Chamber and committees

Petitioner submission of 2 June 2021

PE1837/X - Provide clear direction and investment for autism support

This response acknowledges COSLA’s submission. COSLA explains autism should not be defined as a mental disorder, instead support should be provided through the four Self-Directed Support (SDS). The submission by COSLA highlights the pattern of concerns raised in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Rejected Referrals Report, as well as comments and submissions made within the petition. This is because autism is defined as a mental disorder in the Mental Health Act, social work/care services generally decline to provide autism support (no SDS support), instead signposting to mental health. This is why the petition asks for clarity from the government as to who provides autism support?

Similar themes are highlighted in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Rejected Referrals Report. The report explains that Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services often decline to support autism needs because it is not a mental health issue, similar patterns happen in adult mental health. Also, similar themes are highlighted the Scottish Parliament Cross Party Working Group report for autism ‘The Accountability Gap’.

COSLA’s submission states it is local eligibility criteria that defines if support can be provided, this is misleading. Again, the petition explains that there is a statutory responsibility for all local authorities to assess for care support needs under Children’s Act section 23 and 24, and Social Work Scotland Act section 12. Social work services must assess needs if requested to do so, they may not provide services, but are required by law to at least assess. If autistic people can access SDS support, then why is there reports from the Scottish Parliament such as the ‘Accountability Gap’ saying people are denied access to support? More needs to be done, especially as the 10-year autism strategy ended in 2021.

Social workers will need to be trained at least to the ‘Skilled Level’ of the National Autism Training Framework to assess needs. Social workers have not been trained to the level needed as this requires a significant amount of ongoing continuous professional development training and it is hard to identify how they could commit to the ongoing continuous professional development days needed.

The assessed needs should inform local authorities of unmet needs, influencing the threshold for eligibility criteria. The issue for autistic people is that they are not having their needs assessed for care support as social work often just signpost to mental health, therefore there is no record of demand of need. This is discriminating, preventing autistic people accessing statutory instruments due to the confusion of mental health. You just need to read the latest Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services report, comments and submissions within this petition to understand why there is clarity needed from the Scottish government on who provides autistic support.

The Microsegmentation Report by the Scottish Government (Rec. 5 of the National Autism Strategy), states that every local area should implement the 10 recommendations of the report as this will provide best outcomes, while saving hundreds of millions of pounds every year. SDS budgets will be helpful for some, but they cannot replicate the 10 recommendations, so the position by COSLA for solely SDS approaches illuminates the fact that local authorities are not listening to best practice and therefore leaving autistic people disadvantaged. Why have a strategy if local authorities don’t implement the recommendations? Only local autism support teams within local authorities/Health and social care partnerships would be able to implement the recommendations of the report, hence the second petition point calling for investment. If the Scottish Government have always stated autism is a mental disorder, why not use some of the mental health budget to create autism support teams?

There is over £1 billion spent in mental health each year in Scotland, only a fraction of that money is needed to create autism support teams. These support teams would save hundreds of millions each year, take pressure off mental health and social work services and promote best outcomes - there is no downside to funding these teams.

COSLA say they do not support ring fenced funding, yet, there are other groups that receive ring fence funding: mental health, learning disability, advocacy, counselling and so on. To openly agree to ring fencing for one group but denying it to another is discriminating against the group you are saying no to.

The 10-year strategy has been replaced by the Transformation Plan, which conflates autism and learning disability. This has upset both autistic and learning disability communities, resulting in policy leads apologising. This is also why a joint commissioner for autism and learning disability is unpopular within the autistic community. This demonstrates how confused the policy direction is for autism, if policy leads have apologised after producing a policy, especially as the new conflated policy was to lead autistic people through a pandemic. There is now new autism policy leads.

The status quo promoted by COSLA is not enough, the submissions and comments made by autistic people and their families in this petition clearly demonstrates more needs to be done.