VISION 2020 UK Public Affairs Committee Meeting

Chair:

Mercy JeyasinghamVISION 2020 UK

Attendees:

Jenny GowenOptical Confederation (Co-Chair)

Sarah BaileyUK Vision Strategy

Matt Broom VISION 2020 UK(teleconference)

Phil AmblerThomas Pocklington Trust

Liz PriceRoyal College of Ophthalmologists

Ross Mathewman Sense

Observer:

Olivier Deneve College of Optometrists

Apologies:

Helen DearmanRNIB

Lara King Blind Veterans UK

Donna O'Brien Seeability

John ThompsonEngland Vision Strategy

Kathy EvansRoyal College of Ophthalmologists

Beth Barnes Royal College of Ophthalmologists

Carol Bewick Fight for Sight

Niall Ryan VISION 2020 UK

Louise Robertshaw Guide Dogs

James White Guide Dogs

Chrissie Pepper UK Vision Strategy

Mercy welcomed Ross to his first meeting and read out the list of apologies. It was confirmed that Olivier was an observer on the committee.

Notes of the previous meeting were confirmed as correct and there were no amendments.

Terms of reference. Donna had sent a few suggestions and her suggestions were discussed. The link to other VISION 2020 UK committees will be done through Matt Broom, Operations Manager, and will follow VISION 2020 UK protocols so probably does not need to be in the TORs. Discussions also added the need for a preamble or context on why the committee was needed. This was particularly important for people who had not been at the initial meeting. This should cover Donna’s other point on making it parliamentary focussed for instance in consultations. The terms of reference also needed to be linked more to the aims of VISION 2020 UK. Mercy to amend the Terms of Reference with Matt and circulate.Matt to circulate the VISION 2020 UK Conflicts of Interest form to all committee members and a list to be kept on the Committee page.

Proposed Chairing of group. Mercy proposed Jenny Gowen as Co-Chair as she was an expert in parliamentary affairs. The committee agreed and Jenny is now Co-Chair.

Membership. There was some discussion on who should be a member but most members of VISION 2020 UK who were involved in parliamentary work were already included. Once the committee was established as a standing committee all minutes and documents would be in the public domain on the VISION 2020 UK website so other members could join or contact the committee as needed. There was some discussion on the devolved administrations. All VISION 2020 UK committees were four country and there were either direct links to the other assemblies and parliaments or were through cross party groups. Matt t invite Mike Daw NERC and the new CEO of Deafblind UK to join the Committee.

Information sharing network. There was some discussion on how documents and other things could be shared. This would be further explored but at the moment it would be an email group perhaps with drop box facilities. It was envisaged this would be used for alerting members of the group to parliamentary activity (consultations and debates for example) where responses from members of the group could be beneficial. It was understood that it would not be appropriate for all members to respondse to everything and that sometimes joint work would only be between a couple of members of the group.

Newsletter. It became clear, given Helen’s comments, that what the Committee had proposed at the earlier meeting was actually this was not a newsletter in the traditional sense but a once a year Constituency briefing for each MP outlining what all the different parts of the sector were doing in their area and including constituency specific data. This would contain reports or focussed comments on up - coming debates with links to references. It was agreed that January might be good time to produce something at a constituency level and this could be then done annually. Otherwise the briefing perhaps needed to come outit was agreed a kind of calendar/event planning would be produced for MPs once a parliamentary term. This would contain key dates for MPs for that term including parliamentary reception dates, report launches, press releases etc (with links through to the organisation responsible) as well as comments on up - coming debates with links to references We needed to think through what we could offer MPs and their researchers. Ross’s input, as a previous parliamentary researcher for a number of MPs, was very useful at this point. The briefing should be both in digital and hard copy. A project plan with budget was needed and a sub group of Jenny, Liz and Niall could work on this.

Any other business. Mercy raised two items of AOB. ICG, a PR company working for Alcon had raised the idea of a parliamentary event on cataracts with VISION 2020 UK. The committee, although supportive of the issues raised, thought it was over ambitious and probably best not to support it at this point. Mercy also raised the idea from the Industry Vision Group on holding an inquiry on eye health with the APPG. The committee thought that in the first instance the IVG should raise this with the secretariat of the APPG.

Date of next meeting:

The sub-group needs to meet first to put together a project plan.

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VISION 2020 UK PO Box 70172, London WC1A 9HH