Panel gives over 2,000 disabled people an accessible platform to express their views and experiences on a range of subjects. They help us to tell the story of what it’s like to be disabled in Britain today and show what needs to change.

In the last year alone, the research panel shared their experiences and recommendations with the government, energy companies and transport providers.
The platform also gives a voice to 660 parents and carers of disabled children.

We’ve also delivered insight projects for BUPA, University College London, and London School of Economics to get disabled people’s voices heard and influence their strategies.
Over the last six years we’ve built a robust evidence base of what life is like for disabled people and disabled families, publishing the results of 25 research projects.

Our Lives, Our Journey is a pioneering research study, following the lives of disabled people in the UK since 2017.

Disabled people tell us there are important moments of change during their lives that have a lot of influence. The support, interventions and decisions made at these important moments can have a significant effect on what happens next.

Our study focuses on 4 specific groups of people:

• disabled people who have recently started a new job
• disabled children and their families
• disabled people who have recently acquired an impairment
• disabled people entering adulthood

This research has supported various projects such as our ‘Let’s Play Fair’ campaign and our employee retention report. It has also contributed to the development of our new 10-year strategy.

Scope now has over 1,000 members. Our members are a vibrant community at the heart of our organisation. They help to shape our strategy and our work.

Our Cerebral Palsy Network was established in 2018. The network’s members have contributed to important research and collaborative projects with organisations including Brunel University, the University of Nottingham and The National Bobath Centre

Our people are at the heart of everything we do. We're a community of around 850 disabled and non-disabled colleagues working together to achieve equality for disabled people.

28% of our colleagues identified as disabled in our most recent anonymous staff survey.

We have been reporting on our disability pay gap since 2019. The disability pay gap is the difference between the average earnings of non-disabled colleagues and disabled colleagues across the organisation on a given date. Our current median disability pay gap is positive by 26.6%, meaning non-disabled staff make 73p for every £1 their disabled colleagues earn on average.

We are committed to employing disabled people. Actions we have taken to be a more inclusive employer include:

• reviewing the accessibility of our job adverts
• sharing interview topics ahead of all interviews
• making disability equality training and accessibility training mandatory for all colleagues
• hosting roundtables for colleagues on topics such as neurodiversity in the workplace

In 2018 we moved to our accessible offices at Here East in Stratford, London. This move, and our commitment to flexible and remote working supports us to champion our continued aim to make UK workplaces better for disabled people.

We launched several development programmes and initiatives to support our colleagues to grow and develop their skills. And we focused on recognition, launching Scope colleague recognition awards in 2021.

We want Scope to be an inclusive and diverse place to work. We want everyone to feel valued for the work they do. And like they belong.

As part of our EDI strategy, we set out our commitment to becoming a more diverse organisation. And to have more marginalised people in leadership roles.

We also took actions that aim to improve racial equality amongst our workforce, including:

• reviewing our recruitment practices to ensure we tackle any unfair bias and introducing an anonymised application process.
• rolling out race equality training for colleagues
• inclusive leadership workshops for our leadership team

Our gender pay gap has decreased from 29.7% in 2019 to 13.24% in 2023. But we are not where we want to be, yet. We’re continuing to implement changes to reduce the gap, including:

• sharing our Gender Pay Gap data with our Gender Equality Network and discussing what more we could be doing
• reviewing, updating and improving our insights on why people leave Scope. To ensure that there are no cultural reasons
• reintroducing our reverse mentoring scheme to support more women and marginalised colleagues to progress their careers within Scope.

Between 2017 and 2023 over 17,000 disabled and non-disabled people volunteered across our shops and services.

We support them to build their confidence, skills and experience.