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As I said, at the moment, the level of demand is increasing hugely, and local health boards are unable to meet that demand, so the Government is looking at what we can do and what we can put in place to try to improve efficiency. For example, we are looking to develop waiting list initiatives. There are no simple strategies that we can lift off a shelf and put in place, but I assure you that we are working on the issue. I would be happy to come back and provide an update.

I am keen to put on the record why we think that such legislation is needed. It has already been mentioned that even though a number of powerful strategies, ambitions, policy and legislation are in place, we are still slow in making progress in this area. The provision of statutory underpinning for some of the work that we have done is one reason to consider legislation.

Another point to understand is that we are sure that some outcomes are particularly poor for people with learning disabilities and neurodivergent people. There are some really significant differences between that population and the general population. On family, for example, only 5 per cent of people with learning disabilities live with a partner, compared with 56 per cent of the rest of the population. Between 40 and 60 per cent of parents with a learning disability will have their children removed from their care as a result of their being assessed as unable to provide adequate care.

The same population is overrepresented in the justice sphere. About 39 per cent of prisoners have a learning disability or difficulty. It is likely that people with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder are very overrepresented in the justice system. They are 19 times more likely to be imprisoned than people without FASD. There are significantly higher rates of experience of gender-based violence in that population.

People with learning disabilities and neurodivergent people really struggle to fulfil their educational potential, and when it comes to employment, there are significant differences between that population and the general population. For example, around 4.8 per cent of people with learning disabilities are in employment. That rises to about 29 per cent for autistic people but, for the general population, the figure is significantly higher—it is 82 per cent—and more than 50 per cent of members of the general disabled population are employed.

Those are really different outcomes, which all point to the fact that this particular population is really struggling to have its human rights recognised and upheld in every situation, which is why it is so important that we make progress. It is also why legislation is needed, because we really are struggling to effect change without it.

A number of community-based supports are available. As I said, in Scotland we take the getting it right for every child approach. That is not a deficit-based approach—it is not necessary for a child to have a diagnosis before supports can be put in place. The education system should be focused on meeting a child’s needs and upholding their right to education.

As a Government, we invest in a number of community-based supports. We have provided local authorities with £15 million per annum to deliver community-based mental health and wellbeing supports. When people are referred into the system, they should be given guidance by their local authority on where they can access support locally. The availability of assets in the local community varies from area to area, but those should all be signposted to people so that they can access support. As I said, the education system should be well able to support such a child, regardless of whether they have a diagnosis.

As I said, we are working with local health boards on how to increase access for adults and children. We recognise that demand has increased dramatically all over the country, partly because of the reduction in the level of stigma that is experienced on such issues, and we are determined to make progress.

There is no simple strategy that we can lift off the shelf to ensure that people get access overnight. We will have to work very carefully in each local area to ensure that we deliver something that will make an impact on a regional basis.

The needs of the LDAN population are different from those of the general disability population. The outcomes are certainly different. In relation to employment statistics, 48 per cent of people with a learning disability are in employment and 29 per cent of people with autism are in employment, although the figure goes up to 50 per cent for those with a disability. All three figures compare badly with the figure for the general population, which is more than 80 per cent. In addition, I do not think that disabled people in general experience the same challenge with overrepresentation in the justice system; that is a particular challenge for the LDAN population. If we keep our focus on the different outcomes that that population experience, we will find the right solution.

One of the other challenges with a disability commissioner is that, as I have mentioned, autistic people often do not define themselves as disabled, so it would be challenging for them to access that means of upholding their rights if they do not see themselves as part of the population that would be covered by a disability commissioner.

I am open to hearing from people, but the Government thinks that the LDAN population require a specific approach to ensure that their rights are recognised and upheld in all areas across their lifespan.

We were just delighted with the level of the response to the consultation—I think that we had more than 900 responses. We would never have got that level of response if it was not for all the work of the various stakeholders and charities, which really helped to ensure that people could engage and that their voices were heard.

We are absolutely hearing loud and clear that there is consultation fatigue in the community, and we are thinking about ways to make the process easier for people to engage with and more straightforward. Breaking the process up into smaller chunks of work is likely to be part of the approach, as is consulting in different ways—for example, holding round-table meetings rather than asking people to provide written responses to a consultation. We are looking at different ways of bringing the issues to life and of gleaning people’s opinions from those approaches. We are very much thinking about that.

I have told the committee before how powerful the voice of lived experience is in all this work, and we really want to do this well. We are listening carefully to what the community is telling us and we are trying hard to ensure that we check in with them and put their voice at the heart of the work that we are doing, without that being too burdensome for them. Carmen Murray, do you want to add to that?

First, I would say that I am sorry. I am disappointed, too, that we have not been able to make progress at the pace that we wanted to. That is thoroughly disappointing.

I came to the conclusion, however, that it was absolutely necessary to pause the bill and spend a little longer working on it, because it was clear that in a number of areas we did not have a settled way forward and, particularly, because of the Parliament raising concerns over whether commissioners are effective and whether the commissioner landscape is saturated. It is important that we have taken time to reflect on those things before deciding on the way forward in order to build accountability into the bill.

