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A national charity run for and by people with learning difficulties has criticised draft guidance published by the Lord Chancellor's Department for placing more power in the hands of carers and professionals.

The guidance issued by the Lord Chancellor on helping people who have difficulty making decisions for themselves is aimed at relatives and carers, health care professionals, social care professionals, legal professionals, people with learning difficulties, and people wishing to plan for future incapacity.

The six leaflets are a stopgap arrangement until the government's proposals for law reform set out in October 1999 in Making Decisions can be introduced.

Michelle Chinery, campaign officer for People First and co-chairperson of the national learning disability task force set up by the government, said: "People with learning difficulties are bossed around and told they are not capable. Yet these people inflicting the emotional abuse might now be given the power to decide if a person with learning difficulties can take a decision or not.

"Instead, we should be supporting procedures that help people make their own decisions, and encouraging self-advocacy. Even non-verbal people can take decisions with the right support."

People First has criticised the failure to date by the Lord Chancellor's Department to publish the leaflets in a form that is accessible to people with learning difficulties, or to put the information on audio-tapes. "It is those people who can't read who are probably most likely to get their powers taken away," Chinery said.

The Lord Chancellor's Department blamed lack of time and money, but has promised to publish a later draft of the leaflet for people with learning difficulties in an accessible form and to conduct a second "mini consultation".

However, Mencap, which represents people with learning difficulties and their parents and carers, strongly supports the proposed legislation.

"We don't think it will take their rights away," a spokesperson for Mencap said. "But there will be people with dementia or with profound learning difficulties who cannot make their own decisions. So there needs to be a legal framework in place for people making substitute decisions."

- The consultation period ends 9 July. The six leaflets are available at website: www.lcd.gov.uk/consult/family/decision.htm