Working together towards a Learning Disabilities, Autism and Neurodivergence Bill: March 2026 Current proposals for potential Bill provisions

Annex A: Overview of consultation and engagement work

As part of our commitment to a human rights-based approach, we have aimed to undertake a policy development process in collaboration with people with lived experience, practitioners, and stakeholders, including co-design where possible. Our engagement work has been extensive, reflecting the principles of inclusion and co-production. Many people we have collaborated with have both lived experience and professional expertise.

This wide-ranging programme of consultation and engagement activities has included:

Initial scoping work and report

In our 2021 Programme for Government, we committed to carrying out scoping work for a Bill. That work took place between May and July 2022 and involved a series of events to consider how people with lived experience viewed the Bill and to discuss potential key elements, including the role of a potential Commission or Commissioner. We ran 30 different events with 18 different stakeholder organisations, including people with lived experience of neurodivergence or learning disabilities. An analysis of the findings from our scoping work was published in 2023.

Panels

We have been committed to taking a human rights-based approach to ensure that the public consultation and proposals contained within it were fully co-designed with people with lived experience. To enable this, we established three Bill panels to support the development of consultation options. This included a Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP), a Stakeholder Panel, and a Practitioner Panel.

The LEAP includes 25 people with a wide range of lived experience of learning disability, autism, ADHD, dyslexia, Down’s Syndrome and other conditions, with some members having more than one experience.

The Stakeholder Panel includes over 40 office bearers from a variety of interested third-sector organisations, including Disabled People’s and Autistic People’s Organisations, many of whom were able to also draw on their own lived experience.

The Practitioner Panel includes representation of professionals from Social Work Scotland, NHS Scotland (various), the Mental Welfare Commission, Police Scotland, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Law Society of Scotland, and many others.

Meetings with the three panels have taken place from February 2023 to March 2026.

Public consultation

Whilst the scoping report informed our Panels’ discussions initially, the LEAP led the way on the themes that were to be explored in the public consultation, and the resulting proposals. This was published in December 2023 and was open for responses until April 2024. The public consultation received nearly 900 responses during the four months that it was open.

The consultation document was in a variety of formats including: summary, audio, British Sign Language (BSL), Easy Read and a facilitator’s pack was published to assist organisations to run events with their members ahead of submitting a group response.

Responses were received online and via emails and letters. Written, audio, BSL, video and group responses were also received and accepted. We have also published all responses.

The public consultation also involved ensuring that events were able to be run across the country. This included:

• Events led by charities and third sector as the experts in engaging with and supporting individuals to learn about and respond to the consultation. We publicised these events on our website and offered materials and funding to assist with the events.
• An event run by the Scottish Government for Health and Social Care professionals.

To support the consultation and proactively seek feedback from under-represented and hard to reach groups, the Scottish Government commissioned the Scottish Commission for People with Learning Disabilities (SCLD) to undertake work aimed at promoting, signposting and encouraging groups and organisations to engage with the consultation and provide a response. The groups targeted included ethnic minorities, prisoners and ex-offenders, homeless groups, people in hospital and care settings, LGBTQI+ groups, and others. In addition to providing this support, the SCLD gained significant insight and learning into the various issues relevant to each population group. The results from the SCLD work are provided in their report.

Consultation analysis

All responses were independently and systematically analysed to identify key themes and inform policy development. This analysis was published in August 2024 and included audio, BSL, Easy Read and summary versions.

Justice engagement

We established a Justice Working Group which brought together stakeholders from across the sector to assist in progressing the work on the justice proposals contained in this paper. The group ran from February to June 2025 and included justice agencies, such as Police Scotland and the Scottish Prison Service as well as key partners such as the SOLD Network.

In addition, the Bill team convened a Justice Conference in 2024 which comprised an extensive range of stakeholder bodies involved in criminal and civil justice, including the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, as well as the third sector. The purpose of the conference was to share, discuss and develop justice proposals for the proposed Bill, including employee training requirements and issues around diversion from prosecution.

Coming Home

Several stakeholder organisations and partners, including People First (Scotland) and the SCLD, were represented on the Coming Home Senior Strategy Group (SSG) which developed and oversaw implementation of the Coming Home Implementation Report. This group took advice from people with lived experience of complex care needs including individuals and their families and welfare guardians.

In addition to the range of consultation responses received, and the specific session on complex care held with the Bill Advisory Panels, we have been engaging with third-sector experts whilst refining our proposals further.

The Scottish Government remains committed to ensuring that people with lived experience continue to be involved in the delivery of Coming Home. There are a number of ways in which the current Coming Home Short Life Working Group is engaging with Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) and lived experience interests, and the forthcoming Coming Home Action Plan will set out the approach to future lived experience engagement across its work.

Local delivery plans

The LDAN Bill policy team invited employees from Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) across Scotland to share their views on local planning and implementation of existing and previous national strategies. A meeting in February 2025 was attended by representatives from seven HSCPs areas. There was overall support for a national strategy to provide direction, with consultation and lived experience involvement considered essential in its production. The term ‘local delivery plan’ was preferred to best describe a more focussed local document that aligns with a national strategy to outline reasonable and achievable actions to ensure its effective implementation. Regular review of local delivery plans was also emphasised as important.