• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Activism and Campaigning / Government ‘leaves self-advocates with #NoVoice’ after scrapping forum’s funding
A group of people stand with their hands over their mouths

Government ‘leaves self-advocates with #NoVoice’ after scrapping forum’s funding

By John Pring on 1st December 2016 Category: Activism and Campaigning

Listen

A national forum set up 15 years ago to involve people with learning difficulties in developing government policy is set to lose its Department of Health (DH) funding.

Inclusion North, the disability organisation that is paid by DH to run the National Forum of People with Learning Disabilities (NFPLD), has been told there are “currently no plans to extend, renew or re-tender” its two-year contract when it expires on 31 March.

Over the last two years, Inclusion North has received £419,000 to “facilitate and host” NFPLD and the National Valuing Families Forum, whose members are carers of people with learning difficulties and their allies.

When it was set up as a result of Labour’s ground-breaking Valuing People learning difficulties white paper in 2001, the government said NFPLD would “involve people with learning disabilities in policy development” and “contribute to monitoring the impact of Valuing People”.

But Inclusion North has now been told by DH to come up with an “exit plan”, including new ways of funding the forums.

A petition set up to call on ministers to reverse their decision has so far been signed by nearly 1,800 people, while a social media campaign has featured self-advocates pictured with their hands over their mouths to demonstrate the #NoVoice social media hashtag.

The petition says: “We work closely with the Government and national organisations at a high level to ensure that the voices of people with learning disabilities are heard when decisions are made that impact upon our lives.

“However we have now been informed by the Department of Health that our funding is to be completely cut in March 2017.

“We think that this decision is very wrong. It will be another way of taking away our voice.”

Ian Davies, a former member of the national forum and currently a coordinator of the East Midlands regional forum – but speaking to Disability News Service as an individual – said he felt “frustrated” by the government’s decision.

He said: “It’s a big loss. When you think about Valuing People when it started out in 2001 and what the government was trying to do, to set up a platform where people with learning difficulties could express their feelings to government, that’s going to be all taken away.

“They are not going to have that platform. Exactly what we think about what’s going on, that will not be there.

“How else are they going to hear those things from people themselves?” 

He added: “We know it has a lot to do with cuts. It’s cuts here, cuts there, cuts everywhere.

“Who gets it first? It’s people with learning difficulties.

“I can’t still understand why they want to drag that away from people when there is a lot of really good valuable work done on behalf of it.

“It’s done some really good, strong work in the past and now it’s going to end up with no funding.”

There are nine regional forums that feed into NFPLD, with two representatives from each of them elected by their own members to sit on the national forum.

Two members of the national forum attend the government’s National Learning Disability Programme Board.

Among the national forum’s achievements is Staying Strong, a guide it published five years ago to help other self-advocacy groups threatened by government funding cuts. 

It has also spoken out strongly in the wake of the Winterbourne View abuse scandal, and about the safety of care facilities following the death of Connor Sparrowhawk and subsequent revelations that an NHS trust failed to investigate hundreds of unexpected deaths of people with learning difficulties and mental health problems.

A DH spokeswoman said: “The contract included a requirement for Inclusion North to work with the National Forum of People with Learning Disabilities and the National Valuing Families Forum to look at options for both organisations to become self-sustaining from 1 April 2017.

“The end of the contract doesn’t prevent the forums from seeking other sources of support.”

She added: “We highly value the contributions people with learning difficulties make in informing policy, and the forums are not the only way we currently engage with representatives.

“The contract between the Department of Health and Inclusion North was to support people with learning disabilities and family carers to contribute to policy-making, planning and oversight of services on learning disabilities.

“The Department of Health wants to ensure that these people, and their family and carers, continue to be closely involved in co-producing and informing policies.

“We are considering how best to ensure continued engagement with people with learning disabilities and family carers in the future.”

Inclusion North has so far failed to respond to a request to comment on losing the DH funding, and to a request to speak to someone from the forum.

Share this post:

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on RedditShare on LinkedIn

Tags: Department of Health Inclusion North NFPLD Valuing People

A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Secure your ticket today and be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities.

Related

Councils refuse to use suicide prevention plans to highlight ‘shocking’ ESA figures
11th January 2018
Department of Health silence over failure to highlight ESA suicide risk
14th December 2017
Equality watchdog seeks legal advice on possible right to independent living
30th November 2017

Primary Sidebar

On the left of the image are multiple heads of different colours - white, aqua, red, light brown, and dark green - all grouped together, then the words ‘Campaign for Disability Justice. Sign up to support. #OpportunitySecurityRespect’
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Secure your ticket today and be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities.

Access

Latest Stories

Ministers are secretly considering means-testing PIP, DWP admits, despite pledge in green paper

‘We will not give a single inch,’ disabled activists vow, as Kendall publishes disability cuts bill

New figures show legalising assisted suicide is not safe, with government preparing to cut billions from benefits

Tribunal allows DWP to continue to hide information from secret reviews into universal credit deaths

Two members quit government’s ‘tokenistic’ network because Disability Unit is ignoring disabled people

Government’s ‘weak’ response to damning transport access report puts right to travel in ‘grave danger’

Rebel Labour MPs send final warning to ministers before disability cuts bill is published

Government offers three clues that it is set to plough ahead with cuts to disability benefits

‘Real danger’ that disabled people will not benefit from £39 billion for social and affordable homes

Self-driving taxis that are not accessible will be allowed pilot scheme licenses, government suggests

Advice and Information

Readspeaker
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Secure your ticket today and be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities.

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Threads
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2025 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web