Regulation fit for the target

In 2005 the National Audit Office published a report on the complexity of the benefits system http://www.nao.org.uk/idoc.ashx?docId=CEB51B1D-07A8-45B7-8F85-C472333F34D0&version=-1

What is apparent is that the complexity is inversely proportionate to the ability of the potential recipient to unravel it.

This applies to every aspect of "special needs" provision. As social services are cut back there is very little chance of a special needs person encountering a state provided advocate and even less chance that they will be able to obtain what care remains in the system on their own.

Special needs of all kinds stand out as an area where opaque regulations minimise state liability to care. The situation is made worse by a typical case involving contact with more than 30 organisations each with their own waiting list, budgets and forms.

One way to deal with this is to establish a public advocacy service as a single point of contact for the special needs client whether they are seeking eduction, employment, housing or just social interaction. That way the advocates could learn the existing mass of regulations and connections between responsible bodies. This is rather like relying on a trained human to answer call centre queries using a plethora of unconnected information systems rather than trying to design a new system that replaces the trained human.

The other way is to wish publicly that it was easier but plan to gently deposit the problem on a remote back burner.

It would be nice to see anything positive to promote stable special needs communities in which groups of individuals could live with, perhaps, one advocate and a collection of special needs people who could work together to compensate for each other's disabilities.

I encountered only one such community in the course of a search lasting more than 20 years and that was the Redhill College run by the RNIB with a funding contribution from the government education budget. Sadly that is now gone as a result of the education contribution being withdrawn on the basis that funding ought to be awarded only to institutions that teach mainstream qualifications rather than skills for life. http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=117965814884402