Our guest is Gordon McCullough, the Chief Executive Officer of the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers (RIDC). If you’ve not come across the RIDC, they are a well-established research organisation with a panel of more than 3500 disabled people. As Gordon has said, "No business would actively exclude a fifth of its potential customer base, yet many do by not being accessible to disabled people, and this is where the RIDC comes in".
Gordon explains how they carry out their qualitative and quantitative research through the fantastic panel they have created. Carrying out valuable research for organisations is part of their role; they also carry out research they have identified from the panel.
We talk with Gordon about the biggest issues for disabled people during Covid and why electric vehicles might leave disabled people behind. He also talks about being a non-disabled person in a user-led organisation - what did he have to learn, and what does it mean to the people RIDC work with?
Phil is the Chair of RIDC, so he leaves some of the questions to Simon this time. We suspect by the end of the show, you’ll want to join the panel and add your voice to bring about change, you can by clicking the link below.
Links
Join the panel Online or telephone 020 7427 2460 or email research@ridc.org.uk
Our guest is Gordon McCullough, the Chief Executive Officer of the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers (RIDC). If you’ve not come across the RIDC, they are a well-established research organisation with a panel of more than 3500 disabled people. As Gordon has said, "No business would actively exclude a fifth of its potential customer base, yet many do by not being accessible to disabled people, and this is where the RIDC comes in".
Gordon explains how they carry out their qualitative and quantitative research through the fantastic panel they have created. Carrying out valuable research for organisations is part of their role; they also carry out research they have identified from the panel.
We talk with Gordon about the biggest issues for disabled people during Covid and why electric vehicles might leave disabled people behind. He also talks about being a non-disabled person in a user-led organisation - what did he have to learn, and what does it mean to the people RIDC work with?
Phil is the Chair of RIDC, so he leaves some of the questions to Simon this time. We suspect by the end of the show, you’ll want to join the panel and add your voice to bring about change, you can by clicking the link below.
Links
Join the panel Online or telephone 020 7427 2460 or email research@ridc.org.uk
Announcer
Welcome to The Way We Roll with Simon Minty and Phil Friend.
Simon Minty
Hello, and welcome to The Way We Roll with me, Simon Minty
Phil Friend
And me, Phil Friend. And I think Simon before we start, I have to disclose to you some deep secret, which is that I know our guest. Yeah. I'll just share that with I work very closely with our guests. We'll find out why in a minute. But I just thought I'd share that with you and the listener.
Simon Minty
So I will go in with the controversial questions. Yeah,
Phil Friend
yeah, you go for the jugular. I'll just be nice. Let's reveal. Being serious. I think some of you know that. I'm the chair of the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers RIDC. And we are really delighted today to have with us, Gordon McCulloch, who is the CEO of RIDC. So there's the declaration of interest kind of thing. Hello, Gordon, how are you?
Gordon McCullough
I'm very well. So thank you, both of you for inviting me along today. I just hope this doesn't feel like an extended job interview. We've already done that before, but it's a life ambition fullfilled to be on The Way We Roll.
Phil Friend
Oh, there we are. Brilliant,
Simon Minty
Lovely having you, Gordon; just for background for those people who may not know, RIDC used to be part of the Consumers Association, which we also know as Which and what Which used to do but also RIDC does is sort of trusted, authoritative voice and does reviews and does products, think TripAdvisor but not holidays. It's more about other stuff and less sweary, less angry.
Phil Friend
That's very true. Yes. So Gordon, so it's great to have you now I suppose the obvious place to start is to ask you how you arrived at RIDC, you know, you've done a lot of other things in your life. So what kind of led you to this point?
Gordon McCullough
It's a very good question. And I do think about it. I thought about that a lot in the first few months of the job, "what am I doing here?" But I suppose looking back over my career, it's always been involved in research and finding things out. And that really, I think I really get a lot out of doing that. But I get a lot out of doing research that matters. That isn't just counting things for the sake of counting things. So in my career, back in Northern Ireland, I used to do the big surveys about how much people give to charities, and what's the income of the voluntary sector, all that type of stuff, which is interesting. But in the greater scheme of things, not very important. And through a sort of range of different roles working in research organizations and running other organizations, this job came up, and it felt like, it was a nice mix of research, which has meaning and purpose. And also running the organization. I like to be in control. But it just felt like it was meaningful, and it was going to make a difference. And that's what sort of attracted me to it. I must admit, there was a sense of trepidation because it was with disabled people. And I've never actually worked directly with disabled people in the past, certainly in some of the roles I've had. I've worked with organizations that work with disabled people, but never that direct relationship. And that I remember the time when you interviewed me and I was talking to other trustees, I always felt that that was going to be a source of weakness in my joining RIDC because I hadn't had that understanding of disability and that whole world and all that that brings. And so I suppose it's been it's been a challenge and a very interesting learning curve, understanding the disabled world, the challenges and barriers that disabled people face in every aspect of every part of every day. And just trying to find a way that we can bring our expertise in research and our approach to tense things. And as we say, on our website, we're working to make people's lives accessible and inclusive.
