Introduction

As we noted in Chapter 1, the Learning Society is a contested concept. The dominant version of the Learning Society tends to give most weight to human capital principles, underpinned by a utilitarian notion of social justice. The subtitle of the ESRC programme of which this research was part was ‘Knowledge and skills for employment’ and at the first meeting of the programme the obligatory industrialist commented that he could not understand why research on people with learning difficulties had been commissioned within a programme devoted to economic competitiveness (see Baron et al, 1998, for a discussion of this).

However, rival versions of the Learning Society may be glimpsed both within official policy documents and within radical texts and practices. Counter-hegemonic versions of the Learning Society, rather than seeing education and training as a means of achieving individual and national economic advantage, instead emphasise education as a means of developing social capital. Although the notion of social capital is itself a contentious concept (see Chapter 7 for further discussion), it is generally taken to refer to the networks connecting individuals and groups into a collectivity which provides a sense of identity and purpose for their activities (Baron et al, 2000). The social justice implicit in the idea of a Learning Society based on social capital rather than human capital is very different, giving far more weight to recognising the needs and identities of minority groups.

Education is, by definition, at the heart of the any formulation of a Learning Society, but in addition, various notions of a just society will view education from differing perspectives. Societies based on utilitarian notions of justice are likely to regard education as a good to be transmitted in accordance with the ability of an individual or group to produce a satisfactory financial rate of return on the sum invested. Those based on social capital ideas might, alternatively, regard it as necessary to target additional education and training on those most at risk of social exclusion, on the grounds that this is a good in itself and that the excluded pose a risk to wider social cohesion.

In this chapter, we begin by discussing salient ideas of social justice and their implications for the inclusion of people with learning difficulties.

Introduction

In this chapter, we identify the range of social policy fields in which lifelong learning policy for people with learning difficulties is forged and the discourses both of lifelong learning and learning difficulty that underpin them. We also focus on the range of agencies involved in delivery of services and the ethos of these services. In addition to our analysis of official policy documents, we draw on interviews with key informants, who provide insight into how policies work out in practice, sometimes being aligned with original policy intentions and sometimes being subverted or transformed. In the era of ‘joined-up policy’ (Riddell and Tett, 2001: forthcoming), it is evident that, although the will may be there for policies to reinforce each other, in reality they often pull in different directions. We explore some of these tensions and the consequences for service users.

Community care policy and lifelong learning

Community care policy provides the central backdrop against which lifelong learning policies for people with learning difficulties have developed. We therefore briefly summarise the broad strategy before exploring social workers’ perspectives on the nature of lifelong services that they offer. The post-war decades saw an expansion in the number of people with learning difficulties living in residential settings, where they experienced a form of warehousing removed from the mainstream community. Following a number of well-publicised cases of cruelty and exploitation of the inhabitants of such institutions, the justification for the lifetime incarceration of people who had committed no crime was questioned. In addition, there were concerns about the significant amount of health service resource that was tied up in such facilities. The White Paper Caring for people: Community care in the next decade and beyond (Secretaries of State for Health, Social Security, Wales and Scotland, 1989) incorporated most of the proposals of the Griffiths Report (1988) and set the framework for a particular model of community care. The key elements were:

• • to encourage the development of services to help people to live in their own homes wherever possible;

• • to give high priority to the needs of carers;

• • to establish proper assessment of need and good case management;

• • to promote the development of a strong independent sector along with good quality public services;

• • to clarify the roles of the various agencies and improve their accountability;

• • to introduce a new system of funding for community care.

Introduction

This chapter considers the position of people with learning difficulties in relation to the open labour market. Access to employment is critical to the achievement of social inclusion and access to lifelong learning, since, in addition to the financial benefits of working, many people derive their social networks from their workplace. This is also the site for much formal and informal learning (Coffield, 1999, 2000). Whereas 62% of the total working-age population are ‘economically active’ (either in employment or unemployed according to the Independent Labour Organisation definition used in the Labour Force Survey), only 40% of the total disabled population of working age are economically active. According to Sly's (1996) analysis of Labour Force Survey data for winter 1995, only 28% of people with severe or specific learning difficulties and 15% of those with long-term mental illness are economically active. Of the 60% of the disabled population who are economically inactive (for example, on long-term Incapacity Benefit or Income Support with Severe Disablement Allowances) a very high proportion have learning difficulties. Access to mainstream employment opportunities with its financial and social benefits is thus a pressing concern for people with learning difficulties. This chapter concentrates on the minority of individuals within our case study sample who were employed, with or without support, within the open labour market, exploring the barriers they had encountered, the circumstances which supported their ability to work and the unintended consequences of these support mechanisms.

