'There has been much discussion about social care for older and severely disabled people. What is the best way of providing the assistance they need to enable them to live independently in their own homes? How should publicly provided services support, or replace, informal care from family and friends? What role is there for paid-for help, directly hired by the older or disabled person? And who should meet the costs: the state, the disabled individual or their family?

Several contributors to the current debate have suggested that much of the money assigned to AA and DLAc could be diverted to council social services departments, to be spent directly on caring services ...'

Tue 12-Feb-08 08:19 AM by Gareth Morgan

There's an uncertainty about the role of AA/DLA care generally. Are they for buying care or in recognition that because care is needed, people will have more expensive needs?

It's an odd debate, not unusual for this institute, because all the movement is away from social services spending "directly on caring services".

With Personal Budgets being introduced, as 'choice' once more rears its head, there could be an argument for making all user controlled cash payments from one source. The practical details around dealing with benefits recipients who aren't LA customers makes that less simple though. The administrative overheads of making sure that the cash is additional, not a replacement for LA money, wouldn't help either. Then, what about the passporting effects, etc....

Probably an informed debate IMO.

If anyone can demonstrate a more effective way of giving individuals more choice against payments of DLA/AA, then we're all ears.

However, as it stands, it is clear that allowing local authorities to hold the purse strings in any way, shape or form seems to mean many disabled people being denied any form of assistance whatsoever.

So at DA, we support the essential principles of universal entitlements and payments as currently in place with DLA and AA and we would strongly resist any moves to absorb these payments into social care funding structures. These are paid in recognition of the basic needs for care and support, rather than arbitary assessments based on financial caps, skewed eligibility criteria and pressures for provision of services.

It took an awful long time for payments such as DLA and AA to be bought about in the social security system, following lobbying from the Disablement Income Group in the 1960's - to countenance their removal simply because of funding pressures for social care services would be a very retrograde step in the opinion of DA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_tanks

something to thank peter hain for...scepticism...

There are no quick and easy answers!

As a start I would probably separate income maintenance from disability related costs. At the moment there are technical anomalies, which in some cases, can distort the purpose of DLA (it becomes a 'compensation' benefit) rather than a care/mobility payment. For example, children with ADHD: there may be some extra parental care costs, but the money might be better spent providing therapeutic services, but you would then be into the game of trying to trace the money as it disappeared into cash strapped LA/NHS budgets. Back to square one then.

I think you have to start by finding out what people actually need to be as independent as possible (not someone else's imperative). There may be a case for a neutral single assessment body which allocates a budget (DWP + social care) to the individual. The budget would follow recipients across boundaries wherever they chose to live. Individual budgets without boundaries, in other words. However, such a system would throw up many other problems (could they ever be solved?), but would perhaps start to move away from multiple assessments and address some of the inherent problems we have today.

Something similar to the Children Act approach could set out a fresh framework and sweep away a lot of confusing legislation (an example of that is disability 'registration' v the various DDA Acts). However, such an Act would have to cover a wide spectrum of support and would be a long time in the planning, so I'm not holding my breath.

I am shocked to find that this has even been considered!

Many people who i have helped claim AA or DLA would never wish to approach social services for assistance. Many fear being put into a home, others have found the services to be inflexible. Even with personal budgets, many have found these not to be as "personal" as they were led to believe.

The great advantage to AA/DLA is that people can manage fuel, transport, and other costs that reflect their disablement. For most it is an oppertunity to make a token "thankyou" to the informal care of friends and family who cant qualify for carers allowance - the occassional box of choclates, or a nice card.

To take this life-line away, especially as Social Services funding is an easy target to sqeeze is unthinkable in my opinion. How simple for Councils to use the money to give extra services (or continue to fund existing services) for the minority, whilst leaving the majority without any provision.

Can we really assume that £43 or £62 per week would really go anywhere if given to a local authority instead?