Simon Minty
To dig a little bit deeper because you're not a disabled person, yourself. And obviously, Phil, and I feel very sorry for you as a result of that. But you've mentioned some of the challenges and w hat have been some of those challenges entering into the world of disability and they can be personal as well as sort of structural.
Gordon McCullough
I think they're more personal actually Simon as researcher you sort of have to be quite adept at picking up information and synthesize and understanding quite quickly, but it was more personal for me. And I suppose those challenges are like a lot of non disabled people have and it's about awkwardness and about causing offense and saying the wrong thing. And I've certainly learned very quickly that language is incredibly important. Whereas I probably had the attitude before well, actually, how can that cause offence if you say, people with disabilities as opposed to a disabled person, but actually, it's that has been a challenge and very enlightening one as well as just understanding the world, the language and the how to be inclusive and not make people feel excluded. But also it's been a it's it's been a really enlightening and important journey on my own development and really begining to see a world that as a non disabled person you just don't consider and you don't really think about. So it was that more than anything? And I think it is, it's the awkwardness really, more than anything else.
Simon Minty
As a quick follow up. I know, we obviously we have disabled listeners, and it's a perennial topic around the language, do you have a, obviously you get exposed to it. And you'll you'll learn stuff, and you'll ask people, but do you have a little top tip because we all enter into positions where we're like, ah, hang on, what's your method now?
Gordon McCullough
As long as the method is just embrace the fact that we're all different, and if somebody wants to be addressed in a particular way do like that. But you need to ask don't be awkward, because you think that asking that somebody needs help, or how you to speak to them. Just don't worry about it because I think what I've learned is, that's the best thing to do is just ask.
Phil Friend
I suppose Gordon, one of the differences between RIDC and many other organizations that you've certainly been involved with before is that it's and this is to use jargon is user led it's it's led by disabled people, the board have a majority of people on it that are disabled, and they make the decisions. Did that cause any issues for you? Or was that just, you know, pretty? Something you just took in your stride during?
Gordon McCullough
No, I didn't take it i my stride, I've never spoken to you about that stuff Phil so this is hot off the press. That first board meeting, I felt fraudulent. I felt like I shouldn't be there because all of you around that table just had so much life experience and all the rest you had all of you had disabilities. But all of that, like knowledge and experience are on the table and there's me coming in nondisabled having never worked in the sector before, plenty of research experience, but sort of sitting there trying to say, well, this is what we should try and do with the organization and change that it was intimidating. And some of the people on our board, their disabilities aren't visible, some of them they are and it was just very difficult about how to pitch and speak to everybody in that room without causing offence without causing awkwardness. And also, and I do remember saying this to you one day, as I was walking around the wetlands in Walthamstow you phoned me, it felt like there's such a connection and ownership of the board of the organization because it's led by disabled people, I didn't want to let all of you down really by coming in screwing up an organization that have been around for 50 years, it didn't want to, through my own, for want of a better word ignorance of disability cause things to go wrong in the organization or to be influential. And all of you talked about a huge potential in RIDC, and with the panel and everything else, and they just there was a mixture of all of those emotions at that time. But mostly it was like, I really shouldn't be here. I feel that this isn't the place for me.
Phil Friend
Do you feel I mean, I get all of that. And I I would simply say you've done a brilliant job so I don't think you've got much to worry about. But did you feel Do you feel that? Because we are user led that adds weight when you go into contract bids or things of that sort? Has it been an advantage? Do you think or is it not been particularly?
Gordon McCullough
I think if you just said the way you said that we're using that organization, most businesses or government departments will go me Okay, great. But it's the narrative around all of our work is from the top down is embedded with people who care about accessibility and inclusion. So we can't just do a bit of off the shelf work, wack a report in and go there you go. There's a there's a stronger tie and a stronger link to a cause for want of a better word. So it's once you add in the sort of narrative about this is in our DNA and throughout the entire organization. You can see people go right okay, this is different. You're not just a normal, everyday research consultancy, there is a mission and there is a set of values that are so inherently bound up and everything that you do because you're Board the people who set strategy who are trustees who hold the organization in trust are disabled, and therefore there's a greater depth of understanding. So at a very superficial level, no. But once you really begin to talk about it, it does make a big difference.
