Are Personal Budgets For The Learning Disabled An Idealistic Vision Or A Tangible Reality?

United Response is a strong supporter of personal budgets and the opportunity they

offer to people with support needs to live a more independent life, in the way that they choose. That doesnt mean, however, that they are unrealistic. Their chief executive, Su Sayer, wrote in the Guardian back in April 2011, that personal budgets have not been rolled out as rapidly or as evenly as they should have been.

Thats why Su happily accepted an invitation to speak alongside Bill Mumford, chief executive of the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group (VODG), at a recent seminar in London run by the Office for Public Management (OPM).

Participants debated whether self-directed support and personal budgets would be the norm in five years time. Su said that there are still so many significant obstacles that this result looked unlikely, though she hoped to be proven wrong.

Bill and Su have now written a joint blog on the seminar which is up on the VODG blog, and offers some food for thought on what the future of personalisation will be. After a substantial discussion of the benefits of personal budgets, the below analyses some of the obstacles.

At the debate, four main barriers were outlined that could derail the self-directed agenda:

- the pace of change it is 15 years since the government introduced direct payments but still only a third of the 1.7m people receiving social care support have a personal budget

- the postcode lottery it is a confusing and complicated situation for potential purchasers of services as how much access you have to personal budgets depends on where you live

- fear and confusion among service users and families most councils do not make it easy for people to understand personal budgets; buyer literacy is key

- the spending cuts councils are drastically reducing spending, an additional barrier to increasing choice and control

There was a warning that from a service provider perspective, smaller organisations might struggle with offering personal budgets and, on the other side of the commissioning fence, councils facing enormous funding pressures would be unlikely to treat the drive as a top priority. As one participant commented: We all shut down, we retreat that isnt the climate for change.

As the debate turned to those in the audience policy makers, academics, practitioners and commissioners among them there was a strong feeling that the personal budget agenda still focused on services, not people. Service providers and commissioners should think in terms of outcomes, not funding, the seminar heard.

Housing was also mentioned as a support service that is not always regarded as part of the person-centred drive. Volunteers were highlighted as being too often overlooked in terms of their supporting role in personalisation. Similarly, peer support and user-led organisations, participants were reminded, must not be cut out of the loop.

Yet despite differing views on the likelihood of self-directed support becoming the norm in the next few years, there was a palpable sense of agreement that the drive can only improve the quality of life for those who are among societys most vulnerable.

by: Brendan Wilde

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