Executive Summary: Learning Disabilities, Autism and Neurodivergence Bill: Consultation Analysis

Executive Summary

Introduction

The Scottish Government undertook a public consultation on the creation of a new Learning Disabilities, Autism and Neurodivergence (LDAN) Bill. Proposals covered a wide range of overarching themes and sector specific issues. The consultation ran for four months, from December 2023 to April 2024 and asked 61 questions. A total of 877 responses were analysed, including 609 responses from individuals/groups of individuals, and 268 organisations.

The main findings from the analysis are outlined below. Where specific proposals were set out in the consultation, these are presented below based on levels of support for each, i.e. the most popular proposals are outlined first through to the least popular. Where all proposals within a section received largely similar levels of support, their presentation reflects the order they were set out in the consultation. As most questions were open-ended questions, feedback was mainly qualitative in nature and accurate numbers and percentages cannot be provided to quantify all findings.

Feedback and views tended to be mixed within respondent groups, with views also echoed across a wide range of respondent types. As such, the findings largely reflect the views of multiple respondent typologies (across both individual typologies and organisational sectors).

Recurring Feedback

A number of common issues were identified and discussed by respondents, including:

• The need to include those with lived experience in designing, delivering and evaluating any changes, strategies and guidance, inclusive communication, training, and/or data collection, analysis and reporting;
• The need for staff training, both in learning disabilities, autism and neurodivergence, and around inclusive communication and other proposals/ measures;
• The need for accessible communication and information to be proactively provided and to go beyond Easy Read options;
• The need for advocacy support to be provided, to have consistency in advocacy workers, and for them to have appropriate learning disabilities and neurodivergence training;
• Concern over funding and resources/staffing, and how each of the proposals would be delivered given the currently stretched finances and staffing problems across public sector services;
• The need for robust accountability and real consequences for services not delivering on strategies or legal requirements;
• A need for clarity around what the LDAN Bill sought to achieve that was not (or should already be) covered by existing legislation, such as the Equality Act, the Human Rights Act, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), among others; and
• That legislative change may not be the most appropriate way to achieve the desired proposals or changes.

Across most of the sections covered by the consultation, large proportions of respondents supported all proposals that were outlined and/or felt that all proposals should be implemented in combination to develop the most robust and impactful solution.