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The purpose of this paper is to review the role and ability of commissioners to implement policy and be transformational leaders.

The role and ability of commissioners to implement policy is reviewed against the Institute of Public Care’s Commissioning Cycle and experience of working with commissioners across the UK over the past 29 years.

Empowering commissioners to be transformational leaders and enabling them to secure good outcomes for people with learning disabilities will require broadening the responsibilities for creating an inclusive society past commissioners of health and social care.

The Transforming Care Programme and the failure to meet targets illustrate that policy implementation in the arena of learning disabilities is still a pertinent issue. This commentary adds to the discussion by highlighting the challenges commissioners face when trying to implement policy and the need to take the conversation about inclusive communities wider than health and social care.

The purpose of this paper is to review whether current learning disability market position statements (MPS) are actually helping to shape the market and explore their implications for people with learning disabilities and their families.

Published learning disability MPS were identified via the Institute of Public Care’s MPS database. The quality of the MPS was analysed using a good practice checklist developed by a range of stakeholders.

Learning disability MPS are not currently fit for purpose. They demonstrate that local authorities are not fully engaging in their market-shaping duties, as required under The Care Act 2014. It is suggested that this is in part due to the lack of recognition that market shaping is a council-wide responsibility and can only be successful if senior officers across the council (and their partners) acknowledge this and are held accountable. Unless this happens, people with learning disabilities will continue to lack the enablers that support them to lead the lives they choose in their communities.

This is the first review of the quality and potential impact of learning disability MPS.

The aim of this paper is to comment on Broadhurst et al.'s evaluation of the My Way transition programme.

Reflects on Broadhurst et al.'s account in the context of recent and current transition initiatives within the UK.

Transition support remains a problematic area. Successful support needs to include a number of elements.

There is a clear role for the kind of facilitation used in the My Way project as a means of providing creative support to young people and their families.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of the My Way transition programme.

The programme was evaluated over a two year period via interviews with a range of stakeholders. The evaluation focused on outcomes for young people, experience of the transition process, differences in the cost of care packages and an exploration of what was different about the My Way approach.

There were positive outcomes for young disabled people using the programme, and reduced costs to commissioners. The success of the My Way programme seemed to result from its focus on implementing actions and “doing” rather than just developing plans.

This study provides evidence for commissioners, providers and service users of the importance of providing person‐centred facilitators who implement actions. It clearly demonstrates that when this happens savings can be made and good outcomes achieved.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on the issues raised in the article “Learning disability market position statements (MPS), are they fit for purpose?”

The commentary draws on the literature and the author’s experience in developing commissioning.

Published documents such as MPS and joint strategic needs assessments do not give an encouraging picture of progress in commissioning with and for people with learning disabilities. Actual commissioning practice may or may not be stronger than the documents suggest; however, more robust planning may help to sustain progress through times of organisational and social change.

The commentary sets MPS in the context of other guidance on commissioning and development of services. It addresses questions about the need for published statements and the factors that help or hinder development of commissioning.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the reflective journals kept by 62 students researching and interviewing people with learning disabilities. The aim was to explore the content and discover any themes that were generated throughout the journals as a result of the pre-, during- and post-interview process.

The method used to analyse the journals was Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith and Osborn, 2008).

The results showed that there was a shift from negative to positive reflections as the frequency of contact with people with learning disabilities increased and that the majority of students reported a change in attitude towards this group of individuals after experiencing direct contact (two to three meetings over a period of two months).

Implications of the findings are for government policies, promoting social inclusion through education, to offer the opportunity for direct contact with people with learning disabilities, (in keeping with Allport's, 1954 Contact Theory) at an earlier stage in education, fostering an environment for earlier attitude change and increased social inclusion.

Changing society's attitude through our education system may decrease marginalisation by the public as well as discriminatory and abusive behaviour found in some social and community care settings.

This piece of research may add value to social, government and educational policies. Finding an evidence base to continue to build policies for decreasing marginalisation and promoting social inclusion for people with learning disabilities.