While some aspects of the New Labour government's Welfare to Work programme has attracted censure because of its coercive elements, the New Deal for Disabled People has had a generally positive reception from the disability movement. This is largely due to the disability movement's understanding of employment that tends to support the government's emphasis on employment as the chief route out of poverty. Having outlined some theories of disability and employment, the paper describes post-war employment and benefits policies and their impact on the employment status of people with learning difficulties. Subsequently, the evolution of the Employment Service's Wage Subsidy Supported Employment scheme is considered. This programme is particularly significant because it reflects clearly the shifting direction of post-war employment policy for disabled people.

Introduction

A recurring theme in this book has been the interconnectedness of different aspects of people's lives and the cumulative power of lifelong learning experiences to shape future life courses. School and post-school education have a powerful effect on the formation of social capital, which is subsequently reinforced by formal and informal learning opportunities in the workplace. We have already noted that people with learning difficulties are likely to be channelled into a ‘special’ route at an early age, thus shaping future possibilities for engaging in lifelong learning and developing social capital. In previous chapters, we discussed the way in which special schooling tends to lead into special FE or LEC provision, which in turn may lead to repeated circuits of training or placement in an ARC from which progression is unlikely. In Chapter 7, we explored the way in which particular living arrangements, and the benefits package supporting them, dictated the extent and nature of work and other activities available to individuals.

In this chapter, we develop further one of the key theoretical ideas that emerged through the process of the research and which has flowed through the account so far, the concept of social capital. Defined by Putnam (1993, p 167) as the “features of social organizations, such as trusts, norms and networks, that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions”, social capital is increasingly identified as the key factor contributing to the health and well-being of individuals and societies. Wilkinson (1996), for example, suggests that social capital is an essential mechanism bringing about higher levels of morbidity and mortality in more unequal societies, regardless of their average wealth. Individuals who perceive themselves as much poorer than others are likely to experience dislocated social networks, turning their anger and despair on themselves and their neighbours. Wilkinson's explanation suggests that social capital both mediates and reflects underlying patterns of wealth distribution. As we noted in Chapter 1, European governments have actively promoted the message that lifelong learning is a key transmitter of social capital, with the power to interrupt established patterns of social exclusion. They have been less keen to recognise that lifelong learning may equally well reinforce such patterns.

Social capital is now seen as just as important as financial, physical and human capital in explaining social hierarchies, variations in individual and civic health and well-being and, above all, differential national profitability.

The main legal requirements for local authorities and health boards to provide social, health, housing, education, employment and services for people with learning disabilities are set out below.

1968 Social Work (Scotland) Act

Section 12

This places a general duty on every local authority to promote social welfare by making advice, guidance and help available on a scale appropriate for their area.

Section 12A

This was added by the 1990 National Health Service and Community Care Act (see section 55). The 1968 Social Work (Scotland) Act was also amended by the 1995 Carers (Recognition and Services) Act. This places a duty on the local authority to carry out community care assessments and then decide whether to provide services.

Section 14

This places a general duty on every local authority to provide domiciliary services for households where there are people in need. It also gives the power to provide laundry facilities for these households.

1972 Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons (Scotland) Act

This Act extends sections 1 and 2(1) of the 1970 Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act to Scotland.

Section 1 (of the 1970 Act)

This places a duty on every local authority (which has a role under section 12 of the 1968 Act) to know about the numbers of disabled people living in their area and the need to make arrangements for these people. Every local authority should publish general information about the services they provide. They are also to let disabled people know about relevant services that they know others provide.