Simon Minty
And you clearly, it does sound like the interview all over again, but you clearly have the research skills and the management skills, and it's fabulous that you do the job. I do come across people, occasionally they go, I'm in this deeply disability role, but I don't identify. And I always say, well get a gang of people who are mildly to fully critical. And they are your reference point. And if they all have disabilities, your away, you have a panel of three and a half thousand disabled people. You have a trustees board with lots of disabled people. But going back to your reference point, the panel, what role do they play in the sort of day to day work of the RDC?
Gordon McCullough
Everything, really, so the team, the board the majority disabled the team aren't. But we design the research, we think about all the horrible stuff, or unpleasant stuff, with clients and come up with how we're going to approach things. But actually, it's, I like to think we've got three and a half thousand researchers, three and a half thousand people who really want to make a difference for the person who comes after them. We've asked them all the time, why are you on this panel. And that's the overriding message. They're not doing it because they' havent got to do they're not after the money, but they're doing it because they want something better for the people who follow them. And so the panel get involved in every bit of work that we do. I can't even think of an example over the last three years where we have just as a group of researchers gone off and said, Well, we think this and this and then put a report in, they'll do surveys, they'll do user testing, they'll do mystery shopping, they'll do everything because it all starts from the experience, and perspective of the disabled or older person. So it's, we talk about the panel being the jewel in our crown. And without it, we wouldn't exist, because we would just be a research consultancy that we recruit disabled people from time to time. And I think because of the approach we take, there's a feeling of trust, we take an awful lot of care and attention. And we don't get it right every time that all of what we do is accessible. All of what we do, doesn't put a panel member in an uncomfortable position doesn't make somebody feel compromised, or that they have to do just because they signed up. And we try and we're getting better, about communicating the difference it's made. Because of all of your comments, or all the work you did on this, this is the outcome. And hopefully we'll see change in this area so the panel, we just wouldn't exist in three and a half thousand sounds like a great number. But I can assure you that it's not enough. Because it's there's so many issues, so many different angles to tick so many different things, the more people the louder the voice, the better. So if anybody if any of your listeners are interested sign up to the panel, very easy process, just visit our website RIDC.org.uk and sign up online. But we're also aware that for a lot of people signing up online isn't the best option. So you can just give us a call. And we'll sign you up online. So we really just want it's the biggest part of disability panel in the UK at the minute, nobody's ever disabused me of that fact. So I'll keep saying it until somebody can prove that it's different. But it has to be bigger, because the momentum and the voice and the mass of numbers and our collective wisdom is the way that will bring about change.
Phil Friend
We will obviously put the notes on our show notes there, how people can join and so on. But when we think about what you've done, I mean, in the three years you've been with us, there's been a huge change in the organization all brought about by yourself and the team you now have what research give us one or two examples of research you've done that you think have been really I mean, I'm, I'm I'm close to this so I know stuff that may be an example from COVID. For example, when we were all locked down, nobody could go anywhere, all that kind of horrific time that we lived through, and maybe something else that just occurs to you.
Gordon McCullough
I was gonna say if you could answer this, I could see whether or not I agree.
Simon Minty
I'm new to this so you speak to me.
Gordon McCullough
I'll deal with the COVID one. Secondly, I think the thing that we're most this is another issue thing that we're most proud of is our work around electric vehicles and the work around the accessibility of public charging points. It's a bit of a wild west out there there's loads of different charging types. There's loads of different charging. I don't think that you call pumps charging pumps so you plug them in. I'm supposed to know this stuff (laughter). It just got rolled out crazy fast. Everybody just went electric cars are the answer and by 2030 you will not be able to buy a brand new car that isn't electric. Nobody had considered disabled drivers and I think being very blunt about it when the people were doing all the rolling out the infrastructure probably just didn't think that disabled people drive. And so why do we even need to think about that. And so we saw a very sort of fortuitous way, fell upon the issue of the inaccessibility charging points, we got funding from Motability. And we got panel members out to BP garage and Hammersmith to charging point on the forecourt and to car park in Nottingham. And they tried to charge an electric car. And those results that experience of our panel members like testing it and actually saying this and the wheelchair haven't got space to move around or can't reach the charger, led Motability to pick up the baton if you like and work with the British Standards Institute to create accessible charging standards for new public charging points that are being put in place. It's it's all you hear, but as we need to have more accessible chargers. And so that feels like it's a really important piece of work for us because we uncovered an issue. And through working with others, they then amplified that issue. And it's now going to bring about change within the overall system. So we're really, really proud of that.
