Personalisation and the Wigtownshire £1.2Million trial pilot
Posted: February 16th, 2010 | Author: DGPPG | Filed under: NewsComments: 1 - Leave your feedback, post a comment here »
Reply from Chris Raftery Scottish Government Adult Care and Support 0131 244 5492 on 16 Feb at 11:34 Email : Chris.Raftery@scotland.gsi.gov.uk Re Personalisation and the Wigtownshire £1.2Million trial pilot
Thank you forwarding the summary of the Scottish Government’s consultation on Self-Directed Support (SDS) to ARC Service Users and Carers and thank you for your e-mail of 18:35 yesterday.
As the consultation suggests we are very keen to gain the views of a wide range of people particularly users and carers. This ensures we are able to make decisions based on the people who are affected by any changes in Scottish Government policy. If anybody wishes to ask for hard copies of the consultation for those without e-mail access, we are happy to provide this, you can contact us on the same details that you have circulated. As a national organisation, we attempt to consult as widely as possible but we have to rely on local organisations to circulate more widely as we cannot hold a database of everybody that might be affected by any proposals, so we value this being circulated further.
I think it is helpful to point out that the proposals from D&G council to close the ARCs is not related to the Scottish Government’s draft Self Directed Support strategy. Self-Directed Support is a means of giving an individual control over the support they receive. This can take the form of a Direct Payment or it can be that the individual has a greater say in the way services are provided for them. “Personalisation” is an over arching term about tailoring the services that a individual receives to their needs.
Whilst we welcome comments from individuals about their local issues surrounding SDS, D&Gs proposals about the ARCs is a separate issue. The Scottish Government has not asked Local Authorities to close any day centres. As you may have noted from the SDS consultation, the Scottish Government acknowledges that Direct Payments are not the right option for everyone and should not be enforced upon anyone. Giving the individual more choice and control is the key aim. I would not want people to be confused about these different agendas or for people to take time to respond to our consultation about a separate local issue that the Scottish Government cannot address
In response to your second e-mail yesterday. I think its important to clarify that the Scottish Government at no point has asked or told D&G council to close the ARCs. As suggested in the letter from Alasdair Morgan, the aims of the test sites is not to a create budget saving for council. The money is aimed at increasing the uptake of SDS using a range of particular interventions. Some of that money would be used to help release funding from building based services to allow individuals to use that money in more flexible and innovative ways. As, I have already stated, the Scottish Government does not want to enforce Direct Payments onto an individual. Therefore any building based service that is closed in order to free up resource for Direct Payment packages, has to be either not meeting individuals needs or demand falls to a point where that service becomes unsustainable. In these instances, it is the Council’s responsibility to ensure a suitable alternative service is put in place.
I will ensure that you are placed on the circulation list for anything related to Self Directed Support. In terms of “personalisation” I will forward your details to our Changing Lives team, that initially produced the Personalisation statement. I should point out that the term personalisation is widely used across the Scottish Government, therefore I cannot guarantee that your details will be on every consultation that uses this term. I suggest that if there is anything that you are particularly interested in that you check the Scottish Government website for the relevant policy areas and then approach the responsible team. If a individual contact for the team is not available online, you can ring our central enquiries line on 08457 741 741 or 0131 556 8400 who will be able to assist you. The paper you refer to on Independent Living, is an annex to the strategy that demonstrates co-production of another policy area that we recognise is a way to pursue the SDS strategy. It is a different policy area, whose remit is wide ranging. As such I do not think it is appropriate to forward your e-mail directly to the individuals concerned.
Within the Scottish Government, it is the Self Directed Support team, of which I am a member, that has responsibility for the funding of the test site. As I have outlined D&Gs proposal to close the ARCs and the Scottish Government test sites are not the same thing. I have copied in John Alexander and Judith Procter, so they can ensure clearer communication to avoid any future misunderstanding between the two separate pieces of work.
In terms of the separate issue of progress of the test sites, we have contracted independent evaluators that will identify any progress or lack of progress. These evaluators will be able to determine the value achieved through this investment and determine learning for all Scottish Local Authorities and what interventions have worked well and which have not worked so well.
I hope this is helpful but you feel you would like further information on the test sites or the Self Directed Support strategy please feel free contact me. The issues surrounding the closure of the ARCs is a local issue and not related to the test site activity, as such you should continue to raise your concerns locally to the Council.
Please can I ask that any responses to SDS strategy are sent to the dedicated mailbox and not to my individual inbox. There is a team that is dealing with this consultation and the dedicated inbox ensures that all views are taken into account and analysed, appropriately. I would therefore be grateful, if you could circulate this request and/or my above response to the individuals that you have circulated your previous e-mails to.
Many thanks Chris
Chris Raftery Scottish Government Adult Care and Support 0131 244 5492
Sent: 15 February 2010 11:04
Attention ARC Service Users & Carers and other persons affected by ‘Personalisation’, better described as self directed support, which is being used by the deeply flawed and misleading Alexander/Proctor Oct 2009 plan as the justification to close the Dumfries & Galloway ARCs.
The following is the summary from the attached PDF file, a Scottish Government consultation document. If you wish to have your views known and hopefully taken into account the please take time to read and respond to the attached. Please will you draw this to the attention of those carers and service users who do not have email access at home. You may wish to tell your experiences re the ARC saga to Chris Raftery Self Directed Support Team Adult Care and Support Division Scottish Government Edinburgh EH1 3DG selfdirectedsupport@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or if you have any queries contact Chris Raftery on 0131 244 5492 Chris.Raftery@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
Why are we, the ‘amateurs’ having to find and circulate such information when we employ highly paid Officers to serve us? Why are we paying for useless representation and ‘communication’ by self serving bodies like UCI, funded by us via our Council Tax, who purport to represent the learning disabled? No one is responding to these or other questions whilst Director Alexander has unilaterally decreed outwith Council Policy that he will not deal with carers in a group that dares to express any view that he disagrees with. He has still not answered the questions he promised to do on Dec 16th nor has this information been released under FoI. What is he and the Council hiding and why?
