LDAG NewsLDAG NewsLDAG News Inside this issue:

LDAG Update 2-3

Challenging Behaviour and Winterbourne View

4-7

Impact of Welfare Reform

7-8

Social Services and Well-being Bill Unveiled

Spring 2013

On 28 January 2013 the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Bill was introduced into the National Assembly for consideration and scrutiny. If the legislation is passed, it will provide the legal framework for improving the well-

being of people who need care and/or support, and to transform social services in Wales. The legislation will: Strengthen powers for safeguarding of children and adults; Allow the extension of the range of services available by direct

payments; Introduce national eligibility criteria and a National Outcomes

Framework; Introduce portable assessments; Introduce equivalent rights for carers to the people they care for; Establish a National Adoption Service to improve the outcomes of

children in need of a permanent family. On launching the Bill, Deputy Minister for Social Services Gwenda Thomas said: "There will be a stronger focus through the bill on preventative and early intervention services, based on greater partnership working and integration of services between local authorities and partners. "This bill will help us all tackle the many challenges facing social services in Wales, but will also allow us all to seize the opportunities before us". Read the full Bill (as introduced) and find out more on the National Assembly website.

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LDAG Update The new Learning Disability Advisory Group (LDAG) has been up and running since September 2012. The group is made up of people with knowledge and expertise in the field of learning disabilities in Wales including representatives from health, social services, research, voluntary sector and people with a learning disability. The LDAG was established by the Welsh Government to provide advice to the Deputy Minister for Social Services and to inform learning disability policy development within the context of the implementation of Welsh Government’s reform programme set out in the White Paper (2011) “Sustainable Social Services: A Framework for Action”.

The main workstreams of the new group are as follows:

Sustainable Social Services (eg Social Services and Well-being Bill, reshaping of services, partnership working, social services and health interventions)

Challenging behaviour and post-Winterbourne View (eg placements, inspections, Mental Health Measure)

Health inequalities (eg access to healthcare, health improvement, annual health checks)

Social integration and inclusion (eg celebrating the lives and contribution of people with a learning disability in Wales, Additional Learning Needs, relationships, hate crime).

Specific pieces of work will be undertaken by task and finish groups outside the main Learning Disability Advisory Group. These sub-groups will include relevant experts in the field with knowledge and experience of the particular topic.

On 23 April this year, the LDAG met for the fourth time and were very pleased to welcome Gwenda Thomas, Deputy Minister for Social Services, to the meeting. Gwenda

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opened the meeting by thanking the group for its commitment to improving the lives of people with a learning disability in Wales. She also outlined some of the highlights of the new Social Services and Well-being Bill that is currently in the first phase of scrutiny in the National Assembly. She described the Bill as “radical” and explained her belief that it will form the basis for the delivery of social services for the next generation.

In her written statement issued on 17 April, the Deputy Minister made a clear commitment to partnership working: “This Bill cannot be delivered without working together and real partnership – not only between the Welsh Government, National Assembly and social services departments, but also with wider Local Government, the NHS, the Third sector, the independent sector and the citizen. It is only through those partnerships, working together and most importantly listening to one another, can we get this vital legislation right, and with that aim in mind, I look forward to working with you all further over the coming months.”

The Deputy Minister also made reference to her written statement

(Continued from page 2) on well-being issued on 16 April in which she states: “Well-being is everyone’s right and everyone’s responsibility. We need to work together across Welsh Government, across sectors and agencies to promote well-being. […] This is about giving people a stronger voice and greater control over their lives, and ensuring people get the care and support they need to lead fulfilled lives.”

She also discussed her plans for a National Outcomes Framework and the involvement of stakeholders in the development process including a citizen’s panel and cross-party National Policy Forum. Gwenda concluded by reflecting on the fact that this year is the 30th anniversary of the All Wales Strategy and that while much has been achieved in the last 30 years, there is still progress to be made and, in her words, “we must not be complacent”.

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The Challenging Behaviour Community of Practice (CB CoP) met again in February with the usual selection of interesting and informative speakers dealing with a variety of relevant topics. Maria Saville and Paul McWade kicked off the day with a presentation on an innovative service developed by Halton Council in North West England. The presentation described the challenge of developing the Positive Behavioural Support Service during a time of cuts. The service is not just delivered in Halton but is also commissioned by neighbouring local authority Knowsley and the Halton and St Helen’s NHS Trust. The success of this service model was partly due to the strong business case put forward at the outset, highlighting the ‘spend to save’

philosophy and emphasising the importance of investing in improved local services in order to reduce and avoid the need for expensive ‘specialist’ or ‘crisis’ placements.

The four key functions of this specialist service are as follows:

Early intervention (eg consultations in schools, parent/carer training workshops)

Crisis prevention (eg upskilling mainstream services, transition planning)

Technical support (eg training and data collection)

Placement development.

The next discussion topic was the post-Winterbourne reports by Department of Health (DoH) and

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Challenging Behaviour and Winterbourne View

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other agencies in England. As a result of the DoH report, a cross-government Learning Disability Partnership Board has been set up in England to oversee the implementation of the report’s recommendations, measure progress against milestones, monitor risks to delivery and challenge external delivery partners to deliver on all commitments in the action plan. The action plan consists of 63 national actions with timescales. It is designed to “lead a redesign in care and support for people with learning disabilities or autism and mental health conditions or behaviours viewed as challenging [and] ensure better experiences and improved outcomes for this very vulnerable group of people”.