Announcer
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Gordon McCullough
on COVID. It was tough for us like loads of other organizations, our panel at the time, the work that we were doing, it required our panel being 80% of required and being out and about doing things like mystery shopping and user testing. So all that stopped overnight. We certainly didn't want to endanger panel members, even in those very early days, but we thought we were actually sitting on a huge resource of people who are going through much, much more challenging situations and perhaps non disabled people. And so we we started doing some tracker surveys to understand the implications and the challenges around shopping around medicine, hospital appointments, transport as things opened up a little bit. And we used all of that survey to feed into the Cabinet Office about their response whether or not they listened to I don't know, but it was, we were looking at about 1000 people, each survey coming back to us and telling their experiences. And we were able again, to amplify that information and put it into the hands of people who can bring about that change. And it was just astonishing. The response from the panel at a time when I suppose filling the survey in order in a diary or something like that was not paramount in people's minds, it was getting food and all the rest of it. And getting support. So it was a that was a really good piece of work. And I think that changed us as an organization positioned us in a place where people started to recognize the work we were doing and our approach. We were in the Guardian, you know those type of things, but it really brought about quite a step change in our profile as well. And being able to tap into a subject quickly, and not take a long time. So electric cars and COVID,
Simon Minty
I can see a sense of pride. And both of those one is you're trying to get in to something that's going to happen in the future. And that reflective authoritative voice during COVID. I worked with some disability new disability organizations. And I remember one group said, obviously I said what do you say what do you tell organizations when we can't? Because no one can be an authoritative voice on disability? I went, well, okay, but when you're in the room, they need to hear you say something you can't just say, we don't know, because then there's no vision. How do you though manage to be that authoritative voice? With 13 million differently disabled and the level of types of impairment and conditions and identity? I mean, how do you stay on top of that?
Gordon McCullough
The first thing to say is we can't I mean, he's just repeating what you just said we can't be the authoritative voice. I think what we can do is build very robust methods of research, and the way that we do it, and that's where the authority comes from. You're absolutely right. It's so diverse. Disability is not one simple concept. It's diverse and difficult, and so many other bits gone into, I think you recognize that. And we do and we talk about it in those terms that you caveat things, but not to the point where it becomes sort of so abstract that you can't actually make decisions about it. So we're very upfront about it and say, Well, look, our panel is this. There's 13 million people. On a very technical point, if you ran a survey that was to be representative of the disabled population, you only need 1100 responses of that 13 million. So it's, you don't need an awful lot to know that the results you'll get will be replicated. It's different when you're doing focus groups and user testing. We have to be very careful and considerate about the mix of people we invite on to those groups and get that balance.
Simon Minty
I love this stuff. I really love this stuff. I'm gonna ask a clunky question, but I think it's important. One organization I'm working with, they keep telling me. What about divergent people? What about blind people? Can you categorize stuff like that? If I really wanted to drill down?
Gordon McCullough
Yeah, when you sign up to the panel, we ask about, what are you? What are the sort of neat What's your main disability or impairment? And then we dig into that. So we know that there are people on our panel, they're colorblind, we know that people are deaf of all the different aspects. So we do other panels of people join up to to say, do you use a wheelchair? Yes. And then we move on, we take a lot of time, and the person's time to really find out about their disability, we also try and find out about any other health conditions that people have we find out about their home, we find out about their preferences about what they want to do. So we're not asking people to do something, they're gone. I've already told you don't want to do mystery shopping, signing up to the panel takes about 10/15 minutes. But it just means that we have information, we're not bothering people with things that they couldn't do or won't do. We can target in a much more accurate way. But if we're looking for people who are blind or people who've got hearing impairments, we can target it that way as well.
Phil Friend
Do you do you also look at standard things like male female black people, that kind of thing?
Gordon McCullough
We do we collect a degree of that demographic information. So you're basically certain gender, ethnicity, where people live? And that's about it. So we don't do the whole ABCD. One social economic group, which newspaper? Do you read all of that we don't do that? Which we normally get from a normal market research company, occasionally will ask additional questions about household income. But we've had a lot of work around financial well being at the minute. And that sort of it's important to contextual information, but we don't collect it a standard.