Section 2(1) (of the 1970 Act)

This lists the arrangements that can be made to help disabled people.

These include:

• • Practical help for that person in his or her home

• • Getting, or helping someone to get a radio, TV, phone, or specialist equipment to be able to use a phone

• • Help in using library, recreational or educational facilities

• • Providing facilities to and from home, or helping with travel

• • Adaptations to the home

• • Holidays

• • Meals.

Section 21

This is the Orange Badge Scheme of parking concessions for disabled and blind people.

1973 Employment and Training Act (as amended by the 1993 Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act)

This sets out the duty of the Secretary of State for Scotland to provide relevant services for helping people in education to decide on future employment, and what training may be necessary to fit them for this employment.

In this chapter we bring together the themes of the previous eight chapters in order to offer an interpretation of the life situations of the people with learning difficulties whom we have studied. We will do this by, first, further discussing our position within the social model of disability. We will then review the development of categories and procedures in the Scottish legal system by which people have been declared incompetent in the tasks of daily life and therefore subject to special regulation. We will then analyse the position of three of our case study people, giving an extended case study of the consequences of such a classification for one woman. We will then suggest that people with learning difficulties are, due to their particular forms of, and relationships to, social capital, subject to invasive regulation by the power/knowledge of different professional groups. These discussions lead into our final chapter in which we explore the policy implications of our work.

In the first chapter we stated that we used an ‘operational’ rather than a ‘medical’ definition of learning difficulties in that we were interested in people so labelled by service providers. This is consistent with the ‘social model of disability’ discussed in Chapter 5 which locates disability in the barriers to full social participation experienced by people with impairments rather than in the impairment itself. For people with learning difficulties, one of the barriers is the label. The case studies provided consistent examples of how the label is flexible, contested and consequential: its flexibility is illustrated in our discussions of how it was becoming applied to increasing numbers of people, even communities, by LEC officials concerned about ‘employability’ (see Chapter 3) or by our account of how Ronald became (precisely) 50% disabled overnight as the public utility was groomed for privatisation (Chapter 5); its contestation is illustrated by Iona's employer firmly rejecting the imposition of the label on her chosen successor as chief cook (Chapter 4) or by Greg's father objection to his being “parried with the Mongols” (Chapter 5); its consequentiality is illustrated by Ewan's having to give up full-time work in order to maintain the label as the warrant to his major source of income (Chapter 7) or, most starkly, by the case of Clare which we discuss later in this chapter.

Introduction

In Chapter 3, we focused on post-16 training opportunities for people with learning difficulties. Our argument was that, due to the dominance of human capital thinking, young people with learning difficulties were marginalised in training programmes. While participation in post-16 education and training was high, with many special school leavers moving into full-time education or training, a low proportion of young people progressed into employment at the end of their training programmes. The majority of post-school programmes were designed to enhance social skills and maturity and were not directly vocational. Within FE, such programmes were often in segregated settings where young people with learning difficulties had very little contact with their mainstream peers. The minority of young people with learning difficulties who undertook vocational, employer-based training often found themselves with insufficient support to sustain them in work at the end of the training programme. There was evidence of definitional drift, so that places on training programmes designated for young people with special needs were taken up by young people experiencing social disadvantage rather than cognitive difficulties. In this chapter, we consider the nature of post-transitional educational services for people with learning difficulties. These services may be seen as part of the lifelong learning policy agenda which is being promoted increasingly within the UK and other European states. We begin by considering the current rationale for lifelong learning, in particular its status as the prime means of challenging social exclusion as well as enhancing economic productivity. Subsequently, we discuss the way in which lifelong learning has become a major player in the world of ‘joined up policy’, associated with diverse fields including employment, urban regeneration, housing and health. Subsequently, we discuss the range of agencies delivering lifelong learning to people with learning difficulties in the context of their service ethos and modus operandi. Finally, we consider the ways in which a range of services are experienced by people with learning difficulties and, in particular, the extent to which these services actually enhance their social inclusion.

Throughout Europe, educational policies to combat social exclusion and poverty have tended to focus on initial education and training systems, where efforts have been made to prepare school leavers for the labour market.