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 | In Touch - transcript BBC Radio 4 |
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| 20 January 2004 Listen to the In Touch for 20 January 2004 TX: 20.01.04 2040-2100 PRESENTER: PETER WHITE PRODUCER: CHERYL GABRIEL WHITE Good evening. On tonight's In Touch the first interview with the new chief executive of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. She'll be telling us how she intends to deal with the controversies still surrounding changes in guide dog training and the association's troubled finances. We'll also be trying out a tiny gadget that could make a huge difference to how you do your shopping when you're partially sighted. But first, remember this: CLIP Tips it forward and Dave Clark will collect, against the big strong Frenchman - Morreau - he goes through and goes round two or three [indistinct word] and a goal for England from Dave Clark. WHITE Well that was just one of the goals that led to England's blind football team qualifying for this year's Paralympics in Athens. But could their dream be shattered by the kind of bureaucratic muddle which seems to dog mainstream football, indeed mainstream sport in general - the Rio Ferdinand case springs to mind? The problem here all hinges on exactly which country they would be representing. Now they qualified as England but teams entering the Paralympics play under the banner of Great Britain. Now the initial difficulty is that no footballers from outside England have actually been given the chance to qualify for the team and there are other problems as well. Well our sports reporter Mani Dkazmi has been trying to sort the story out for us, Mani what seems to be the situation? DJAZMI Well in a moment I'll tell you exactly why these players will probably not go to Athens but first here's striker Dave Clark who took part in the 1996 games as a member of the Goalball team on what it's like to be a paralympian. CLARK I remember to this day queuing up to get into the stadium and it was what is now the current Atlanta Braves baseball stadium but then it was brand new and it was specifically designed for athletic events. And it was an amazing feeling - there were about 300 British athletes of which I was just one but the feeling of camaraderie and everything that goes with the Olympic movement and the Paralympic movement was amazing. DJAZMI It was Dave's goals which helped England qualify for Athens but he may be denied the chance to represent his country as a footballer by one of the oldest issues of sporting privilege. The problem of representing Great Britain was only taken seriously just weeks after manager Tony Larkin began preparing for this year's games. LARKIN We had a meeting to plan things, so we got in touch with Gillian Parker, who's the sport development officer for British Blind Sport and we asked her to sort of find out what the process is and she got in touch with Phil Lane for the British Paralympic Association and it was our first e-mail on the 27th October that said we need to get permission off the FA to go under the banner of Great Britain. DJAZMI But organisations like British Blind Sport have known about this issue for over a year and a half, according to the chief executive of the British Paralympic Association Phil Lane. LANE I was very much aware of this scenario cropping up and it's one that we've been aware of for some time, in fact we've spoken with Blind Sport about 18 months ago to alert them to this scenario. Obviously once the competitions had taken place and we were aware of the situation as it now stands I wrote directly to each of the individual football associations to try and elicit a response from them. WHITE So Mani has Phil actually had a response from the other football associations? DJAZMI Well obviously the English FA are happy with it but there's been nothing from the Northern Ireland FA, only negative signals from Wales but a resounding no from the Scottish Football Association in the form of this statement: STATEMENT The Scottish Football Association is a member of FIFA and as such we have an independent status as a footballing nation. Our policy is not to do anything that would jeopardise that position and the issue of Olympic participation has been discussed at length by our board. WHITE So Mani I mean give us a bit more of the background to this because I'm sure I remember, don't I, England being under the name Great Britain in Oporto four years ago? DJAZMI Well that's right, they played as Great Britain from '95 - 2000 and they only became England when the Football Association of England came in and offered to pay for their training, for their kit, for their travel, whereas previously they were literally standing on station platforms rattling tins. So it was an offer which was really too good for them to refuse. WHITE But couldn't they take the money and go on playing as Great Britain? DJAZMI Well they couldn't really justifiably represent three associations which obviously have no involvement in their costs or progressing the game. WHITE So I suppose what everybody's worried about is that this would set a precedent and therefore we'd start having to enter as Great Britain in mainstream football. What do FIFA say about this? DJAZMI Well FIFA's president is Sepp Blatter and he's said that he's happy with a one off Great Britain Olympic side, as long as they don't take part in world cups and European championships. Also the home nations individual identities have been recently set in stone, if you will, by FIFA's revised statutes. Interestingly there has been a precedent of a football team representing Great Britain in the Paralympics - it was a cerebral palsy team in '92. But times have changed in sport and that requires a professional outlook in organisation as well and blind football just hasn't been able to keep up with that and it's the lack of a proper Great Britain selection procedure which Phil Lane says is another major barrier to the players taking part. LANE Even if, at the end of the day, there are no footballers chosen from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland there does have to be a fair and equitable procedure in place which can at least say that they have had the opportunity. DJAZMI Who needs to sort this out? LANE Well I think the onus rests very firmly in the first case with British Blind Sport and with football associations to whom they're affiliated. WHITE Phil Lane of the British Paralympic Association. Well listening to that and joining me on the line from Birmingham is Howard Smith, who's the chair of the visually impaired football committee of British Blind