My last post told you a little about about the fact that my authority is in the process of adopting the In Control system of self directed support. It will take some time before the system is fully operational. However like many authorities we are beginning the process by focusing on our most expensive packages of care to establish if these could be delivered at a lower cost and higher quality. One of the first packages we have looked at has been allocated an individual budget of around 50% of the previous cost. This was then discussed with the social work manager responsible for the budget . We expected that she would be pleased with the impact on her budget. Her response though was “when we put it out to tender we could get it cheaper” It was frustrating that after all the work that had been done to explain individual budgets, she failed to grasp the basic concept of an individual budget. We had considered the needs of the person concerned, allocated a reasonable budget that would provide a quality service at half the cost and yet we were still expected to put this out to competitive tender and have providers cut each other's throats to get the work!
Friday, 7 December 2007
Missing the point!
My last post told you a little about about the fact that my authority is in the process of adopting the In Control system of self directed support. It will take some time before the system is fully operational. However like many authorities we are beginning the process by focusing on our most expensive packages of care to establish if these could be delivered at a lower cost and higher quality. One of the first packages we have looked at has been allocated an individual budget of around 50% of the previous cost. This was then discussed with the social work manager responsible for the budget . We expected that she would be pleased with the impact on her budget. Her response though was “when we put it out to tender we could get it cheaper” It was frustrating that after all the work that had been done to explain individual budgets, she failed to grasp the basic concept of an individual budget. We had considered the needs of the person concerned, allocated a reasonable budget that would provide a quality service at half the cost and yet we were still expected to put this out to competitive tender and have providers cut each other's throats to get the work!
Sunday, 2 December 2007
In Control
I have spent many years trying to promote ideas of user involvement and person-centred approaches to service delivery. With this in mind, one of the ideas that always appealed to me was the idea of self-directed support and individualised budgets. When I worked in the voluntary sector I always felt that this was a way that people really could take control of their own lives. However after quite a bit of study of this, I came to the conclusion that there was no way that it could happen, as it required the local authority to adopt a system of individual budgets. Well here I am now on the other side and that is precisely the road we are going down. We have signed up to the In Control system and will hope to roll this out. The following is a link to a Community Care article on self-directed support http://tiny.cc/s11EpThis shows that In Control, as well as providing the support that people need in a way that suits them, can also save money. This is a great help to me. My goal is to provide people with better services, but I am surrounded by many people who simply want to cut costs. I am more than happy to highlight the money saving aspect if I have to, but to me that will never be what it is about!
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