Budget impact on support for people with learning disabilities

GUEST POST: Anthea Sully is the Director of the Learning Disability Coalition. There are 14 member organisations and over 150 supporter organisations which campaign to ensure there is better funding for social care support for people with a learning disability. The budget focused heavily on the Chancellor’s plans for growing the economy and job creation, but there was very little which acknowledged the deepening crisis in social care support. The Learning Disability Coalition, formed in 2007 to fight against the cuts in social care, has often found that in times of crisis, it is the people who need the most support who suffer the most. In our current age of austerity, this has never been truer. In the last year, we have seen an unprecedented reduction in services and support for people with learning disabilities. These range from big cuts, such as the closure of day services and respite homes to arbitrary cuts of 10% or more to all support packages, to the small, seemingly harmless cuts such as the reduction the number of incontinence pads for which a child is eligible. Sometimes it is the smallest cuts which take away people’s dignity and are the hardest to fight against that do the most damage. It is hardly surprising then, that so many people with a learning disability, their parents and carers joined the March for the Alternative on 26th March. The recent report, Social Care – the Continuing Crisis by the Learning Disability Coalition, showed the struggle facing local councils to balance their budgets and provide adequate social care support for people with learning disabilities. 90% of councils who responded to the LDC survey stated that they have less funding than last year, with 20% already making cuts. People with learning disabilities and their families are very concerned for the future. One parent of a person with a learning disability has told us that, “they are proposing 50% cuts to the care budget [for my daughter], total removal of 1-to-1 support, and a threatened move, against our daughter’s will, to a cheaper provider.” Another summed up the importance of social care support to them, by saying: “services for disabled people are not extras or luxuries, but just help towards enabling [them] to achieve some kind of equality with the activities and lives of the rest of us.” In times when budgets are stretched, it is vital that local authorities must continue to prioritise social care and spend the money allocated on such support. However, this alone will not solve the social care crisis. There are long-term pressures, including the increase in the number of people who need support, and the higher costs of supporting people with higher needs. The Government insists that it has provided enough funding for social but it is very apparent that there needs to be significantly higher levels of funding in the system. That is why we will be continuing our campaign to ‘Protect the Frontline’.

Cuts! Where is the opposition?

The addition of Andy Coulson to our unemployment statistics will hardly come as a shock to most readers of this blog. At the moment there is no evidence to suggest he had any involvement in the phone hacking scandal now being unravelled at the News of the World. Having said that, when a number of your senior team are accused of being involved in illegal acts, there is a very real danger the public will assume a ‘guilt by association’ factor.

Coulson will join a prestigious elite – the existing 2.5m people unable to find work in this country. He needn’t worry if he will have enough new colleagues either. With announcements yesterday that West Midlands NHS intends to enforce their mandatory 4% cut by reducing their workforce by 1,600, he will have plenty of company.

He will be joined later this year by hundreds of thousands of local and central government workers who will be axed because of cuts imposed by Cameron and Clegg and their sycophants.

It is rumoured they will be opposed by the trade union movement. Already Unison has instigated their “Million Voices” campaign which, of course, rocked the corridors of power (do you detect any cynicism?).

On top of this, the TUC are planning a mass demonstration – their “A Future that Works” rally, as a gesture of solidarity for young people. It’s a shame they couldn’t have shown a little more of this solidarity when students were marching against university fees and the withdrawal of EMA!

I dare say they are saving themselves for the big event – the TUC “March for the Alternative” on March 26th. No doubt they will be hoping for mass support, but there remains a huge niggle – why has it taken them almost 11 months to develop any real campaign against this Conservative-led government?

Let’s face it, the left have been caught wrong footed and as a result we have allowed the Tories to get away with murder. What we have let them do to us:
 An extra 100,000 unemployed with thousands more to follow,
 a 2.5% increase in VAT,
 huge cuts in our schools and health service, despite Cameron insisting before the election that frontline services would be protected.
 the decimation of our local libraries
 up to 8.9% cuts in local council funding (mainly to Labour authorities).

I could go on.

And what did we do to oppose it? Nothing!

Oh, I agree we established the Coalition for Resistance and there’s also the Right to Work Campaign – both worthy bodies, but how much impact have they really made? Do you see Eric Pickles shaking in his boots? Has Iain Duncan Smith looked embarrassed by the news of rising unemployment? Has George Osborne shown any signs of worry that inflation is gradually steering towards 5% with a raft of price increases running alongside reducing many to penury?

No!!

If the left is to oppose this government we will need to mobilise far more forcibly. This isn’t a nice walk in the park and we have to stop treating it like some fun-filled jamboree. Our unions need to organise mass demonstrations – taking a lesson from the experience of the recent student marches. Similarly, the Labour party needs to be seen to be far more at the heart of this opposition, with active involvement in campaigns, local cuts groups, sit-ins and strikes.

Don’t forget. as always, the Tories have one single mission – to destroy the working class movement. They have already begun and not without some success. If we don’t make our stand soon they will ride through us and totally destroy any chance to fight against them for a generation.