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The government’s ability to ensure implementation of the Valuing People programme could be hampered by cuts to its learning difficulties policy team, writes Mithran Samuel.

Sources close to the Department of Health say it is no longer possible to identify any policy officer working specifically on Valuing People, where once up to 12 people worked on learning difficulties issues.

This follows the replacement, as part of Whitehall-wide cuts, of its disability policy branch by a broader cross-client group team.

In its recent review of the 2001 white paper on learning difficulties, the Valuing People support team called for government pressure on councils and health bodies that are failing to implement the programme.

But some believe the policy cuts will make this impossible – despite former community care minister Stephen Ladyman’s promise to implement many of the review’s recommendations and urgently consider the rest.

Andrew Holman, head of charity learning difficulty charity Inspired Services, said Valuing People was no longer “being driven at the central policy level”.

But a DoH spokesperson said: “There is still a team that has learning disability policy as a major focus and the work of the Valuing People support team within the current implementation phase is extremely important.”