Sport. Howard, I mean first of all this is a bit of a mess isn't it, because what this means is that some of these footballers won't get the chance to - or may not get the chance to go to Athens? SMITH I mean it's not something that's just recently occurred, I mean with partially sighted there is quite a good structure, with B1 football… WHITE We should explain - B1s are totally blind people. SMITH Yeah that's right, yeah. We are hoping to address that. The FA are going to be hopefully coming on board more with us in terms of our domestic set up next season … WHITE Yeah but that's going to be too late for these players. SMITH Yeah, no, I realise that, I mean I recognise the situation. I mean it did seem last summer that we would be okay playing … WHITE So perhaps it's calling all visually impaired Scottish, Ulster and Welsh players - maybe they need to come to the rescue so that a combined team can go to Athens. SMITH Yeah I mean that would be great, I mean it's only a small squad anyway, if we could just find one or two players from Scotland, from Ireland and Wales who would get involved that would be great. WHITE So could you not organise trials in the next three months in order to show that you've made an effort to actually involve these people? SMITH Well I mean I think that is a good approach and without speaking to Tony Larkin, the coach for the team, I mean that's the way I would like to see it going. WHITE Howard Smith thank you very much for joining us on the programme. And we will be keeping abreast of that story as it unfolds and Mani will be keeping an eye on it for us, thanks very much. Now the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association has just announced who's to be its new chief executive to succeed Geraldine Peacock and it's another woman Bridget Warr, who after a background as a teacher, then in probation and as a social worker in foster care then joined the Spastic Society - subsequently known as SCOPE. There are interesting parallels with the RNIB, both organisations have recently appointed women from outside the field of visual impairment and both take over at a time of financial crisis and radical change. Well I asked Bridget Warr what it was that attracted here to the job. WARR I must say I'm extremely excited about this job. What attracted me? Well it's an excellent well established organisation doing something really important, a world leader in guide dogs with a wide range of other activities as well around mobility and research and eye care and so on. It's had a fairly rough patch over the last couple of years but an organisation really that has huge potential to develop in the relatively near future. WHITE Well let me ask you about the rough patch, as you'd expect me to do, you obviously know there have been a number of controversial changes, notably the closing of the training centres and the move to more domiciliary care and also using hotels and so forth. Now that caused a lot of upheaval amongst guide dog owners and there'll want to know are you going to persevere, will there be any change of policy with the new chief executive? WARR Well I'm sure you appreciate Peter I'm not in post yet, so I don't know the detail. But what you've just raised obviously is something that has been discussed with me. The organisation has spent a couple of years trying to achieve a break even budget and is now well on track to do that and I do believe that is really important. So that's the first message. The second message is that I also think it's vitally important that an organisation like guide dogs, listens very carefully to its whole range of stakeholders, so among that would be the guide dog owners but receivers of other services as well and its own staff and I would certainly say that that's something that I believe in very strongly. WHITE On that point of listening, I mean there is a feeling which comes to us from guide dog owners sometimes that there isn't enough democracy within guide dogs. Now you've come from SCOPE, SCOPE became a membership organisation while you were there, might guide dogs need to go the same way? WARR It would be too early to commit myself for sure on that but I do believe that we must listen very carefully to what people are saying. There is a membership system, as I understand it, at guide dogs, I don't believe a large number of guide dog owners are yet members but I would very much hope that every single one would become a member and that would be part of the process of ensuring that the organisation listens to all its stakeholders. WHITE I mean that's the feeling, that when big decisions like this are made a lot of owners perhaps feel that their views were made in vane. Now clearly the argument was there were a lot of financial necessities surrounding that but it's not healthy if an organisation - if the beneficiaries don't feel they're having a say. WARR Yes I mean again with the proviso I'm not there yet and I don't know the detail. My understanding is that if you look at the totality - to coin the Prime Minister's word - if you look at the totality of the experience of guide dog owners during training that actually there is a very mixed message there and that on the whole people do not feel totally wedded to the centres and that a number of people are satisfied with training either in hotels or in the community. But I do have to say I'm not up with the fine detail of that and that's one of the things that I will be finding out about as soon as I arrive in mid April. WHITE Now you don't have specialist knowledge about guide dogs, you come from SCOPE, which is another part of the disability wood, as it were, do you think that matters - there's a feeling perhaps that quite a lot of chief executives in charities now are coming to give, as it were, financial management and don't necessarily have specific expertise in their areas - like visual impairment or dogs, for that matter? WARR I hope you're not implying that my interest and expertise is simply in financial management … WHITE Well I'm asking you whether it is. WARR Yes okay. I'm deeply committed to the objects of this organisation, I do have a fair amount of knowledge about sensory impairment and visual impairment but I would not claim in any way to be an expert. There are people, of course, within the organisation who are extremely knowledgeable and there are all the stakeholders of the organisation who are extremely knowledgeable. So I think the fact that I would not claim to be an expert in visual impairment as such, or indeed in dogs as such, is not the issue. What I believe the organisation needs is somebody who will, alongside the trustees, lead