Learning Disability Coalition
Policy and statistics
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Read our submission to the consultation, 'Shaping the Future of Care Together'
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Read our submission to the Treasury on expenditure on services for people with learning disabilities
Download the LDC/CEDR/Mencap report 'People with Learning Disabilities in England'
Download the accessible version of our Key Statistics factsheet
Policy context
The Learning Disability Coalition believes that people with a learning disability should have the same chances and choices as everyone else.
The Government has promised a lot for people with a learning disability. It talks of rights, independence, choice and inclusion as being the key principles that underline their vision.
But this vision will never become a reality without better funding: a flaw in its proposals that it consistently fails to address.
What is social care?
The term social care encompasses a wide range of services which support people with daily tasks that they cannot accomplish themselves and which ideally help them, as much as possible, to become independent and to play a full part in society.
Amongst many other services, it includes:
Day centres
Home care
Residential care
Personal assistants
Social care is not restricted to people with a learning disability: for example, people with mental health problems, older people and other groups also receive it.
The drive towards personalisation
The Government's social care policies are aimed towards the greater personalisation of services. Personalisation is the concept of individuals having choice and control over their own services.
The Government first committed itself to personalisation in the 2005 paper Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People. They stated that personalisation was a key part of achieving their ambition of equality for all disabled people in Britain by 2025. They then reiterated this position in the Green Paper Independence, Well-being and Choice, also in 2005. And in 2006, the White Paper Our Health, Our Care, Our Say further refined the policy.
Read Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People
Read Independence, Well-being and Choice
Read Our Health, Our Care, Our Say
More recently, the Government has expanded on its position in the documents Putting People First (2007) and the Independent Living Strategy (2008).
Putting People First is a short concordat signed by statutory bodies, central and local government, service providers, and other groups. It was not signed by any organisations that deal exclusively with learning disability issues. It states:
'The time has now come to build on best practice and replace paternalistic, reactive care of variable quality with a mainstream system focussed on prevention, early intervention, enablement, and high quality personally tailored services. In the future, we want people to have maximum choice, control and power over the support services they receive.'
The Government has recently finished consulting on the Independent Living Strategy. The consultation paper set out the Government's policy commitments and how their implementation will be monitored. These are based on the cross-government strategy to deliver independent living identified in the Independent Living Review.
Read the Independent Living Strategy consultation document
Individual budget pilots
The Government has attempted to put personalisation into practice with a series of pilots of individual budgets around the country. There has been a delay in publishing the evaluations of the pilots, and this has led to some controversy over the Government's indications that it is pressing ahead with personalisation despite this lack of analysis.
Read more about the individual budget pilots
Learning disability policy
As well as producing policies relating to social care in general, the Government has published policy work relating specifically to services for people with a learning disability.
The Government first set out its aspirations for people with a learning disability in the paper Valuing People, published in 2001 and the consultation paper Valuing People Now, published in 2007. Valuing People Now was published because the Government believed that the implementation of Valuing People was progressing too slowly. It also slightly modifies the Government's stance on some issues. The final version of Valuing People Now, incorporating the response to the consultation, is due to be published in October 2008.
Valuing People:
Stated that the Government's four guiding principles for change are: Rights, Independence, Choice and Inclusion
Announced new national objectives for services, with targets and performance indicators
Announced the Learning Disability Development Fund, of up to £50 million per annum. This was to be targeted on the key priorities of the paper. This was to be partly funded by the savings made through the closure of long-stay hospitals (long stay hospitals are a form of provision that is no longer considered appropriate by most in the sector).
Announced a new Implementation Support Fund of £2.3 million a year for 3 years intended to fund a variety of large-scale projects, including advocacy services and a national information centre and helpline.
Valuing People Now:
Stated that the Government's four guiding principles for change are: Rights, Independence, Choice and Inclusion
Emphasised that the Valuing People agenda applies to all people with a learning disability, including those with very complex needs
Focused particular attention on: health, employment and other day activities, housing and personalisation
Set specific time-frames for progress and an emphasis on actually delivering change - an area that the original Valuing People was criticised in.
A new start?
The Government is currently in the process of re-organising the social care system. There are two key strands to this work:
The forthcoming Green Paper on social care. The Government is currently consulting on the contents of this paper, which is expected to focus on how the social care system can be funded in the future.
The forthcoming review of the Fair Access to Care (FAC) system. The Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) is currently preparing its response to a public consultation on the FAC system, which is used to decide whether people are considered eligible for social care. It is now widely considered to be in need of replacement, due to campaigning by the Coalition and work by CSCI itself which has shown that it fails large numbers of vulnerable people.
Contribute to the consultation on the Green Paper
Carers
The Government has recently published its carers' strategy. The main points of the strategy were:
£150m investment over two years in short breaks and replacement care to give carers time off from caring.
£38m to help carers to enter or re-enter work
Read the carers' strategy here
Further information
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The Social Care pages on the Department for Health's website provide information on Government initiatives.
The State of Social Care in England 2006-2007, a report by CSCI which helped to shed light on the extent to which the tightening of eligibility criteria has led to exclusion from social care services.
Strong & Prosperous Communities, a White Paper which set out how the Government planned to make local government more responsive to the needs of communities.
Spending Pressures Affecting People with Learning Disabilities National Survey Oct 2005. This paper presents the results of a survey carried out by the Valuing People Support Team.
Pressures on Learning Disability Services. A 2005 report for ADSS (now ADASS) calling on the Government to review spending on learning disability services.
Local Government in England and the Comprehensive Spending Review Institute of Public Finance CIPFA
Adults with Learning Difficulties in England 2003-4(Eric Emerson, Sally Malan, Ian Davies & Kara Spencer) National Statistics, Health and Social Care Information Centre
Evaluating the Impact of Valuing People February 2005 Report on Phase 1 A Review of existing National Datasets (Chris Hatton, Eric Emerson & Carolyn Lobb)
Evaluating the Impact of Valuing People Report on Phase 2 What information should we collect to evaluate Valuing People? August 2006
Evaluating the Impact of Valuing People Report of Phase 3 Moving Towards Evaluating Valuing People in Practice August 2006
