Last week, five disabled people who receive
support from the Independent Living Fund went to the High Court to challenge the government’s decision
to close the Fund. Their challenge relates to the government's consultation
last year on the closure of the Fund – and there does seem to be a yawning gap
between the responses to that consultation and the government’s conclusions. In
particular, it would appear that the DWP’s response to the consultation mis-represented
the submissions made by local authorities.
The DWP stated that “Most local
authorities and their representative bodies expressed strong support for the
proposal in principle”. Yet, looking through those submissions – from both
individual authorities and from organisations such as the Association of
Directors of Adult Social Services – it is hard to see much evidence of ‘strong support’.
Even
those authorities that said they did support the principle of closure usually
attached qualifications to this support. Indeed, the government acknowledged, in response to a
Freedom of Information request about the proportion of responses supporting the
proposal, that: “The overwhelming majority of respondents chose to
provide longer responses with many expressing mixed feelings about the
proposals or laying out conditions on which they would support it.”
Most local
authorities’ responses (and those of their representative bodies) made the
assumption that the closure was going to happen anyway. Many responses said not enough information
had been provided or details of how the transfer would work. Some referred to
the advantages of there only being one system for allocating support but all
referred to potential problems of closing the ILF, primarily the likely
reduction in funding available to individuals.
Most focused their attention on what mitigating action could be taken, with the
primary suggestion being “The obvious mitigation is compensatory growth in the
government support for adult social care services” (Association of Directors of Adult Social Services/Local Government Association). Of course the reverse is happening – by 2015 social care
in England will be have been cut by £8billion – a real term cut of about a third of the total budget for social care.
Disabled
People Against the Cuts have reported that, during the two day hearing last
week, further information emerged from the DWP which indicates that the transitional funding
to local authorities – which is not ring-fenced but which could be used to
support current ILF users – will be limited to one year.
As I pointed out in my last blog about this
issue, the people who are currently funded by the ILF are those who in previous
generations would have been consigned to institutions. Is this what will happen again – as the National Association of Financial
Assessment Officers (the people who carry out the means-test to determine
whether disabled and older people should be charged for their care) told the
government “some councils may determine that residential care would be a less
expensive option than a high cost home care package.
Guardian columnist, Zoe Williams, writing about the court case last week, asked perhaps the most pertinent question – “What's
your plan for these people whose lives we apparently can't afford?”
