People with learning difficulties who are also from ethnic minorities face double discrimination and exclusion in all areas of their lives. The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and the Valuing People white paper were supposed to address these disadvantages.

Both these policies give a strong lead to local action for people with learning difficulties and people from ethnic minorities. These policies have enormous potential to reduce social exclusion, educational underachievement, higher rates of unemployment and health inequalities. However, people with learning difficulties who are from ethnic minorities find themselves in a strange position. As part of an ethnic minority their needs are being prioritised as are their needs as people with learning difficulties. However, within work on learning difficulties, their needs relating to ethnicity are not being prioritised.

The double disadvantage they face does not result in double priority. Instead, streams of work that try to address one area of disadvantage appear to regularly exclude attention to the other. In each area, therefore, the risk that people's needs will not be met is very high. When Valuing People was launched in 2001 this problem within learning difficulties services was clearly stated: "The needs of people from minority ethnic groups are too often overlooked."¹

The white paper pointed out the higher rates of learning difficulties in some ethnic groups, along with problems of late diagnosis and high levels of unmet need. It accepted that isolation, poor access to services and benefits, and insensitivity to cultural and religious needs were significant problems. The experience of people from ethnic minorities showed that disadvantage existed at several levels at the same time. Ethnicity, disability, poverty and gender could all be causes of discrimination.

The need to ensure that ethnicity was addressed in the work planned as a result of Valuing People was re-stated many times.

Yet, in practice, ethnicity has not been routinely included in the work Valuing People has generated. Feedback to the government's Learning Disability Taskforce indicates that few partnership boards are producing local action plans that mention work in this area. Guidance documents produced by government departments do not routinely include information about how to meet the needs of ethnic minority service users. While some deal with ethnicity in detail, others provide little or no helpful information or suggestions. Some specific guidance in the white paper in relation to people from ethnic minorities has yet to be published.

The extra resources provided to help put Valuing People into practice did not carry any condition that demographic profiles must be taken into account. The opportunity to improve access to services for those most poorly served - through, for example, the Learning Disability Development Fund or funds for advocacy or improving quality - was therefore lost.

No data have been collected about the number of service users from ethnic minorities - the one measure that was included in the white paper - and the Social Services Inspectorate has found that monitoring ethnicity is not routine.² There are no other measures that would help to find out how much work is being done with people from these groups. The task force has heard of good examples of work at a local level. Nationally, however, there is a need for more consistency and more active engagement with service users and carers from these communities.

Highlighting unmet need and encouraging the idea of ethnicity as a "cross-cutting theme" is clearly not enough to consistently challenge the tradition of excluding or marginalising people from ethnic minorities. This appears to be true of government departments as much as of partnership boards and service providers. Lack of leadership and of people with the skills and knowledge within relevant government departments to take such work forward means that, at best, the status quo is maintained and, at worst, inequalities become even wider.

In its response to the task force annual report, the government asked for ideas about how this problem could be solved.³ A task force sub-group had already been set up, comprising people with learning difficulties, researchers and people working in learning difficulties organisations and in government. The sub-group began to consider how to ensure the needs of ethnic minority communities were routinely included in all the new work on learning difficulties.

It realised that Valuing People itself provides an excellent model for developing services for people who have traditionally been excluded. This model is working, albeit slowly, for people with learning difficulties but it needs to be used twice if the government is serious about being inclusive and tackling "double discrimination". Treating ethnicity as a cross-cutting theme does not work without the targets, guidance, support and measures in place that help to stimulate and sustain change. These aspects of the white paper are the reason why the quality of life is improving for people with learning difficulties and why more consistency in service provision is being expected.

The government has begun the process of leadership by highlighting the unmet needs of people in ethnic minority communities. It has also agreed to make ethnicity a new priority for the Learning Disability Development Fund in 2004. Specific local targets are now needed such as increasing staff awareness and skills through training. Monitoring service outcomes and quality will be necessary to measure the effectiveness of this approach.

An important message in the sub-group's report is that ethnicity is not a separate priority that competes with other priorities. It is a theme which needs to be considered within each priority area. Work in this area is often seen as giving extra attention to ethnic minority groups; whereas it is really all about making sure they get the same resources and attention as other people with learning difficulties. Until the government shows clearly that it holds the same expectations for people from all ethnic groups, it is exposed to the charge of institutional racism and to the possibility of a legal challenge under the new legislation.

The sub-group's ideas are an attempt to bring together two pieces of government policy - Valuing People and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. The task force has accepted these ideas and will be asking the government to take them forward. The government's own annual report on learning difficulties will indicate how seriously this message is being taken.

After so many years of neglect, services for people from ethnic minorities will not catch up overnight. But Valuing People has shown that, with commitment, support and leadership, the lives of people with learning difficulties can change. The same commitment, support and leadership are needed to include people with learning difficulties from ethnic minorities, and their carers if the present inequalities in service provision are to be narrowed rather than widened.

The model for how to do this is already available in the white paper but it needs to be applied twice where double discrimination exists. Only then can we break the tradition of excluding people from ethnic minorities and show that valuing people means valuing everyone.

Ghazala Mir is a senior research fellow at the University of Leeds.

References

¹ Department of Health, Valuing People: A New Strategy for Learning Disability for the 21st Century, The Stationery Office, 2001

² Social Services Inspectorate, Fulfilling Lives: Inspection of Social Care Services for People with Learning Disabilities, London, 2003

³ Department of Health, Making Change Happen: The Government’s Annual Report on Learning Disability 2003, The Stationery Office, 2003