Learning Disability Coalition

In the first of a series of articles on how people have responded to cuts to services for people with learning disabilities, Mike Claydon tells of his experience over the last few years in Wiltshire:

"As the parent of a child with a learning disability, I found the social care and education that he received whilst growing up to be of a generally high standard. Of course, there was never quite enough funding, but, with a few exceptions, there was enough money to get the job done.

Things have been very different since my son became an adult. The Government's Supporting People and Valuing People initiatives promised so much, but these ambitious plans have not always been realised.

We all thought that, finally, people with learning disabilities were going to be valued and listened to. We thought they would have a real say over their own lives and be treated with the dignity to which they have a right, just like anyone else.

Instead, we have had to battle against badly thought through policies and actions from government agencies that have made matters worse, not better, for people with learning disabilities.

Education

Late one evening a letter was delivered by hand to me at home and told me that I should attend a meeting about my son's further education course at Salisbury College. There were already rumours about cuts, so I was prepared for bad news. However, what we were told was worse than we could possibly have expected. I was told that my son's course would terminate in two weeks, and that after this time the College would no longer provide an education for him.

The College said that it had to cut my son's course because its budget for further education had been cut by £300,000 by the Learning and Skills Council. And instead of making cuts across the board, they decided to simply axe their further education courses for the least able.

It argued that most people on the course were making negligible academic progress, and so they were in effect providing 'day care' to people who were "ineducable".

This was nonsense. The college monitored every student's progress, tailoring the education they received to the speed at which they were able to learn. The course was rated as 'good' in its Ofsted inspection. In fact, the college's approach is strikingly similar to the model of good practice that the Government has recently started promoting through their 'Foundation Learning Tier' initiative.

So the College and Learning Skills Council were cutting a perfectly good course because of uninformed views about what was suitable for people with learning disabilities.

And as if this was all not enough, a further layer of incompetence has recently been revealed. It turns out that the £300,000 cut by the Learning and Skills Council - which the College implied had been imposed upon them from above - was actually due to the College's own overspend in the previous year.

So in fact all of this could have been avoided with more careful financial planning on the part of the College.

We had to do something to make sure that people with a learning disability were not left alone to suffer. So, in response to these cuts, South Wilts Mencap, of which I am a director and a trustee, has been instrumental in launching a club called 'Blue Skies.' It runs activities and courses for people with learning disabilities in a suite of rooms provided by a local church. 'Blue Skies' runs many activities including Keep Fit, Drama Classes, Computer Classes and the like - in fact any thing which the service users are interested in but it only meets two days a week.

Blue Skies caters for all people with learning disabilities, no matter what their age or level of need. The club was created to deal with the immediate need we were faced with. But it is not in any way a substitute for a properly resourced further education centre. And whilst we are very proud of what we have achieved, it should not be down to voluntary sector organisations such as our own to provide this sort of service. The provision of education and training is a job for government.

Social care

In 2006 the Council announced that it was restricting access to social care for people with learning disabilities. It did this by changing its 'eligibility criteria'. This means that it decided to stop supporting people unless their needs were defined by the Government as 'critical and substantial.'

This means that the council was refusing to help people who, amongst other things, were unable fully to carry out personal care and/or domestic routines. In other words, they were no longer supporting people who, according to Government definitions, were unable to cope on their own.

Wiltshire has already made some cuts in the following areas:

• Day services

• Transport

• Meals services

• Some Supporting People homes

There may also be cuts in other areas such as residential homes. There are many people in Wiltshire who are reliant on one or more of the above in order to maintain their quality of life.

In this case, it is actually not the Council that is solely to blame. The main reason for these cuts and the change in eligibility criteria is that the PCT refused to pay a sum of £7 million that it had previously agreed to pay to the Council to fund social care services.

That the PCT is able to get away with this is staggering. However, it does appear to behaving within the law. So once again, people with learning disabilities end up the victims of indifference by those whose job it is to protect their rights and dignity.

The principal actors change, but the problem remains the same: the Government, centrally and locally, needs to give more priority to spending on social care. I am glad there is going to be a review of adult social care. We need to engage with this to ensure that a good case is made for people with learning disabilities and their families. I hope that Valuing People Now will also help. We don't want Government to do everything for us, but we do want them to provide the basic framework so that our sons and daughters can have the best possible chance to lead a fulfilling life.... and make their own contribution to society."