What next for the independent living fund?
The closure must be matched by a clear strategy detailing how devolving responsibility to local government would work
In the last days of the parliamentary term, amid the usual flurry of policy documents and statements, almost unnoticed the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) issued a slim consultation document on the future of the independent living fund (ILF).
The writing has been on the wall for the ILF for some time. In June 2010 it announced it was closing to new applications for the rest of the financial year because of insufficient funding. In December of the same year the government confirmed the fund would be permanently closed to new users and funding for existing users would be maintained until the end of the current parliament in 2015.
The consultation document is concerned with how the needs of the 19,373 users can be met “within a single cohesive care and support system”.
In 2006 Bob Hudson and I were commissioned by the DWP to undertake an external strategic review of the ILF, and we reported in 2007, making almost 70 recommendations. We concluded that it is highly anomalous for significant amounts of public money to be administered through a cash-limited, discretionary fund controlled by a board of trustees.
The model produced inequity, variation in take up, arbitrary decision making and poor accountability. Such a paternalistic approach to allocating cash to support disabled people living independently appears anachronistic and out of tune with modern approaches to personalisation and individual budgets.
We recommended a full integration of ILF funding with personal budgets, rather than the continuation of a parallel system of social care funding. We emphasised that there should be a smooth transition towards a fully integrated system of personalised budgets.
We also recommended there should be no radical change unless, or until, a better alternative was in place in order to protect people using the ILF from disruption or loss. But we stressed that there did need to be to be a strategic commitment to integration.
The ILF has played an important part in the development of cash for care, and it has been invaluable for people who have received support from the fund.
But it was always an anomaly. It was originally set up in 1988 to mitigate the impact of some of the changes in moving from supplementary benefit to the new system of income support. It was expected the arrangement would provide transitional protection only and would close within five years.
But this was not to be. The fund proved highly popular and, despite the expectation it would support just 300 people, there were 900 applications per month in its first year , later rising to more than 2,000. At its peak in 2006 there were 22,000 people using the ILF at an annual cost of £250m.
It was convenient for the ILF to continue. For local authorities it provided a safety valve for securing additional support for high cost care packages, and for successive governments it helped to conceal the true extent of social care underfunding. When the limited budget hit the buffers it was clear the system could not continue to operate in this way.
The consultation document states the government now believes that because of the progress in developing personal budgets for people needing care and support, “the objectives of the ILF could be met within the care system administered by local authorities”.
There is a commitment to “fully protecting care packages of existing users until 2015”. What happens after that is the big question.
The government’s “preferred option” is that following the closure of the ILF, funding will be devolved to local authorities (and to the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales). This, it is argued “will allow existing users to have their eligible care and support needs met within the statutory system through personalised budgets and direct payments”.
The consultation document acknowledges the need to minimise the anxiety and disruption to the lives of ILF users and to mitigate the impact on the social care system.
The big challenge in devolving funding will be how to ensure it reaches its target. Ringfenced money is unpopular in local government but without such protection there will be fears of the money dissipating into general local authority coffers.
For local authorities there is also the unpredictable element of having to respond to the needs of a group of people of whom they are currently unaware (as is believed to be the case with some of the ILF users who continue to be funded from the first phase of the ILF prior to 1993).
The evidence submitted to our review, including submissions from disabled people, overwhelmingly supported reform and an end to the confusion and duplication. We were clear that doing nothing was not a tenable option; we were equally clear that there should be no loss for people currently in receipt of the ILF. The response to the consultation questions set out by the DWP will be published in the autumn, and how best to balance strategic reform with a focus on individual impact will be critical.
The closure of the ILF is a significant decision, but it must now be matched by a clear strategy that spells out how devolving responsibility to local government would work in order to support disabled people live the lives they choose and not a life lived in fear of financial loss and curtailed independence.
Melanie Henwood is a health and social care consultant.
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