Simon Minty
I think it's really interesting that last point, particularly I'm, I sit on the board, and they some of the reporting is now about what my parents did as a job. And we also know that disabled people might be in a lower socio economic group. I mean, maybe these I love the fact that you can develop it and you change it. And I'm going to jump across sorry, Phil, I'm Phil, I'm asking all the questions, probably because you know, quite a lot the answers. I mean, we talk about diversity. And we know organizations then forget about disability, the fact that RIDC exists, and this amazing wealth of information you can get. How do you get organizations to engage with you use your services? How do you promote it?
Gordon McCullough
Back in April 2020, we did our new strategy, we call the Small changes, Big difference, because that was the underlying message that comes out of all the work we do make couple of small changes here. Big difference for loads of disabled people, we stopped when in your introduction, we stopped doing that sort of Which type of thing that consumer guidance because, for a number of reasons. One, mostly nobody was paying for it. And I could only ever be partial, we can't cover the full gamut of things. So I always felt like we were selling people a little bit short. So we looked at it and thought well actually, where is the problem that disabled have? It's not necessarily about what's the best washing machine to buy. It's the manufacturers, it's the companies, it's the businesses themselves. That's where the problem lies. And that's where our work can help prevent those problems escalating and getting worse. So we took a conscious decision to promote RIDC to the places where we can bring about change. And that was a lot of doing things like this and conferences and writing articles for trade journals about what we do and and how we do it and what the benefit is to the to the organization or the company. And that's a slow process that takes a while to do mostly now, we get people just approaching us. They type in disabled research, disabled consumers, disabled population and we pop up and they'll get in touch. But it's been a long process of sort of positioning RIDC as this leading expert on inclusive research that can help your company your business, your product, your service become more accessible and inclusive?
Simon Minty
Is it working? Is it you feel it's a good strategy?
Gordon McCullough
Yes. I have to say that cos Phil is sitting hear! No, it is I think the team has expanded a lot. We have put an awful lot more of our emphasis on the research side of things. And so we are a bigger research team, which means we can do more work, the panel has grown some 22% in the last 12 months, we've certainly this year if you measure anything by busyness and income, we've had our best year in the last decade, I think in terms of because the clients we're working with the impact we're having and also the levels of income we are generating, which is really important. We get a charity so we don't make profit we make surplus and we make a surplus and that means we can invest that doing research that the panel wants us to do not what the big companies telling us what's important to them. It's, we can backfill some of our time to actually begin to listen to the panel in a way that I really want to about okay, this is a, this is such a pain this needs fixing and then go off and do it and lead the charge on that. I think we're doing okay.
Phil Friend
I mean, the listener will have noticed that we talk you talk about the panel, the panel, the panel, the panel, I mean, it is the biggest asset, what are the biggest challenges you as the boss of RIDC face in relation to that group? I mean, obviously, growing, it's an issue I know, but how do you keep them? What's what's the, what sort of challenges are there?
Gordon McCullough
There's two main challenges. One is around keeping people interested. So we're not huge. So we're not doing things every single day. And I hear and I heard it at the beginning and hear it now, I haven't heard from you for a while I really want to do stuff. It's keeping that level of engagement and that momentum of somebody sign up to the panel oh, wow, this is a brilliant thing. I can really use my experience to bring about a change. And then they don't hear anything from us for a month or two months, or we're doing some focus groups or user testing. And we only require people with a certain disability or you know, it's so it's, it's that it's retaining that I think that early enthusiasm until people keep being involved and feel that they can get something out of it. And that's really important to me that they get something out of it, that feels like they're contributing to something. So that's a challenge. But that's a challenge with our model, not them. It's because we're not a big market research company that size of Ipsos Morey thrown out 15 servings a day.
Announcer
This is The Way We Roll presented by Simon Minty and Phil Friend,
Phil Friend
we're facing the highest inflation we faced as a country for I don't know how long, we've got fuel bills, which are just going through the roof. We've got utility companies charging God knows how much for power and all the rest of it. And we know you and I and Simon know that the disabled community are going to be hit the hardest of the lot when all that stuff comes through. I suppose two questions, really. One question is What impact might that have on our panel? Because they are disabled people and they will be struggling like everyone else? And secondly, what kind of research might that lead to, in terms of making sure that disabled people's voices are heard in this maelstrom, as you managed to do when it was COVID?
