Criticism of the draft Disabled People’s Rights Plan
There is no reason to doubt the noble intentions of the Welsh Government in seeking to improve the rights of Disabled People. There is no reason to question the aspirational nature of its draft Disabled People’s Rights Plan: 2025 to 2035. The problem is, as the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and many other commentators have observed – that good intentions are not enough when you hold the reins of power: good intentions alone do not lead to concrete actions.
While commending the aims of the strategy the EHRC ‘warned that poor accountability and a lack of scrutiny in the government had historically prevented disabled people from seeing timely and meaningful change.’ In so doing the EHRC called for the plan to be revised, ‘with stronger accountability measures put in place including regular progress reports and a clear timeframe for when disabled people can expect to see improvements’.
The Welsh Government is not alone: such ‘implementation failure’ criticisms could be levelled, justifiably, against all of the UK’s governments. On a daily basis we hear high quality rhetoric from them all, about what they have signed up to and what they aim to do. Unfortunately, as we learn from HS2, that is not enough. Governments have to roll up their sleeves and commit to doing specific achievable things (large and small) within specific time frames and to agree to truly independent scrutiny as to whether these concrete actions are being achieved.
No one can say that the Welsh Government was not warned. In 2024 Disability Wales, when giving evidence to the Senedd,[1] stressed the need for ‘accountability’ to be a key component in the (then unpublished) draft Disability Rights Action Plan. Once published, Llais[2] expressed concern that:
without inclusive ways to track progress and get feedback from people, good ideas might not lead to real change. There must be clearer timelines and monitoring structures put in place to make sure these actions are tracked and adjusted based on people’s feedback.[3]
In June 2025 Mark Isherwood, chair of the Senedd’s cross-party group on disability, raised concerns, that the lack of firm commitments and concrete targets in the draft plan would mean that it is impossible to hold the Government to account on its progress. He summed up his assessment as ‘No targets, no teeth and no accountability’.[4]
In order to bring about meaningful change at the coalface, governments rely on a civil service and a host of other agencies and all too often they, like elected members, feel uneasy about committing themselves to accountable ‘delivery’ of this kind. Disabled people in Wales need this to change. The concerns of the EHRC and the many other respondents to the consultation on the draft Disability Rights Action Plan speak to a broader issue. It highlights the need for governments to grasp the levers of power and to spend more time on ‘the next six months / the next 12 months’ Plans – and perhaps less time on glossy 10 year plans that may well come to nothing – derailed by world events and Senedd and local elections.
.
[1] https://www.disabilitywales.org/disability-wales-issues-an-urgent-call-for-the-welsh-government-to-publish-its-long-awaited-draft-disability-rights-action-plan/.
[2] An Independent Statutory body whose role is to give the ‘people of Wales a stronger voice in their health and social care services’.
[3] Question 4 (Actions) response https://www.llaiswales.org/news-and-reports/news/llais-responds-draft-disabled-peoples-rights-plan
[4] C Haines ‘‘No targets, no teeth and no accountability’: ministers’ disability rights plan criticised’ in Nation / Cymru 4 June 2025 at https://nation.cymru/news/no-targets-no-teeth-and-no-accountability-ministers-disability-rights-plan-criticised/
Photograph of ‘Gwanwyn Llyn’ by Richard Jones -@lluniaurich
Posted 3 September 2025