INTRODUCTION

  Brandon Trust is an independent charity supporting people with learning disabilities in a whole range of community situations. Further information about the organisation can be found on the Web-Site www.brandontrust.org This submission is made by Steve Day (Assistant Director—Organisational Development); although I have prepared this statement as an individual employee of Brandon Trust it is done so within the values base of the organisation. As an independent charity we would welcome further impute within the context of any parliamentary Joint Committee consideration on the rights of people with learning disabilities.

  This submission is written because there are a number of key areas in which people with learning disabilities still have issues which make true community inclusion problematic. In highlighting the areas below it is recognised that the relationship between these issues and the Human Rights Act 1998 is sometimes on the margins of direct correlation, nonetheless, in all cases these are very specific areas in which people with learning disabilities experience extreme difficulty in exercising their rights as citizens. The list is not exhaustive and as such is representative of a number of a continuing anomaly's related to this group of Disabled People.

THE VALUING PEOPLE CONTEXT

  There have been a significant number of changes in the last few years which have brought greater awareness of the issues related to people with learning disabilities. It is only comparatively recently that both "rights" and "opportunities" have co-existed to enable people with learning disabilities gain inclusion into basic social policy (such as housing, employment, individually assessed and sourced social care and support).

  The Government White Paper, Valuing People (2001) and subsequent impute of the national team supporting this initiative should take some of the credit for this change in perception. We also recognise that initiatives such as Direct Payments, In Control, Individual Budgets, Self Directed Support, Supporting People and growth of the Third Sector have all contributed to furthering the broadening horizons for people with learning disabilities. There is now an urgent need to revise the aims and objectives of Valuing People to give their crucial national focus for learning disabilities the kind of pro-active agenda which would see the issues laid before the Joint Committee on Human Rights receive the attention they deserve.

BRANDON TRUST: CURRENT WORK

  Brandon Trust currently support 1,500 people with learning disabilities throughout the South West of England. Over the last 12 years it has been involved in a number of different projects which have their roots in the dismantling of the old "Health" Institutional response to, what was once termed, the care of the "mentally handicap", a term loaded with prejudicial perception and still used in some formats today. Brandon Trust works with a significant number of people with high support needs using individual support plans and person centred approaches radically different to the old structural provision of previous decades. Our recent current work in Cornwall is specifically about enabling people to have individual community support, where until recently they had been the subjects of an institutional response unfit for purpose.

EVIDENCE: MITIGATING AREAS

  In promoting a community based approach to enabling people with learning disabilities find ways which they, as individuals, can develop their own particular lifestyles we have identified six specific areas which mitigate and impact on the four key principles of Valuing People—Rights, Choice, Independence and Inclusion. It is these mitigating "areas" which are now drawn to the Joint Committee's attention:

—  The Right to Further Education: The transition from child based services to adult services can often be problematic; it is exasperated by the lack of inclusive "design" within Further Education in terms communication systems, structure of course work, and accessible entry into "specialist" subjects. The Government Web-Site states that "Universities and higher education colleges have an obligation to make provision for disabled students." Such "provision" is often only basic and takes little account of people with special needs. People with learning disabilities can undertake vocational qualifications which are capability assessed. There are some very good pieces of work being undertaken in this area but when it comes to academic study there is a wilful lack of special resources within the Further Education system. Adults with learning disabilities have little or no opportunity to undertake coursework on mathematics, history, philosophy, geography, subjects which are the stuff of ideas, ultimately driving choice, independence and inclusion. A right to education is a core requirement of the Human Rights Act, it is a key objective within the Valuing People White Paper yet there is little evidence within the Further Education system that a broad curriculum of learning is available to people with learning disabilities.

—  The Right to Employment: Access to employment for all citizens is a key objective of Government. According to law employers are tasked with making "reasonable adjustments in the workplace" to allow Disabled People access to a wide variety of employment. At Brandon Trust we take the view that there are many people, some with significant and profound learning disabilities, who could access part-time work if "reasonable adjustments" involved individual job carving and skills matching. Brandon Trust currently employs 37 people with learning disabilities out of a total workforce of 1,300 people. It is not unreasonable to believe that we could double this number by carving out particular pieces of work which relate to the skills of "matched" individuals. A number of organisations, particularly retailers such as Tesco, have done good work in this area. However, overall the number of adults with learning disabilities in permanent employment remains small.

