Occupied Spaces: Public life and marginalised bodies in Wales
Woman’s Wales? is a new book published this month which is packed full of essays about what devolution has really meant for women in Wales. Here, as part of a new Weekend series featuring edited versions of those essays, Grace Quantock issues a plea for a
IKNOW I’m the rst, because they tell me so. “You’re the rst one we’ve had,” is a pervasive refrain whenever I enter professional spaces. But everyone’s excited for me to be a guinea pig so they can nd out if their wheelchair ramps, you know... actually work.
Public appointments oversee vast swathes of public life and public bodies spend more than £200bn a year of taxpayers’ money. Ranging from NHS boards, to the Arts Council, chair of the BBC, to prison monitoring boards. ese public appointees’ work shapes all our lives. I didn’t grow up knowing this. While I learned (a bit) about governments in school, I’d never realised public bodies functioned in so much of our daily lives.
I was in my mid-twenties when I saw an advert asking for new board members that asked: “Are you under 30, a woman, LGBT, BAME? We need you!”
I was working as a ghost writer and copy writer, and helping a local public health organisation by ghosting their internal newsletter. But when I saw the advert, I realised I t most of those criteria, so I applied for my rst public body role. I didn’t get a job on the board, but now that I’d discovered organisations like this existed and meetings were open to the public, I kept attending. I sat in the public gallery with the journalists, who lled me in on who was who and caught me up on all the controversies. I learned how to ask questions that held people accountable and how to phrase my point in a way that elicited an answer.
I really began working for public bodies because I was told I couldn’t. e leader of the body I rst applied to told me someone like me would never get chosen to join a board. Exactly what “like you” meant wasn’t made clear. I asked, of course. I wondered if they were objecting to me being a woman, under 30, working class, disabled, neurodivergent or any of the other intersections of identities I sit within. He asked if I could see myself being appointed to the board of British Airways. is was o ered as a ridiculous suggestion. But I think BA could bene t from my insight – it might help them break fewer wheelchairs, at least. We might tackle some of their other issues too, like their carbon emissions. But in that room, it was just me, the head of the public body and his second-in-command.
“Welsh Government always tell us they want people like this,” he continued.
“People with... protected... racial characteristics,” he stumbled over unfamiliar phrasing.
“Protected racial characteristics? Do you actually know any people of colour?” I asked. “I
nd don’t mean, do they serve you co ee, but do you actually work with anyone who isn’t just like you?” He ignored me and continued speaking. “Yes, the Government always ask for them, but in reality, they never get to interview.”
I wondered why he was being so frank with me. I don’t know if this man thought himself untouchable or if he just thought I didn’t know any journalists. It’s OK though, I sold the story to
e Guardian soon after (then I was appointed to a national board which I was told had the highest number of applicants for a public body role in Welsh Government history). I’ve been told since that the man now tells people I’m his protegee. I’m not sure he knows me well enough to realise how much he’s risking his conservative reputation by claiming that, but maybe he doesn’t read e Guardian, so won’t be unduly disturbed by what I do.
e comfort of people who despise me isn’t my concern. Instead, I’m working to shift the landscapes of public life enough to be representative of the people we are here to serve. I’m not a career board member; I’m a therapist, writer and researcher who sits on boards across health and social care. is means that I’m at board one day, trying to in uence national decisions and policy, and the next day I’m sitting with people at the tough end of the decisions made at a national level.
In the current board landscape, I’m often the rst disabled person older colleagues may have met in a professional contact. I shouldn’t be, but this is institutionalisation’s legacy – how uncomfortable many non-disabled adults are with disabled people, because when they grew up we weren’t visible, because we weren’t free. Asylums and group homes are not really so long ago. It’s not only in the trauma in icted in the homes, but the contributions of disabled people that were missed, the older people now learning to live on the outside. e shadow of institutionalisation impacts everyone. If they’ve never really spoken to a disabled person before, or realise there’s nobody disabled living in their street, then that’s an impact. Institutionalisation’s shadow impacts my body in the majority of spaces today.
Perhaps many people don’t see themselves as
pitying me. e charity model of disability sees disabled people as poor victims of circumstance in need of help and sympathy, as opposed to humans with rights and access needs. is resistance to access extends beyond disability; a person with a baby needing space for a buggy, childcare leave and a creche is often framed as an inconvenience, we don’t give them the access they deserve either. I speak in board rooms, on train platforms, on stages; bracing myself for cloying sympathy, the chloroform of pity, knowing I am being harmed in sharing, but speaking out because I hope to stop harm to those coming up behind me.
e role of public bodies has shifted and renewed throughout devolution in Wales. After devolution, there was a focus on Welsh Government reclaiming power, a move towards transparency and a push for inclusion for arm’s-length bodies. In 2004, Rhodri Morgan, rst minister, announced that the Welsh Development Agency, Wales Tourist Board and education quango Elwa would become part of his government by 2006.
