The language of priorities

Disabled Children Matter - but they still do not count

“Not even the apparently enlightened principle of the ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ can excuse indifference to individual suffering. There is no test for progress other than its impact on the individual.”
Aneurin Bevan – In Place of Fear, 1952.

TOMORROW is the International Day of Disabled People – a day to recognise and celebrate the positive contribution disabled adults and children make to our society. It is also a valuable opportunity to highlight the continued barriers disabled people face and raise the profile of these issues politically.

But how do the interests of minority groups such disabled children and their families ever reach the top of the political agenda?

Contact a Family Wales has been pushing for a better deal for disabled children and young people for the past 10 years and helped set up the Disabled Children Matter Wales campaign (DCMW) in 2007. However, it seems that there are always more pressing mainstream issues, affecting a larger population and attracting more votes, which always trump more marginal issues such as disabled children when it comes to gaining the attention of politicians. Not least in terms of setting spending priorities and the allocation of increasingly scarce resources.

This phenomenon of always being at the back of the political queue could possibly explain the painfully slow progress in Wales on improving our dire wheelchair services or when additional funding is found for the Foundation Phase or the Wales Millennium Centre but not for a programme of improving services for disabled children.

One answer to this perennial problem should surely be to rely on sound, evidence-based social policy and planning; to highlight the needs of minority groups and communities, devise appropriate strategies, set targets, monitor and evaluate the delivery of specific outcomes.

From the outset in 1999, the Welsh Assembly Government and National Assembly for Wales have built up a large body of evidence, devised numerous policies and frameworks and monitored progress on disabled children and young people. There have been committee enquiries on these issues and numerous Welsh Assembly Government policies such as Rights to Action (2004) Children’s National Service Framework (2005) and a Fair Future for Our Children (2005). But has this record of sound government and social policy making led to any significant improvements on the ground for disabled children and young people?

Current evidence suggests not. This failure of policy making to secure significant additional resources for disabled children and young people points to the primacy of political priorities over social policy or to put it more strongly the victory of votes over values.

Despite the clear evidence of long term disadvantage it can be argued that politicians in Wales have failed to make disabled children and young people a spending priority, this is not because they have not listened to the evidence or do not care about disabled children but rather because there have always been more pressing politically significant issues at the front of the queue.

Disabled children and young people briefly came to the top of the political and media agenda back in the autumn of 2007 but this was mainly due to unintended complications the issues raised within and between political parties rather than the issues themselves.

The Disabled Children Matter Wales campaign had called for disabled children and young people to be one of the priorities in the 2008-2011 budget, not least because a £21 million Barnett consequential had come to Wales in the Comprehensive Spending Review as a result of additional spending on disabled children in England.

The DCMW campaign had called for clear and strong leadership from WAG on its existing commitments to disabled children and a specific focus on the implementation and delivery of its policies for disabled children and young people. But, most importantly, it is looking for significant additional resources over three years.

It could be said that at that time the DCMW campaign won the battle but lost the war. As the newly formed One Wales government had other things on their mind, the £21million was not secured and disabled children and young people were left to live and fight another day.

Two years on and lessons have been learnt. Years of evidence gathering, policy making, consultations and playing it by the book have failed to secure significant investment in disabled children and young people. All of these things are important mechanisms to bring about change, but their failure to deliver in this instance can be seen to be the result of neglecting the fundamentally political nature of the issues facing disabled children and their families.

The challenge for organisations supporting disabled children and their families in these difficult financial times will be to raise their political game and effectively campaign to make sure that disabled children and young people are heard at the highest level.

The test for the Welsh Assembly Government will be whether they will show the strong leadership needed to make disabled children a political priority, set a clear agenda for the way forward and make an investment in the services which will deliver real change on the ground.

If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, surely disabled children and young people have a right to be at the front of the queue?