12 minutes
A governance structure that can move barriers Design the steering committee, the accessibility lead and the unit champions, with the authority, compensation and workload each needs to do more than advise.
What you’ll be able to do Design a disability inclusion governance structure with a compensated steering committee, an accessibility lead with defined authority and budget, and unit champions with formal workload allocation. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What most needs to change? Draft a one-page governance charter for your work, including sponsor, steering committee, accessibility lead. Four roles, and what each needs to be real A recommended structure for an agency of this size has four parts. The executive sponsor , covered in lesson one, holds authority over the cross-functional barriers. A steering committee includes disabled staff, people who receive services and community representatives, and it needs three things to be more than an advisory audience: compensation or protected time for its members, influence over its own agenda, and a visible record of what happened to each recommendation. An accessibility lead or office provides expertise, sets technical standards, tests, trains and reviews, and needs defined authority to stop a launch or contract that fails the standard, plus a budget for testing tools, remediation and specialist help. Department-level champions carry the standards into daily work in each unit, and need a formal share of their workload assigned to it, with their supervisor’s agreement, or they are volunteers on borrowed time.
Compensating committee members is not a courtesy. Disabled people are routinely asked to explain barriers, review designs and relive bad experiences for free, and then thanked for their passion. Advisory work is skilled labor. External members should be paid at a rate the agency would pay any consultant, through whatever mechanism finance and procurement confirm is available; employee members should have the hours recognized in their workload and their performance plan. Where a person receives benefits that could be affected by payment, offer alternatives and let the person choose.
Authority for the accessibility lead is the piece most often left out. An office that can advise but not require becomes a help desk that is consulted after decisions are made. Write down what the lead can stop, what the lead must be consulted on before approval, and who hears an appeal when a program disagrees. Then fund it: a lead with a standard and no budget for testing and remediation can only write findings.
Pay for the advice you ask for What you can change You control whether disabled advisers are compensated and whether employees’ advisory hours are recognized in their workload.
What to watch for Do not build a committee on unpaid labor from the people already most affected by the barriers. Do not accept a champion assignment that a supervisor has not agreed to protect.
Your next step Confirm with finance and human resources this month how external advisers can be paid and how internal hours will be protected, and write both into the charter.
Which part of the structure is this? Can require information technology to delay a launch that fails keyboard testing.
Choose a category Executive sponsor Steering committee Accessibility lead Unit champion Sets the agency’s document and web accessibility standard and runs testing before release.
Choose a category Executive sponsor Steering committee Accessibility lead Unit champion Includes people who receive services, paid for their time, who see what happened to each recommendation.
Choose a category Executive sponsor Steering committee Accessibility lead Unit champion Has four hours a week in their workload to review their unit’s templates and answer colleagues’ questions.
Choose a category Executive sponsor Steering committee Accessibility lead Unit champion Owns the outcome in a performance plan and reports to the commissioner and the board.
Choose a category Executive sponsor Steering committee Accessibility lead Unit champion Holds the budget for remediation of high-use documents and specialist audits.
Choose a category Executive sponsor Steering committee Accessibility lead Unit champion Check matches Reset A one-page governance charter The minimum a charter must state for the structure to function. Fill it for your own administration, division or board.
Sponsor Name and title; the functions the sponsor can direct; where the role appears in the position description and performance plan; the standing agenda where progress is reviewed.
Steering committee Membership including disabled staff, service users and community representatives; how external members are compensated and internal hours protected; who sets the agenda; how each recommendation and its outcome are recorded and published.
Accessibility lead The standards the lead maintains; what the lead can stop and must be consulted on; who hears an appeal; the budget for testing, remediation and specialist help.
Unit champions and review points One named champion per unit with the hours allocated and the supervisor’s agreement; the agreed review points at which the sponsor receives the progress summary and the committee reviews outcomes.
Take the completed charter to each named person and record what they confirm or change before it is adopted.
Browse and download only. Staff notes are not typed or saved on this page.
Download this published draft What makes each role real Committee: compensation
External members paid at a consultant rate through a mechanism finance confirms; employee members with hours in their workload. Offer alternatives where payment could affect benefits.
Committee: influence
The committee sets part of its own agenda and sees, in writing, what happened to each recommendation and why. Without this it is a focus group.
Lead: authority
Written power to stop a noncompliant launch or contract, a required consultation point before approval, and a named appeal route.
Lead: budget
Testing tools, remediation of high-use documents, specialist audits and training. A standard with no money produces findings, not fixes.
Champion: workload
A formal share of hours, agreed by the supervisor and reflected in the performance plan. Otherwise the role is voluntary and ends when the volunteer is tired.
Carry this forward Disabled staff, service users and community members on the steering committee are doing skilled work and should be compensated or given protected time for it.
An accessibility lead without budget or authority becomes a help desk; the role needs both.
A champion whose accessibility work is on top of a full workload is a volunteer, and volunteers burn out.
A completed sort of governance elements; a drafted governance charter for your own area.
Ask finance and human resources how advisory members from outside the agency can be compensated and how internal members’ time can be protected, and record the answer in your charter.
Browse and download only. Course notes are not typed or saved on this page.
Reset this lesson
Previous lesson Next lesson Carry this into practice Set up the sponsorship, structure, funding and unit-level expectations that let disability inclusion outlast any one leader.
Return to the experience: What did you notice or try, whose perspective informed it, and what would you keep or adjust?
Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
