Proposal for the creation of a Scottish ILF

Proposal:

The creation of a Scottish Independent Living Fund (S.I.L.F)funded using the current funding allocated to Scottish residents within the Independent Living Fund (ILF) based in Nottingham.

Aims:

  • To protect ILF payments for people living in Scotland by ensuring that ILF money is ring-fenced in the future so that it can only be used for the funding of support that disabled people need to be able to maximise their opportunities to live how they want, where they want
  • To build on the most successful aspects of ILF policy and practice, being able to adaptthem so they are more in keeping with the evolution of Independent Living, in particular Self-Directed Support in 21st century Scotland.
  • To prioritise how any funding freed up over time can best be used to further the opportunities for Independent Living in the future eg to provide vital funding required by young people making the transition from school to adulthood.
  • To ensure that vital funding is not wasted on costly beaurocracy at a time when money is tight

Background:

The Independent Living Fund was originally set up in 1988 following the 1983 benefits reform. It was the original provider of Direct Payments, paying money directly into the bank accounts of disabled people or their benefits appointees to help meet personal and domestic care needs. ILF revolutionisedsupportopportunities for many of the most severely disabled people in Great Britain and Northern Ireland enabling people to employ care workers (Personal Assistants) and/or commission care agencies using public funds for the first time. As ILF evolved it formed a three way working partnership model with disabled people and their local Social Work departments ensuring a joined up approach to support planning and provision. Until the Westminster treasury changed its method of budget allocation, the ILF was able to respond to variations in individual’s support needs and changes in care agency prices in a slicker manner than many Social Work Departments. The ILF is currently involved in providing vital funding to over 21,00 people (3,400 people in Scotland). In December 2010 Maria Miller, Minister for Disabled people announced that ILF was going to close permanently to new applicants and only committed to "support the ILF to continue to administer existing awards" throughout this Parliament. ie until 2015. There have been various suggestions about what will happen to the ILF after 2015 including that:

  • ILF being transferred to Local Authorities to manage:

There is no legal system to enable Westminister to instruct Holyrood nor for Holyrood to instruct individual local authorities in Scotland how to use the funding it allocates. What this means is that there is nothing to safe guard how much of the ILF pot Holyrood would give your Local Authority or for your Local Authority from prioritising ILF funding to be used to upgrade the roads or improveschools in your area instead of the purpose it was intended.

Even if the situation highlighted above did not exist, the rules in Scotland surrounding who can receive a Direct Payment are not the same as the ILF rules. What this means is that not everyone who gets ILF would be eligible to receive the equivalent amount of money as a Direct Payment.

Local authorities operate on a policy of providing basic support to people who are classed as having critical and substantial needs. ILF enables us to have a quality of life. If funds move to Social Work it is perfectly conceivable that we would be reassessed on that basis irrelevant of the transfer of ILF

It is hard to imagine how any transfer of ILF to Local Authorities could be made without the involvement of significant amounts of money being spent on beaurocracy.

  • ILF will be kept but reformed possibly using different criteria to reassess existing care packages

We appreciate that ILF has not kept pace with SDS development s. We envisage that any reform to ILF would be directed by the DWP whereas we want to ensure that all parties directly involved in the outcome of the reform are involved. This is the most attractive of the alternatives however it does not ensure that Scottish legislation and Scottish priorities would be adequately taken into consideration when weighing up how ILF would be reformed, and what if any different criteria would be appropriate in the reassessment of existing care packages. Approximately 1/6 of ILF is paid to people living in Scotland. We want 100% consideration of our views as we move forward.

  • ILF will be kept as an administrative body but will gradually decline with time until it becomes extinct

All of the funding currently committed to supporting severely disabled people in Great Britain and Northern Ireland (approx £350 million per year) will slowly be eroded until one day the light will finally go out.

  • The DWP will use ILF’s budget during its reform of DLA, possibly to increase payments to severely disabled individuals

In light of the well advertised motives behind the introduction of new benefits and the appropriateness of the assessments and assessing bodies involved in these it would be with trepidation that we would have our ILF caught up in such a process.

Pros and Cons of current ILF

We acknowledge that there are both pros and cons in the current ILF system

Pros

  • It funds support to enable a decent quality of life
  • The payments are on time
  • We are given clear information about what the payments are for
  • Although the charging policy is harsh there is a national approach to application of the ILF charging policy which, within its structure, leads to equity and fairness irrelevant of location in Britain.
  • It has streamlined it administration costs to 2% of its budget

Cons

  • the ways that the money can be used is restrictive/not flexible relative to advances made in thinking and practice around SDS in Scotland
  • ILF rules are not in keeping with Scottish legislation
  • ILF doesn’t fund local support to provide essential info and practical support with recruitment, commissioning and financial management issues
  • The rules are complex and seem to be ever changing leading to uncertainty and anxiety
  • It is linked into the DWP instead of Social care which means that are care is inextricably linked to DWP view of need as opposed to Social Care
  • Not everyone can access the funding

We believe that the creation of a SILF offers a mechanism to protect our payments, while the cons of ILF are addressed in Scotland.

Glossary:

S.I.L.F - The name for a Scottish Independent Living Fund funded using the current funding allocated to Scottish residents within the Independent Living Fund (ILF) based in Nottingham.

Independent Living Fund

Independent Living

Self-Directed Support

Direct Payment

Ring fenced