Supporting Change • Developing People • Promoting Ability

Marie Pye

Marie worked for the Disability Rights Commission from its inception in 2000 until 2007. For three years she was the DRC Head of Policy and then moved onto becoming Head of Public Sector Delivery.

In her role as Head of Policy Marie was responsible for the development of the first policy agenda for the DRC including work around inclusive environments, independent living and healthcare. She also led on the first code of practice produced by the DRC on access to goods and services and she headed the work of the commission on the Open for All campaign.

Marie moved on to leading the work of the Commission on the public sector as the Head of Public Sector Delivery in 2003. This gave her responsibility for the implementation of the Disability Equality Duty.

This involved working with officials on shaping the duty, production of the code of practice and 17 pieces of guidance, promotion of the duty and then enforcement. Through this project Marie spoke at numerous conferences and has worked with hundreds of public bodies at a senior level. Most recently she has been responsible for producing detailed reports on the performance of 15 government departments. Marie is undoubtedly the country's leading authority on the Disability Equality Duty and key areas such as disability equality impact assessments.

An evaluation report undertaken by OPM of the DRC's full work programme concluded that "The DRC's work on the Disability Equality Duty came in for the greatest amount of praise across all sectors; with over a quarter of interviewees singling this work out as the DRC's biggest achievement."

In 2006 Marie was a judge for the Guardian Public Sector Awards. She regularly speaks at major national conferences, over 20 in the last year. She has undertaken a significant amount of media work including the Today programme, BBC News and Talk Sport!

Before joining the DRC Marie worked for several years for Radar, the National Disability Network. She was responsible for their work on housing and developed and led the National Disability Housing Network.

Marie has undertaken a range of other roles including leading the work on equality for a major university. Marie is a disabled person and at the present time is a local councillor. She is a member of the Executive Board of the Local Government Information Unit, an accredited IdeA Peer and chair of East London Housing Partnership.