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Meeting of the Parliament 24 September 2013

24 Sep 2013 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

New Learning Disabilities Strategy

Bibby, Neil Lab West Scotland Watch on SPTV

Scottish Labour is committed to improving the quality of life for people with learning difficulties, and we welcome the debate and the opportunity to examine how we can best act to turn that aim into reality.

As the minister said, the previous strategy, “The same as you?”, which was introduced in 2000 by the Labour-led Executive, has been hugely influential in changing attitudes and increasing support for people with learning disabilities. We therefore welcome the fact that the Government’s new publication, “The keys to life”, reflects the underlying principles of that strategy.

As I have said before in the chamber, we will support the Government where we agree with it and believe that it is doing things right, but we will point to areas where we believe that it could—and should—do more. As the Government refreshingly acknowledges in the motion, there is more to do, and we need to work across party lines to address that.

We know from the most recent statistics that there are more than 26,000 adults and 16,000 children and young people with learning disabilities who require support. According to Learning Disability Alliance Scotland, those people want three main things: a secure and safe place to stay; meaningful things to do with their time; and friends and family in their life. I do not think that any member in the chamber would dispute that those are things that everybody wants and which should not be too much to ask for.

Our challenge is to ensure that adequate support is provided to those who need it to allow them to fulfil those aims. We welcome the publication of the new strategy and support the drive to deliver better outcomes for people with learning disabilities—as well as their families and carers—in the areas of life that they say are most important to them.

However, there are considerable challenges that must be addressed if we are to ensure that the strategy does not fall into the trap of simply becoming another strategy that sounds good on paper but has little impact on the ground. Rhetoric must be turned into reality if the strategy is to be deemed a success.

Organisations such as Learning Disability Alliance Scotland have expressed reservations about the strategy’s lack of an overarching theme, and we must pay heed to their views. As I am sure many members have discovered for themselves in the past few days, “The keys to life” is a lengthy strategy that stretches to more than 170 pages, which detail 52 separate recommendations. Although the strategy declares a human rights focus, we need to ensure that people with learning disabilities are at the centre of improvements to the quality of their lives. In other words, we need to ensure that we are working with people rather than talking at them.

We must also consider some of the challenges that lie outside the strategy, and which will undoubtedly have an impact on its success. It is essential that the Scottish Government takes action to ensure that we establish a fair, consistent and transparent system of care for disabled people throughout Scotland. Resources continue to present a huge challenge to the delivery of support services, and local authorities of all colours are struggling with the pressures of delivering services in the face of vastly reduced budgets.

As a result, there has been a sharp increase in the use of care charges. Some authorities are charging as much as 100 per cent, and 25 of the 32 local authority areas charge a rate that is higher than the top rate of income tax. In my area, the previous Renfrewshire Council administration introduced charges for people with learning disabilities to pay transport to day care centres. That policy has now—thankfully—been reversed, but it had a serious impact on a large number of vulnerable people in the community. That emphasises the need for a consistent approach across the country that places the needs of people with a disability or learning disability at its centre.

I agree with the strategy when it states that the key to delivering effective services is to ensure that people are provided with the outcomes that they need at the right time and in the right place. We know that a range of public bodies are involved in delivering services that people with learning disabilities need. We should be encouraging local authorities, college and health boards, for example, to work together to achieve the kind of joined-up approach that benefits people, and to do that in conjunction with people with learning disabilities.

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Meeting of the Parliament 24 September 2013

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