Based on data from the last Scottish census, 20% of people living in Scotland have a long-term activity-limiting health issue or disability. This equals about 1.04 million people and the rate of disability in the population has remained relatively stable.

Of the 5.2 million people living in Scotland 7% have a physical disability, 7% are deaf or hard of hearing and 2% are blind or partially sighted. Significantly, 30% of the Scottish population have one or more long-term health conditions, as illustrated in the figure below.

Base: All people in Scottish Households
Source: Scotland’s Census 2011 Long-Term Health Condition

Attendance at cultural places/events by those with a disability, long-term illness or both is lower than those who have neither a disability nor long-term illness and this trend continues across all art forms. Health not being good enough is the most common reason for non-attendance for those with a disability, long-term illness or both. It is particularly relevant to note that access to venues is not cited as a common reason for non-attendance by this group, rather their health is the main inhibitor. Moreover, the majority of respondents with a disability/long-term illness agree that there are lots of opportunities for them to get involved in culture and the arts if they want to and disagree that culture and the arts are not really for people like them. (Source: Scotland’s Census 2011)

Age

Age has a significant bearing on the prevalence of a long-term activity-limiting health or disability. Indeed, the percentage of people in Scotland living with one or more long-term health condition increases as they age and the percentage of people living with no condition decreases.

Specifically, these are likely to be physical conditions like deafness and partial hearing loss, blindness or partial sight loss and physical disability. So arts organisations with aging audiences may find this reminder particularly relevant.

In contrast, learning difficulties, learning disabilities and developmental disorders are more common among the younger population. This may be due to increased awareness of such conditions in more recent times. Some older people may be living with such conditions but be undiagnosed. (Source: Scotland’s Census 2011)

Geographic differences

The prevalence of disability and long-term illness varies in each Scottish local authority. Inverclyde had the highest prevalence of long-term activity-limiting health problems or disability (23.7%) and Aberdeenshire the lowest (15.5%).

When considering only the working age population who are not in work (economically inactive people aged 16 to 74) and who are long-term sick or disabled a similar pattern occurs. In Inverclyde, nearly 25% of those economically inactive people aged 16 to 74 are long-term sick or disabled and in Glasgow the figure is 23.7%. In contrast, the lowest levels of disability among those of working age are in Aberdeenshire (10.9%). When compared with Glasgow, Edinburgh has a lower level of disability among those of working age (11.8%). (Source: Scotland’s Census 2011)

Attendance in Scotland

As opposed to self reported attendance in the Scottish Household Survey, Culture Republic’s dataset of box office returns in FY13/14 shows ticket sales of nearly 6.4 million for nearly 12,000 events covering all art forms and venues.

An analysis of the available discount codes showed that approximately 1% of tickets were sold to those with a disability. As the graph below illustrates, tickets are most commonly sold under a catch-all title of ‘disabled’. 38% of tickets (24,771) identified as being sold for those with long-term illness or disability were sold using this code. Tickets for carers (in the box office system as carer, companion, escort and assistant) accounted for less than 51% of tickets (33,145) and ‘wheelchair user’ 8.9% (5,775), which is slightly higher than the 7% of the total population that report a physical disability. The four other discount codes noted in the data set: Deaf/Hard of Hearing, BSL, Captioned, Blind/Visual Impairment and Audio Described together made up less than 3% of these sales (1,501 tickets).

Base: Ticket Sales 2013-14
Source: Culture Republic 2015

One note – although it appears that ticket sales were lower for specific disabilities such as hearing and visual impairments, as a result of very generalised discount codes these may also be included within the broad ‘disabled’ category. Practice will vary across box offices. Additionally, for specific performances (e.g. audio described performances) tickets may be sold for a particular screening rather than using a particular discount code and thus not appear in the figures above.