the organisation into the future and for that I believe what I bring is wide experience of senior management in the voluntary and not-for-profit sectors. WHITE And a corollary to that question is - and this comes up whenever this kind of post comes up - is that you're not visually impaired, you're not a guide dog owner, the new chief executive of the RNIB isn't visually impaired either - do you think that matters? WARR I think in an ideal world we should move towards chief execs of organisations, such as this, indeed being if not users of services, which sometimes causes problems, certainly people with personal experience of visual impairment. I think the fact is that this post was advertised very widely, including in the visual impairment press - New Beacon - and as I understand it I was the strongest candidate and I think the really important thing is that organisations such as guide dogs have people to lead them who are competent to do that and we need to work on the much broader issue of making sure that visually impaired people actually have equality of opportunity, both in terms of education and employment generally so that there is always a very strong field of contenders who are visually impaired. WHITE There's another - one interesting point - you're a woman, I've noticed that, your opposite number at the RNIB is a woman, your predecessor was a woman and I've just read an article that says that 25 out of the 30 chief execs of leading not-for-profit organisations are women, is that significant - do you think women bring something more to this kind of job? WARR I think we're just beginning to redress an imbalance that has reigned for a very, very long time and I think it is being recognised that women have at least as much to bring as men to roles such as these and that they do so in a slightly different way and that slightly different way is at last becoming valued. WHITE Bridget Warr who starts her job in April and I'm sure we'll be hearing much more from her. Well now back to the direct practicalities of life for visually impaired people. There are, as regular listeners to In Touch will know, many bits of kit around which can magnify print many times over but much of it is bulky and expensive, when often what you need is something you can carry around with you and which is relatively cheap. Well that is beginning to happen now. Geoff Adams-Spink of BBC Online brought into the studio the other day one of the new generation of lightweight portable magnifiers. It's called the Pico and it's made by Telesensory. Geoff began by describing it to me. ADAMS-SPINK This is about the size of one of those personal digital organisers that you can put in your pocket. Now you might ask well why is that different from a handheld magnifier? And two reasons come to mind for me. Firstly, the area of magnification is quite a lot bigger and secondly because of advances in LCD screen technology in the past year the image produced is much brighter than you would achieve with an optical magnifier. And this particular device - the Pico - has got a reverse mode so that you can see white text on a black background, instead of the other way round. WHITE So just explain - what are the most obvious uses for this, as far as you're concerned? ADAMS-SPINK I've got with me here a box of stock cubes. Now I don't often go round reading stock cube labels but sometimes I do have to go and look at labels in a supermarket and I can tell you that, for example, it contains 0.4 grams of carbohydrates. So I would imagine that taking this with me to the supermarket would be an ideal use. My reading glasses tend to tire me because they're so heavy and my little Agfa loupe that I use, which is an eight times magnifier, tends to read two or three words at a time and you've got to have your face pressed right down on the page. So in a sense it's quite an advance for somebody like - somebody with my kind of visual impairment. WHITE So it's very much though quick looking at things rather than a long read - you probably wouldn't use it for that? ADAMS-SPINK Yeah I would say War and Peace - get it from the RNIB Talking Book Library. I would say if you're going to read something on an aeroplane, well if it's a short flight you're okay because the battery lasts about an hour and a half but anything longer than an hour and a half you've got to recharge the battery and that takes a couple of hours and you can't have a couple of spare batteries with you - you can't change the battery yourself. WHITE You've explained how small it is, how easy is it to use, particularly perhaps if you're using it outside or in a shop where you may not be able to balance it, how easy is it actually to focus on something? ADAMS-SPINK For me - and I've got a physical disability as well as a visual impairment - I would say it's incredibly easy to use. It takes a couple of seconds to focus it and then you just scan along. The only thing that's slightly disconcerting - if you can imagine that this is an oblong it's got a little video camera underneath, which is what gives the image onto the LCD screen, and it's set over to the left hand side, so you think you're pointing it at the target by holding the magnification device over the centre of what you're trying to magnify and then you find that you're not actually looking at what you want to look at. I think that probably takes a bit of practice in the end. And when I spoke to the manufacturers they said this was to enable people to be able to write while they used it, in other words maybe to sign a visa receipt or a credit card receipt in a restaurant. WHITE What about price? ADAMS-SPINK It's expensive, it's £500. I would say that on past performance these things tend to get cheaper as they go along. So anybody who's on a budget and thinks they would benefit from one of these might be well advised to wait six months or a year and see when version 2 or version 3 comes around whether it's cheaper. WHITE You've got a prototype, when does actually version 1 become available commercially? ADAMS-SPINK Well version 1 I'm told will be available within the next three to four weeks. WHITE Geoff Adams-Spink. There are some other bits of equipment which are comparable, we've got details about them on our Action Line, you can call that on 0800 044 044, you can also e-mail our website with any views or requests for information at bbc.co.uk/radio4/intouch. That's it for today from me Peter White, producer Cheryl Gabriel and the team goodbye. Visit the In Touch Message Board Back to the In Touch page The BBC is not responsible for external websites |
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