Note: This post was published in October 2025 as part of a new web design but the work was completed in spring 2025
Background:
This piece of work was responding to the House of Lords Autism Act Committee call for evidence. The committee wanted to hear from autistic people and their supporters on key issues, such as healthcare, education, and employment, to help the committee recommend what the Government should do next to improve support for autistic people.
This was a great opportunity because anybody could share their views with the committee. However, we also understood that the committee might be limited in how they analysed and interpreted what could be hundreds or even thousands of individual responses. We decided that the best way Autism Action could respond would be to gather thousands of views and present them in a simple, yet powerful way.
To do that, we designed a simple survey. This asked people about their experiences in several areas of life. The idea was that while the committee might get a lot of individual stories, we would be able to show just how many people were having those experiences. We also developed recommendations about what the Government should do, basing these on what our experience tells us would make the biggest difference to autistic people.
How this work empowered people to make more of a difference:
By responding to this survey, autistic people and their supporters were able to contribute to a single, powerful response to the Autism Act Committee, which we hope will guide the committee to develop strong recommendations that will benefit autistic people.
What did we ask people to do?
We emailed a survey link to all members of the Community Advisory Panel (at that time 853 people) and those who are signed up to our newsletter (3396 people), and shared it via paid ads on social media. The survey was developed with the support of our Community Advisory Panel.
We shared this opportunity wider than the panel so that as many people as possible could get involved in this unique opportunity to shape national policy.
There were over 5,000 responses, including 2,668 autistic people.
How we used suggestions/responses:
We wrote a report to be as impactful as possible, and as short as possible, so that the important views of those who responded were not hidden in pages and pages of text. We kept the writing to a minimum, had the supporting information at the end so it didn’t distract from the findings, and formatted it with simple headings and visuals to be as clear as possible.
The report includes:
- How things are for autistic people right now and how they have been over the last five years, with every area seen as either not changing or getting worse!
- The overall top three priorities that the Government should focus on over the next five years: autism assessment, education, and mental health support.
- Six recommendations for the Government and how many people agreed with each one. The findings were impactful, with agreement for the recommendations ranging from 94% to 99%.
Once the Autism Act Committee publishes its final report, we will add a link to our report on this page.