Gordon McCullough
Am I allowed to be political on this podcast? (laughter)
Phil Friend
Of course you are of course
Gordon McCullough
So we talked about the cost of living crisis, as you say, there's a cost of disability crisis, which is much more worrying. And I think, by any standard how the government has reacted to the cost of living crisis is only exacerbating and making that cost the disability crisis worse, I don't think there is an understanding or an empathy of the cost of disability in the round. I think it's been a long time since Scope did their Extra Costs Commission and those figures are from 2015. Treble them and quadruple them and youre not anywhere close. So I think i'll answer your second question. First, I think our research will become much more focused on financial well being the impact of costs. And we've already got some early figures about people who are running medical equipment at home, and the cost of electricity, and how long can they go for without having that medical equipment switched on? And in a way to try and save money? Things around? Variable social tariffs need to be looked at? And what the impacs are for disabled people who may be running medical equipment all night? There's an awful lot of detail and nuance in this cost of disability crisis. But it's again that's driven by regulators, car companies, utility companies, having the leadership and the forethought to think well, actually, there's an issue going on here. Maybe we should really try and unpick it and understand that. But certainly, this past couple of weeks, I've had a lot more conversations about energy, saving energy, trying to find ways that are accessible to allow people to really manage and control their their energy usage. But I think in terms of how impacting the panel, to be honest, I don't know. I couldn't say and you often, Simon I know it's a bit of a cop out. But I'll say this quite often, I don't know until I ask until we ask the panel about what the actual issues are. But the COVID thing we had people respond and really galvanized support and really get involved in the research that we're doing. I think COVID will have an end. I'm not sure about this one specially, the Bank of England announced it, this could go on a long time and it will come back, it will go back to levels that are affordable and all the rest. So I don't know how much of an impact that will have on the levels of engagement and commitment from our panel members and think it's we'll only see that in terms of people opting out of the panel or not getting involved.
Simon Minty
I'm going to preempt this question. I had some colleagues who went to Berlin to look at AI and mobility and all this sort of moving some of this is about climate some of it is about EVs, electric vehicles, and so on. And I came back and they said, not many of the organizations had considered disability in all their new whiz bang, amazing ideas. This is a doubleheader is I'm thinking about climate change, Phil, and I had a conversation about this question. And let me get to the blooming question. The impact that RIDC can have in ensuring that disabled people are part of the future climate change, that we're not excluded, or we're not made to feel guilty because we got to use kit, that is the only thing that we can use? How does RIDC do stuff? And is this a kind of personal passion as well.
Gordon McCullough
I'm gonna go back to our research on the EV stuff. There was a quote from one of our panel members, he said, All I want to be as a good citizen, I want to play my part. And this feels like a retrograde step feels like I've been a paraphrase, but it feels like I'm being excluded from playing my part in helping save the environment. And that sort of left a little worm in my head. And I started looking around to see, has anybody looked at this, the role of disabled people can play and sort of net zero and contribute. And nobody had, as far as I can see, it was all about the impact of climate change on disabled people, their vulnerabilities, what we can do to protect save that type of language. But there was never anything about well actually the 14 million people who if the things were accessible and could work could actually play a huge part in all of this. And so we've started, we did a very quick survey, we call them five on Friday, five questions very quick bang about so we get a sense of what's going on. And I think it was something like 80%. felt they were excluded, or were unable to play their part because of poor recycling, because of lack of electric vehicles because of single use plastics for medicine, or just a huge range of things, keeping their home . So that sort of made us think, well, actually, we can begin a bit like the electric car stuff to try and push forward an agenda that nobody is thinking about. But it's the challenge will be and is trying to unpick the battle, trying to find the place where you've got the levers to pull. I personally think there's an awful lot around recycling that can be done, because of people with dexterity impairments, just breaking up cardboard and stuff to put it in their bin or getting out to your recycling vendor. So many little nuances and differences. So what we can do is just push forward the agenda.
Simon Minty
You've` just reminded me I live in blocks of flats, and the recycling bins are always full, I can't reach them to use them as well. Plus, there's always this note saying Why didn't you break up your box. So I have this double whammy? One, I got to pick up the box I can't do then I can't fit it in. The problem is there's my address on it as my name so I kind of feel even more guilty? Do you have to take it, I've have found ways around it. But you've just nailed that one of the things I want to be sorry to interrupt you, but
Gordon McCullough
I'm glad you interrupted positively it wasn't to say shut up! So so it will, what we're doing though, this is a sort of nuance of our work. If we're paid to do something by a business, that's for them. And it'll be for them, they'll want to try and increase the brand awareness and make the product better if we get funded because we're a charity from a charitable foundation or a grant from a government department or whatever, we can do the work that really pushes forward the agenda. Now we are small, by any measure we are a small organization. But we're a friendly organization. And we make friends all over the place. They're the ones that can pick up the stones that we hand them and throw them. And so that's what the strategy we're trying to do now is pick and define the problem just as you described, and then find people that can help us really sort of push forward this agenda because it's one of well even got even you think about public transport. That's supposed to be the answer. Get people out of their cars on the public transport. We ran a survey this week, that in the last six months 48% of our panel haven't used public transport for a multitude of reasons, but it's not even an option
Simon Minty
Ever all in the last couple of years?
