Learning Disability, Autism and Neurodiversity Bill: scoping analysis 2022

1. Introduction

Easy Read version of this publication can be found here; https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781805255598

In September 2021, the Scottish Government's Programme for Government stated that we would carry out scoping work on the remit and powers of a Learning Disability, Autism and Neurodiversity Bill. We sought to use this work as an opportunity to understand what this piece of legislation had to do to uphold and protect the rights of autistic people, people with learning disabilities, and other neurodivergent people.

Between May and July 2022, the Autism and Learning Disabilities Team ran 30 events with 18 different organisations. A full list of these organisations is provided in Annex A of this report.

Events consisted of workshops run both online and in-person. During these workshops, we had open discussions around the themes of Human Rights, the Scope of a Bill, Language, and Engagement.

The organisations with whom we conducted this work consisted of a mix of Disabled People-led Organisations (DPOs). We also included national and smaller charities who advocate for and support autistic people, people with learning disabilities, and/or other neurodivergent people.

We used these networks to reach a wide range of people with lived experience, to understand their views on the challenges that they face and potential solutions. We sought to adopt a human rights-based approach to policy design that involved the people whom the legislation would affect from its inception.

We had existing relationships with most of the organisations with whom we worked. This means that our findings should not be taken as representative of all neurodivergent people. Our formal public consultation will seek to extend our reach and include the widest range of views possible.