“Today marks the end of the quango state as we have known it,” he told the Assembly, it was his “bon re of quangos”.
But the functions of public bodies still exist, often under di erent names, or in di erent places. In researching the history of devolution and public bodies, I found many instances of governments, particularly new governments, announcing overhauls or bon res of public bodies. It’s a well-loved image: the cutting through red tape, the bon re of waste and the reclamation of control by a central government. In April 2022, Jacob Rees-mogg announced an overhaul of “increasing” numbers of quangos, with plans to shut or merge many, following similar comments made by Blair, Brown and Truss.
I believe good governance is essential and transparency is necessary for a functioning democracy. But announcements which only occasionally translate into action beyond the headlines feel a little to me like the government promises that we can see our GPS within two weeks. Perhaps necessary, but much more complex to deliver than to promise. e issue of long GP waiting times isn’t an issue of ine ciency or lack of motivation but a complex web of issues around recruitment, retainment of medics, retirement age of the current cohort, increasing complexity of needs for the average GP appointment and environmental factors meaning people need more help and have less resources.
is was a question I raised at a public board meeting recently when the UK Government announced plans to publish league table-style reports of GP waiting times. It was said to be informing patients by publishing data on how many appointments each GP practice delivers and the length of waits for appointments would enable patient choice. I asked how will that enable patient choice? If my GP has long waiting times, will this data be part of a policy allowing me to easily choose a di erent GP? Will it take into account complexity of appointment times and take-up in socio-economically disadvantaged areas? e answer was to allow patients to have data and to ask their GP practice why they are not doing better.
e concept of increasing data transparency and access is great. e reality of whether this will get people seen sooner is questionable. If I was trying to get people into a GP appointment quickly, I’m not sure increased data is the most direct route. While this occupied headline space, it didn’t lead to action or reduced waiting times. Such energy and attention could have been spent on a policy that listened to what patients needed and co-created a solution with their doctors.
Devolution has impacted health decisions in Wales in many ways, from free prescriptions and free senior and disabled public transport to organ donation. But more diverse voices are necessary for Wales’ future.
Many disabled people are not in public life, or in public at all. Disability hate crime is increasing and making communities less safe. More than 9,250 disability hate crimes were reported to police across England and Wales last year, with around half classed as violent. is is up 4.4% from the previous 12 months, according to data from Freedom of Information Requests. Violence against disabled women speci cally has increased by a third since 2014.
Disabled women are almost twice as likely to be sexually assaulted than non-disabled women. Disabled women are also twice as likely to experience domestic abuse. I’m at risk from the same kinds of violence non-disabled women face, but I’m also at risk of abuse speci c to disabled women, which can happen in “a wider range of places and is enacted by more kinds of perpetrators”, according to the Centre for Disability Studies, University of Leeds. is violence can include hate crimes, attacks on disabled women when they are most vulnerable such as during pregnancy or after a new diagnosis, and institutional violence from carers.
e advocacy group, Stop Hate UK report that more than 9,208 disability hate crimes were reported to the police across England and Wales in 2020/2021. ey point out that disabled people face exacerbated di culties in an already inaccessible world. Inaccessibility in housing, transport, infrastructure and information impacts social protection and puts disabled women at further risk. Violence against disabled women has increased by a third since 2014. Yet Disabled Survivors Unite, a UK support and advocacy group, points out there has been a drop in rape prosecutions and calls for changes in the treatment of disabled survivors who report sexual violence to police. Many disabled women have spoken of the traumatising experience of being harmed by ableism, interrogation and dismissal by police, during their complaint process.
is all comes during the cost-of-living crisis, with more people falling into fuel poverty and the disability pay gap at 13%. is means a disabled person earns 13% less than a non-disabled person in the same job, with equal quali cations and experience. is number rises to more than 33% for autistic people. But life costs you £583 more on average a month if you’re disabled, according to research by the disability charity Scope. e crisis in social care and mounting NHS waiting lists means many people are struggling with increased pain and di culty while waiting for treatment delayed by the pandemic.
Times are tough, we have so many urgent issues to attend to. But I know, to tackle these, it will take all of us. I’m so proud to be working to make sure our voices can be heard and we are at the table when our futures are being decided. It’s urgent. We have too little time, and too much talent to waste.
I really began working for public bodies because I was told I couldn’t. e leader of the body I rst applied to told me someone like me would never get chosen to join a board. Exactly what ‘like you’ meant wasn’t made clear. I asked, of course