Gordon McCullough
Well in the last couple of years, it is difficult to be asked because most people didn't use any but in the last six months, half of the 900 respondents at the minute half of those people had never set foot tried to get on to any form of accessible public transport.
Simon Minty
I had a chat with a volunteer as a disabled woman who did volunteer at the Commonwealth Games, she had very limited parking, there's a little bit of blue badge parking. And she said, What I couldn't work out was how many of the disabled people who use the blue badge parking or couldn't do wanted just to drive because that's what they do that we did have Park and Ride accessible coaches to bring you there. And she said, and there's a wheelchair user herself said that's what we really needed to do. But there was this sort of resistance sort of thing as well.
Gordon McCullough
I think, I mean, I'm saying this to you two maybe I shouldn't, but it's, it's the sort of the victory of experience over expectation, the number of times something goes wrong, this is easier. And so it's trying to rebalance that your expectation is that you can do whatever a non disabled person could do use whatever form of transport, but actually, the experiences half the time something goes wrong, and it adds more time and stress and anxiety. So it's, yeah, I can see why I mean, God, why wouldn't you just put yourself through trying to do something like that to save the planet, when actually nobody really cares that much.
Simon Minty
And I made a mistake at the wrong airport. And finally, the last minute, so I had to go and park in there long stay car park and then get the bus. It was the best thing, though. I mean, it saved me a fortune was really easy to do. But I'm also thinking, you know, when we say to an employer, they say, Well, we did disability once it didn't work out. So we've not done it. Again. It's disabled people, we might have say, Well, we did have a bad experience. But it has improved since then. So we can I know I'm getting myself all over the place here.
Gordon McCullough
I'll tell you a very quick little story. We did some work for the Office of Rail. And it was about asking our panel members to go to unstaffed stations, train stations and hit the Help button and say I want to get on the next train, please. And we've we basically were saying what happened, and thankfully, nobody got stranded or left behind. But there was one gentleman who was using a power wheelchair user, but had never really gone on the trains. And we asked him along, and he said, I'll give it a go. It's sort of a controlled environment. And if anything goes wrong, you can always phone us. And so he went off and diligently did these assessments of unstaffed stations and reported back what happened. And he sent us a lovely letter. Saying as a result of actually going out and using the train and seeing it wasn't as bad as he thought. I'm now using the train to go to his beloved Wolverhampton Wanderers to the club shop to buy T shirts and stuff like that. And he became the living embodiment of that report, because it just showed actually, there's It doesn't it doesn't come work. But the expectation doesn't stop a lot of people from using
Phil Friend
The obvious question at this point, given what we've been talking about Gordon, under huge challenges that lie ahead, in the general sensefor disabled people, because that's the mission that will go on forever. But in the present climate, with all the things that seem to be just getting more and more difficult. What would you say your focus will have to be for the next? I don't know, year or two, do you have a apart from the strategy, which you outlined earlier? How do you see the next year or two
Gordon McCullough
Really good question. And I feel that my future
Simon Minty
is this not a board question, Phil,? (laughter)
Phil Friend
I merely reflecting the needs of the listener who will doubt be thinking that, given all the challenges, what, what is it that you, you think you can win the most points for doing over the next year or two,
Gordon McCullough
I think the dial needs to shift around transport. And we need to stop talking about accessible transport, and talk about transport and the ability to be able to travel now I don't suggest for one second. But RIDC can change that by itself. But I think that's where the biggest transformation can come. And so I think I'm extraordinarily passionate and committed to trying to make sure that whatever transport solutions come up, or whatever ways of working that disabled people through our panel are front and center in that process, and are engaged right throughout the process. And that's the challenge. It's making that point loud and clear to everybody that if you get disabled people involved at the beginning of whatever endeavor you're trying to do, it's better for everybody at the end as a result of that engagement. That's a that's a constant daily challenge and it will never ever go away because everybody looks for the shortcut. They make an assumption. They'll go okay, well, Bob's girlfriend's brother is in a wheelchair, ask him and that'll be enough and that still happens, it's quite shocking. But so many things are designed and thought of and that sort of will just assume that we've spoken to somebody with a disability tick, these boxes it will be fine. That's the biggest challenge is getting away from the tick box mentality. And making sure that RIDC is seen as the sort of leading expert in this space and is pushing forward the agenda. It's not reactive, but we're pushing forward. That's the challenge for me, but transports the one I really think is central to everything,
Phil Friend
I think, do we appoint him Simon? I think he probably gets the job doesnt he.
