Western Isles Council has given a reprieve to the Local Area Coordination service. Instead of giving notice to the service a three month long period of consultation has been established with a full council report going back to full council in June 2010.
This comes after a long week’s campaign by service users, carers and organisations. The importance of the service was emphasised in the difference that it makes to those that use the service, local councillors and MSPs were lobbied and a demonstration outside council Headquarters was held by carers and users. The press and STV carried reports.
The National Local Area Coordination team provided advice and support. LDAS lobbied councillors and provided information on various legal aspects of the Equality Impact Assessment.
Following this 3rd success in just two weeks it is clear that a combination of public protest, discussion with sympathetic councillors and the emphasis of legal duties under the Disability Equality Duty is forcing councils to apply a degree of scrutiny to their decisions that they have not had to do so in the past.
We believe that the emphasis on legal responsibilities under the Disability Equality Duty is particularly important as it give councillors an opportunity to closely question council officials. This is a matter that we hope to develop more in the future. It would appear that local authorities have not fully absorbed their responsibilities under this legislation and being called on it, recognise that they need to do this properly.
In a number of cases such as the Western Isles, it is a temporary reprieve for the service and therefore there needs to be some thought given by these services as to how they demonstrate that they deliver good outcomes. Service managers should give some thought on how this could be carried out and we think the Scottish Government’s “Talking Points” method can be useful as it gives strong prominence to the experiences and voices of those who use services.
Further they should not be shy of suggesting better ways of consultation to the local authorities. Existing community planning structures may not be able to represent all those who lobbied or demonstrated so new temporary arrangements may need to be made.
