1. Service users with a milder learning disability may be pushed out of all services.
2. Many community facilities do not have the resources to meet the needs of people with learning disabilities.
3. People with complex needs will have less opportunity for social interaction.
4. People with learning disabilities will face prejudice and stigma when they go out to access community-based facilities.
5. Black and Minority Ethnic service users will face low staff morale, transport, communication and language barriers including prejudice and stigma.
6. Older BME carers may not ask for help or access social work services.
7. Service users may not get the right gender of staff to give personal care.
8. Service users may lose networks of support and their friendships leaving them feeling isolated, vulnerable and discriminated against, especially women from a BME background.
9. The sexual orientation of people with learning disabilities may not be recognised.
10. Older people may be left behind in increasingly under-used day services.
11. A lack of appropriate cultural awareness training could prevent BME service users and carers from having their specific religious and cultural needs met.
12. There may be increased costs to service users and carers for subsistence and excursions, preventing them from having enough money to meet real needs.
13. If service users and carers face additional costs, they may find it difficult to manage their finances and may be forced to give up control of them.
14. New issues about safety of service users in the community with unsupervised staff may emerge.
The reasons published above were produced by Glasgow City Council staff and buried inside an Equality Impact Assessment published on 17th April 2013. This document was not presented to Councillors before they made their decision to close 3 Day Centres for People with Learning Disabilities in breach of the Council’s Equality Duties. Council staff are meant to provide information to councillors on what might happen to people from minority groups if a policy is passed. Vital information was withheld about Glasgow’s Day Centres which could have resulted in the centres being kept open.