Learning Disability Services (Hansard, 1 April 2003)

§ Baroness Andrews

We are today publishingMaking Change Happen, the Government's annual report on learning disability services. The report describes progress made in implementing the programme of action set out in the White Paper Valuing People: A New Strategy for Learning Disability for the 21st Century (Cm 5086) and contains a response to Making Things Happen, the first annual report of the Learning Disability Task Force, published in January this year.

People with learning disabilities are among the most socially excluded and vulnerable groups in society. In March 2001 we published Valuing People, which set out an ambitious and challenging cross-government programme to improve the services they use. Over the last year we have been able to report good progress with the Valuing People programme and are now pleased to be able to report that progress is continuing. Since Valuing People was published: more advocacy groups are receiving funding and councils are spending more on advocacy; more people with learning disabilities are receiving direct payments; more people with learning disabilities are in employment; more families with severely disabled children are receiving family support; the National Forum of People with Learning Difficulties has been set up to give people with learning disabilities a national voice. The forum has members on the Learning Disability Task Force, which is itself co-chaired by someone with a learning disability.

Today's report describes the setting up of the basic framework for the implementation programme—the Valuing People support team, learning disability partnership boards, the National Forum of People with Learning Disabilities and the Learning Disability Task Force. We are now building on that framework.

Earlier this year we were pleased to welcome the task force's first annual report. The report we are publishing today includes a response to the task force and confirms our readiness to work with it as it continues to monitor the implementation of the whole Valuing People programme.

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Today's report is written in an accessible form, using pictures and straightforward, jargon-free language. It is important that people with learning disabilities can see for themselves what is being done to improve the services they use.

The Valuing People Support Team has made an excellent start in developing links with learning disability partnership boards and supporting them as they implement the White Paper's proposals at local council level. We can confirm that the support team will continue its work until 2006. We can also confirm the continuation of the Implementation Support Fund and the Learning Disability Development Fund.

Valuing People said that it would take a minimum of five years for its programme to be implemented. We have made good progress towards that target in the two years since its publication.