This will be published on: www.dumfries-galloway.org.
Summary extract from the Scottish Goverrnment Dec 2009 paper:
The national strategy for self-directed support in Scotland has been
developed to help take forward the personalisation of health and social
care services in Scotland.
The increasing numbers of people accessing social care and the range
of individual needs mean that services and supports will have to
continue to become much more flexible and responsive in the future.
This strategy responds to increasing interest in reshaping care and
support in Scotland. It aims to set out and drive a cultural shift around
the delivery of care and support that views people as equal citizens with
rights and responsibilities. It recognises that for consumers and
providers alike, tighter financial pressures, and demographic changes
mean that improved outcomes cannot be delivered with more of the
same.
Self-directed support has a role in supporting the Government’s
overarching aim of growing the Scottish economy. It supports the
empowerment of individuals to gain equality of opportunity and sustain
their citizenship. It also contributes significantly to improving health and
well-being and tackling health inequalities.
The strategy has been developed with the support of a National
Reference Group and through extensive discussion with other
stakeholders. It will be a long term strategy, spanning 10 years, and so
what is provided is a framework for significant changes in the way
support is provided. It is not intended as detailed guidance, which may
follow as the strategy is implemented.
The key themes of the strategy are:
- · Values and principles that are based on human rights and
equality legislation.
- · Ownership and leadership reflecting the importance of
leadership at all levels, including citizen leadership, and adoption
of co-production in planning and delivering services, support and
workforce training.
- · Supporting choice and control through a shift to outcomes
focused assessment, review and commissioning. It recommends
action to assess the role and funding of support organisations,
including disability led organisations.
2
- · Resources: it recommends a review of the tools for assessing
individual budgets to see what works best. It promotes joint work
between local and national government to consider the use of nonsocial
work budgets in providing lower level support and creating
inclusive communities.
- · Measuring progress through engagement with regulatory bodies
to ensure the principles of self-directed support are understood. A
short term goal is to review information gathered nationally to
reflect the focus on individual outcomes rather than outputs and
processes.
Following consultation, an implementation plan will be developed to
identify timescales and targets for the strategy’s short, medium and long
term goals.
The draft strategy will be available for download in easy read
approximately two weeks after the start of the consultation process. If
you require the document in any other format, this can be requested
from Chris Raftery.
Responding to the Consultation
The Self-Directed Support Team welcomes responses to this
consultation paper by Friday 7th May 2010. Please send your
response with the completed Respondent Information Form (see
“Handling your Response” below) to:
selfdirectedsupport@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
or
Chris Raftery
Self Directed Support Team
Adult Care and Support Division
Scottish Government
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG
If you have any queries contact Chris Raftery on 0131 244 5492
We would be grateful if you could clearly indicate in your response which
questions or parts of the consultation paper you are responding to as
this will aid our analysis of the responses received
Circulated in the interests of local democracy by: DGPPG see www.dumfries-galloway.org.uk
Leave your feedback, post a comment here »
The Social Work Director J Alexander now refuses to consult with us about all these matters as a group of carers, despite his statutory duty to do so. What Council Policy permits such high handed unilateral decisions in breach of all he promised publicly on Dec 16th? Is he a law unto himself and accountable to no one?
We ask the ‘powers that be’ to note how the Wigtownshire Test Site pilot is being operated here. Locally there are many complaints, including nil consultation! We request that this now be fully investigated by those responsible for the £1.2Million being spent by D&G Council and by the appropriate independent Audit authority. How can we get that arranged? Especially since the Council are cutting front line services elsewhere yet creating £36,000 a year jobs that are meaningless. More jobs for the ‘boys & girls’?
Why are we not consulted about all this and excluded from the Personalisation Board? This Pilot has been running for more than a year and is a shambles! Yet it is meant to report by January 2011.
Those responsible should make the effort to contact us in order to understand and read about the level of local opposition and adverse comments about this alleged mismanagement by senior officers. This is because the SW Director J Alexander has chosen to use “Personalisation” as the justification to close highly valued ARCs and make budget cash savings, all as detailed in the deeply flawed and misleading Alexander/Proctor Oct 2009 plan. This is wholly contrary to everything we read in your documents about choice and outcomes etc. No one disagrees with that, just how this Council have chosen to misuse these idease and our money.
In the Annex Glossary of 8 Dec we read the following Item 26 about the Test Sites:
26. Test Sites
After discussion with COSLA, the Scottish Government has designated three test sites (Glasgow (urban), Highland (remote rural), and Dumfries and Galloway (rural)) which are working to increase the uptake of self-directed support by focusing their work on three themes of intervention: bridging finance; cutting red tape and leadership and training. The test sites are due to conclude their work in January 2011. A fourth test site hosted by NHS Lothian will investigate the use of health monies in SDS packages.
We suggest that after more than a year and the creation of much money wasting bureaucracy there is no evidence of these objectives being followed, let alone achieved. It seems to be an example of managerial incompetence and misleading plans wasting our money on a grand scale. Note that no actual service user or carer of the Learning Disabled community was involved in any way, in fact we have been positively excluded, whether local to Wigtownshire or not.
Are those responsible in the Scottish Government content this is the proper way to conduct a pilot costing £1.2Million at this time of budget cuts and supposed austerity?
Please will you reply publicly to these questions? Can we look forward to hearing further about this and how you intend to fully investigate and properly audit what is going on here.
Very concerned carer