Critical policy

By placing last year’s Valuing People White Paper in a historical and political context, Daniel Marsden asks whether the lives of people with learning disabilities are really about to change fundamentally.

The government’s new strategy for people with learning disability, Valuing People (DoH 2001a), has been broadly welcomed by the learning disability community for offering new impetus to the process of improving people’s lives and modernising services. This article aims critically to explore the new White Paper in the context of social policy. Although space precludes a comprehensive analysis, the discussion will focus on two key questions: does Valuing People represent a radical departure in social policy for people with learning disabilities and does it have a solid ideological foundation on which to build practical approaches to improving people’s lives?