I agree that it is disappointing. However, I do not think that it is fair to say that we have made no progress at all. I think that we have made some progress. We have heard directly from people. Today, the committee has discussed the concerns that have been raised around the process of consultation, but we have heard people’s voices. We have considered some really complex solutions to complex problems and, for much of what we consulted on, we have a signal on the way forward. We will crack on with that work.

There will be work on developing the provisions of the bill and, in the meantime, we will put other work in place. I will work closely with the stakeholder group and the LEAP—indeed, with all three panels—to ensure that they know the impact that their work is having on the progress that we are making.

My officials might want to add something to that.

You are absolutely correct that our understanding is that, globally, around 90 per cent of women with learning disabilities will experience gender-based violence, and a huge proportion of them—68 per cent—will experience it before they turn 18. People with autistic traits are more likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse and physical or emotional abuse compared with those who do not have those traits.

The Scottish Government has several pieces of on-going work to address gender-based violence. The delivering equally safe fund provides £38 million over two years to support projects that focus on early intervention, prevention and support. The equally safe delivery plan contains a specific commitment on gender-based violence against people with learning disabilities, which Jacqueline Campbell spoke about. We are funding and facilitating a steering group for that commitment, in partnership with People First (Scotland).

Some of the actions include strengthening people’s understanding of relationships, particularly in schools. As part of the curriculum, we are trying to ensure that pupils have an understanding of normal, healthy relationships; we are also addressing violence against women and girls in education settings, and we are improving access to justice.

A number of strands of work are on-going. You are right to point out that there is a particular vulnerability in the community. Specific work undoubtedly needs to be done to understand that, so that we can get an idea of the size of the challenge that we are facing and come up with strategies to address it.

You are right that the data is weak, and more work needs to be done to improve that. In the health service, we found that there was a huge data gap until the pandemic, when we started to administer vaccines and collect data on the ethnicity of people who were receiving vaccines. It is quite a new thing to collect equalities data in our public health services and in our public services in general, and it is really important that we do that.

I spoke about the different experiences of the learning disability community and of people with autism in terms of gender-based violence. One of the challenges is that many autistic people do not identify as disabled, so they do not say that they have a disability, and that data is not collected in many cases.

There are real challenges among all this. I remember that, when we started to collect data on the ethnicity of people who were receiving vaccines, there was a lot of concern about why we were collecting that data and what we were doing with it. If we have a new data strategy, we need to carefully communicate that the data will be safe, that there is a reason for collecting it and that we understand how the data will be used to develop better and more responsive services in the future.

Another example where there has been a lot of controversy comes from school questionnaires that are used to understand the behaviour and lives of our children and young people. There has been a lot of political interest and concern about why we ask young people some questions. The answer is that we want to develop better public services that more closely meet their needs.

I agree that we need to be better at data collection. That will enable us to develop better and more responsive and targeted services for people in the future.

We have spoken a fair bit about data. We have covered annual health checks and, as I said, I am determined to make progress on that. On education, we are currently exploring options to strengthen the existing professional learning opportunities for education staff on additional support for learning. We have also committed to undertaking an analysis of the learning hours that are attributed to additional support for learning content in IT programmes across Scotland.

We have touched on employment a little. In the short term, the Scottish Government will, by the end of this year, respond substantively to the Economy and Fair Work Committee’s inquiry report into the disability employment gap. We will also continue to implement the fair work action plan and the no one left behind approach.

We talked about the work on gender-based violence. There is a commitment to deliver the gender-based violence and learning disabilities steering group action plan. Actions in the plan include improving access to justice and support services for women and girls with learning disabilities. That mirrors the outcomes that were agreed by the steering group.

Jacqueline Campbell spoke about the work that we are doing with parents with learning disabilities, particularly with People First, on ways to support them. That is about early intervention to prevent that particularly tragic unfolding situation in which 40 to 60 per cents of parents with a learning disability are having their children removed. Work is on-going on transitions.

On diagnosis and support, I am asked regularly in Parliament about the access to diagnosis and ND assessments for children and adults. There is a rise in the number of people seeking those diagnoses, which is partly related to the decrease in stigma. In some areas it is a 1,500 per cent rise, which has proved very difficult for local areas to accommodate. We are working with local health boards to put in place access to ND assessments. Those assessments should not be the be-all and end-all. Using the getting it right for every child approach, children in the education system should have their needs met and their rights upheld whether or not they have a diagnosis. However, access to a diagnosis is important. It is not unnecessary, and we are trying to speed up and improve that on the ground.

Work is on-going on mental health law. We recognise the challenge around how learning disabilities and autism in particular are caught up in mental health law and in the definition of “mental disorder”, and we hear that concern. The committee will have heard about that in some of the evidence that it has received. We are very cautious about making changes in case there are unintended consequences, but we are doing a piece of work to see whether there is a better way to approach the issue. A number of recommendations have been made to update mental health law, and while we look at that piece of work, we will certainly consider whether the definition of “mental disorder” is right. Therefore, there is a suite of work.

As I said, at the meetings with the three panels next week, we will get into the detail of that and talk about what work we want to see happening and when we think that it might be possible to feel the tangible difference and the impact of the voice of lived experience on the progress on that work. Therefore, pretty soon, we should be able to speak to the community and come to an agreement on what we expect to see going forward as well as the legislation, which will progress at a slightly slower pace.