Simon Minty
Well, of course, although now, I am suddenly co opted onto the board and I'm
Gordon McCullough
Join the board Simon
Simon Minty
Your last point, Gordon, I, I hang out with lots of different disabled people. And occasionally, we come from completely different points of view. And I'm like this is shocking, I thought, we're on the same page, the fact that what RIDC does is structured, professional research, I love this, I think you've done an amazing job of promoting it and selling it and showing the value. And I also think there's this underlying thing you mentioned, as a person who has a disability or an impairment. By doing the research one, I'm doing something valuable two I'm changing it for me and others and I love all that, and I've done it, I've done audits and done research, and when I'm there doing it, it makes me more confident I'm there for a reason pretending to test it. But I'm actually trying it out for me because then I'll go back and do it again. So for all of those reasons, I think we're changing the where we are and where we live. But individually making me more confident as well. I love this double whammy that can be achieved.
Gordon McCullough
You do see it all the time in the panel where we're doing user testing and people go, we're doing accessibility testing on the smart apps that control your heating in the house and so we're using all the apps like Hive and the all the different ones. And so the panel members go I didn't you could do that. That's much better than my one. So there's a lot of shared. We've had to do it all online. And but actually, it still works, there's still that connection, and people get an awful lot out of just speaking to one another. So we try we try not be too formal about things. But all I would say is just sign up to the panel, please, or tell people about the panel
Phil Friend
It will be our parting message. Join the panel. Okay, Gordon, what can we say thank you so much. That's I mean, I've worked with you very closely. I know how much this matters to you. You're clearly very passionate and committed to this whole thing, too. So it's great that you're you're at RIDC, but thank you for sharing some of the things that are going on. And also some of the real issues that confront disabled people in this country over the next well, however long it's gonna be so great. Thank you so much.
Gordon McCullough
Thank you, both.
Simon Minty
Well, and thank you both for both the work that you do. It's so lovely to hear that RIDC is robust and doing the amazing work and Phil's very sweet. It doesn't give me a hard time about being part of it. But you've done enough Gordon to make me think I need to at least be on the panel, if nothing else. So well done to both of you for the work that you do. I appreciate it.
Phil Friend
Well, thank you for helping me with that. Because it was very nice to see some I mean, the questions you asked, I kind of know something about because I've worked with Gordon forever. So I he's a he's a he's a good bloke.
Simon Minty
And he was great for me to meet and spend a bit of time talking to him, because obviously I hear a lot about Gordon via you but not had that length of conversation. I thought he answered the question great. I mean, he's a real asset.
Phil Friend
Well, I think there's some serious stuff coming down the track now. Yeah, we know that the cost of living thing and the things Gordon talked about, I hope the listeners found that interesting and insightful for them too, because this organization matters.
Simon Minty
And without, I mean, the other thing is that is a voice. It is a really helpful voice or what differently, you know, Deaf Disabled neurodivergent people are feeling thinking and that needs to get out there. I mean, that's fabulous.
Phil Friend
Yeah. Okay, so we'll obviously put notes in the notes about Gordon and the RIDC and so on and so forth. But I think all that remains is for us to give our email addresses and stuff like that.
Simon Minty
Yeah, of course, we're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, we're on Instagram. I still say Beacon, do Beacon and The Way We Roll and you'll see all the best shows YouTube, sign up to our mailing list, we would email you every time it show drops. That's it.
Phil Friend
And our email address is mintyandfriend@gmail.com. So we look forward to hearing from if you've got something you to want to share with us.
Simon Minty
We will be back in September. And we have David Turner who is a professor of history with a very specialism in disability I may have missed given you the title wrong title about David but we are immensely looking forward to having him on.
Phil Friend
Real history. I love history.
Simon Minty
Well, proper history like you know, way back not last 30 years, even before you and I were born.
Phil Friend
Wel it's not possible in my case Take care of yourself. We'll see each other soon.
Announcer
This is The Way We Roll presented by Simon Minty and Phil Friend. You can email us at mintyandfriend@gmail.com or just search for minty and friend on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
Transcribed by https://otter.ai