One in Five has decided to conclude our campaign.

We at One in Five are immensely proud of what we achieved as a non-funded, grassroots, cross-party political campaign.

Did the campaign succeed? Yes and no. Ultimately we haven’t seen a significant increase in the numbers of disabled people in elected office but when we started this campaign, we knew that would take time.

Nevertheless, we belive there has been a notable increase in disabled people seeking elected office and participating in politics, which will lead to our Councillors, MSPs and MPs of the future.

One of our biggest successes was contributing to the campaign that led to the creation of the Access to Elected Office Fund (Scotland). It supported many disabled candidates at this year’s local elections and has already been guaranteed for the next Scottish Parliament election in 2021.

We’d also like to think that Scotland’s major political parties are more aware of the needs of disabled when accessing politics: accessible venues and manifestos, for example.

Those involved in One in Five will take the aims on in their own way, but as a coordinated campaign, One in Five has accomplished enough to conclude.

Thank you to the disabled activists who contributed to our blogs, shared and retweeted our posts. Thank you to all the Disabled People’s Organisations and to Stephen Daisley, Angela Haggerty, Ian Hamilton and others for shining a light on our wee campaign.

If you are a disabled person and would like to find out more about the Access to Elected Office Fund, please contact Inclusion Scotland http://inclusionscotland.org