—  The Right to Housing: The Supporting People project was launched in April 2003 and has involved 1.2 million "vulnerable people" being able to make the link between individual housing and support and care services. This was a very welcomed initiative despite the initial take up by people with learning disabilities being marginal. The initial slow start for people with learning disabilities was largely due to the Fair Access to Care Services protocol which all Local Government Adult Community Care Departments are bound into. This results in only those people with learning disabilities who are identified as having substantial or profound need being able to take-up Community Care funding—the "care" component of Supporting People. The 1.8 billion worth of initial Supporting People finance has been eroded; currently in 2007 there is a seeping away of Supporting People finance and no likelihood of this position reversing. Housing is key to people with learning disabilities being able to break free of institutional group living services. In turn Supporting People was/is a key component in making individual housing and individual care and support a reality for adults with learning disabilities. Other initiatives such as Individualised Budgets and the whole In-Control agenda offer ways forward; Supporting People provides a mechanism. The right to a decent standard of housing is still an uncomfortable battlefield of beliefs and contains little in the way of an accessible and quantifiable strategy by which to make this a reality.

—  The Right to Access: Although access to buildings and other public areas has significantly improved in recent years due to legislation, problems still remain. In April 2007 Brandon Trust staged a premie"re of a short film, My Unique Life, made by and for people with learning disabilities at the Watershed Arts Centre in Bristol. It was a successful event with over 200 people attending. The Watershed had good access and worked with us to ensure people with physical disabilities had a positive experience. However, parking for people in specially adapted vehicles within the immediate vicinity of the Arts Centre was lamentable poor. A new underground Millennium Car Park has "disability reserved parking" within the car park itself; however, this is not accessible to specialist wheelchair vehicles using tail-lifts due to a height restriction. Immediate on-street parking is extremely limited. The nearest multi-storey car-park to the Watershed is too far for those people with profound physical disabilities using specialist adapted wheelchairs. Whilst many people were able to attend My Unique Life at the Watershed, some missed out simply because parking arrangements were insufficient. This kind of issue is still common place. At the time of entering this submission, Brandon Trust has received no reply to a letter dated 8th May 2007 to Bristol City Council Parking Services.

—  The Anomaly of Direct Payments: In the UK the origins of the Direct Payments initiative has its roots in the Disability Rights campaigns which took place during the middle of the 1990's. The concept of Direct Payments sprang from Disabled People asserting their desire for financial control over the support services they required. The Community Care (Direct Payments) Act came into effect in April 1997. One of the key drivers to the change agenda with respect to Direct Payments is that in April 2003 new powers came into force requiring councils throughout England to offer Direct Payments to all people being assessed for community care services. Direct Payments is a welcomed initiative, however, although Direct Payments is one of several new initiatives to give people with learning disabilities greater power over their own lifestyles, this initiative also defuses quality of support in a number of important aspects. To take one example; people who accept a Direct Payments package lose the right to be supported by individuals who are registered under the General Social Care Council (GSCC). At a time when all domiciliary workers are about to be required to register with the GSCC, Direct Payment support workers have no such requirement. This is an anomaly because very often the only difference between two sets of domiciliary support is the funding stream itself. People have a right to expect that their support staff have the same level of expertise, training and monitoring as support staff employed elsewhere in the Care Sector. Direct Payments has the potential to offer people with learning disabilities a real stake in the way they individually receive and manage services, nevertheless it is crucial that such a move retains people's rights to quality support.

—  The Opportunity of the Mental Capacity Act to empower: The Mental Capacity Act 2005 comes into force this year. Brandon Trust welcomes the clarity brought about by this piece of legislation. The five main principles of the Act provide an opportunity to empower people: (1) Assume a person has capacity unless proved otherwise. (2) Do not treat people as incapable of making a decision unless all practicable steps have been tried to help them. (3) A person should not be treated as incapable of making a decision because their decision may seem unwise. (4) Always do things or, take decisions for people without capacity, in their best interests. (5) Before doing something to someone or making a decision on their behalf, consider whether the outcome could be achieved in a less restrictive way. In the search to enable people with learning disabilities to have meaningful experiences in relation to their Human Rights the new Mental Capacity Act provides a useful framework for empowering people to take up their rights. The assumption of mental capacity is key; if this is applied in housing, employment, education and public accessibility then positive change will be generated.

  My hope is that this submission to the Joint Committee on Human Rights will be helpful in quantifying some of the issues related to people with learning disabilities in this country. As stated elsewhere in this submission the extension and further development of the national Valuing People Team would enable any recommendations which result from your deliberations to have active follow through. Brandon Trust would also be very willing to take a positive role in the further development of these issues.

Steve Day

Assistant Director (Organisational Development)

18 May 2007