The CoP agreed that the measures being taken in England in response to the Winterbourne View scandal appeared to be very robust and that similar measures were needed in Wales. It was pointed out that the DoH report did lack a description of the preferred model of care and that the voice of people with a learning

(Continued from page 4) disability themselves was also missing from the England-based reports. This presents an opportunity for

Wales to have a unique input into the post-Winterbourne agenda.

It was agreed that a sub-group of the CoP would meet on 21 March to discuss this topic and agree the next steps for Wales before reporting back directly to the LDAG. The group came up with a list of the issues such as lack of appropriate accommodation, funding constraints, quality of assessments, lack of accurate data, standards of staff training, knowledge and understanding of commissioners, lack of pooled budgets etc. They then produced a list of actions required to overcome these issues including:

a register of children and adults placed out-of-area

standards for transition planning and monitoring

identifying providers and reviewing the quality of placements in hospital and registered residential settings

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a review of learning disability policy in Wales

identifying infrastructure to meet Wales’ future needs for supporting people with a learning disability

joint/pooled health and social care budgets

accreditation of services

national minimum training standards

collaboration between children’s services, education and adult services

involvement of individuals and families in the planning and monitoring of services.

The next stage of the meeting was to look at how the actions could be implemented and the group unanimously agreed that Wales needed an equivalent structure to England with a board to oversee the implementation of the action plan. The board would need to have sufficient power to ensure that all the relevant agencies in Wales work together to deliver the action plan and implement the recommendations. Edwin Jones attended the most recent meeting of the LDAG to report on the

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Winterbourne sub-group’s progress and agreed to provide the co-Chairs with the first draft of the action plan by 23 May.

In addition to the work of both the CoP and LDAG, a campaign group of representatives from the voluntary sector called “No Winterbourne in Wales” met with the Deputy Minister, Gwenda Thomas, back in September 2012 to raise their concerns about the Winterbourne View scandal and ask Welsh Government to take action to ensure that a similar scandal never occurs in Wales. The group has continued to correspond with the Deputy Minister since that initial meeting and arranged to meet with her again on 8 May to discuss progress and next steps. Jim Crowe, Director of Learning

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Disability Wales, is leading this group and wrote to all local authorities and local health boards in Wales back in August 2012 before his initial meeting with Gwenda Thomas. His letter asked a number of specific questions about the commissioning of services for people with a learning disability and challenging behaviour. To date, only 7 of the 22 local authorities and 2 of the 7 local health boards have

(Continued from page 6) responded to Jim’s letter but analysis of these responses has highlighted a number of issues and concerns which the group will be raising with the Deputy Minister. The meeting will also provide an opportunity to update the Deputy Minister on the work of the CoP and LDAG post-Winterbourne as well as seeking clarification of what Welsh Government is doing to ensure that no Welsh citizen ever suffers the sort of abuse inflicted on the residents of Winterbourne View.

Impact of Welfare Reform On 29 April at the Pierhead Building, Cardiff Bay, Disability Wales launched a report produced by the Bevan Foundation detailing the impact of Welfare Reform on disabled people living in Wales.

The event was sponsored by Leanne Wood AM and speakers included Victoria Winckler, Director of the Bevan Foundation, Amelia John, Head of Fairer Futures at Welsh Government and Owen Smith MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Wales.

The report, entitled “Cap in hand?”, highlights the likelihood of cumulative negative effects as a result of planned changes to the benefit system, as explained by Victoria Winckler: “Some disabled people will

be affected by not one change to benefits but several, potentially losing almost all their income as well as associated benefits such as eligibility for a Blue Badge. A disabled person whose

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Page 8 LDAG News

impairments are moderate could easily not only lose their Disability Living Allowance but also their contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance after a year. He or she would have no income, relying totally on family and friends for food, clothing and heating, even though he or she may still not be fit for work.”

Rhian Davies, Chief Executive of Disability Wales, also spoke at the event and outlined her concerns for the future: “As well as increasing disabled people’s poverty and exclusion, the changes will also affect their families and wider communities. We fear that it will turn back the clock to a time where disabled people and their families had to go ‘cap-in-hand’ to the authorities to receive any support or assistance.”

(Continued from page 7) In response to the concerns raised in the report, Amelia John, Head of Fairer Futures, stated that “Welsh Government will do their best to mitigate the impact of Welfare Reform in Wales”.

However, as benefits and employment are both non-devolved, Welsh Government has no real power in these areas and is therefore unable to make any changes to the reforms themselves.

This event was yet another sobering reminder of what the future may hold for disabled people in Wales once the changes to the welfare system start taking effect. The

report also makes a series of recommendations aimed at UK and Welsh Governments, and other public sector bodies to prevent disabled people from being pushed further into poverty, isolation and dependence.

For more information or to let us know what you think, contact Sam Williams on 029 20681160 or via e-mail: samantha.williams@learningdisabilitywales.org.uk