Page 14 - TLAP Beyond Direct Payments

Beyond Direct Payments
Systemic blocks
Despite all these positive developments the potential of community micro-enterprise
is still underestimated and the systemic blocks faced by people who need or who want to offer this kind of support are still profound. Three myths must be challenged:
1) Direct payments are the only way to get something different
Currently most community-enterprises rely on self-funders or on people who receive their personal budget as a direct payment. But not everyone can manage or even wants to manage a direct payment. Not everyone realises that a direct payment can be used to buy support from an individual or organisation as an alternative to employing staff. The Care Act 2014 and the subsequent regulation and guidance makes very clear that funders can let people manage their personal budgets indirectly, that the authority can contract exibly with any suitable person or organisation – including community micro-enterprises.
2) The best support comes from professionalised support providers
Dividing the world of health and social care into purchasers (or the more grandly titled ‘commissioners’) and providers has been of no bene t to innovation and community resilience. Community organisations with local roots have found themselves undermined by large, often pro t-making organisations, or have themselves been forced to become larger and larger, moving further away from their local communities. However there are many different ways in which organisations can serve their communities. For instance, larger organisations can provide auxiliary support to smaller organisations or can sub- contract funding to encourage new community developments.
3) Only commissioners can develop community
There is increasing awareness that health and care services exist in the context of community and that it is the strength and capacity of our communities that help
to limit the demand for increasing levels of public service. However we cannot
let go of the paradoxical assumption that it is only the responsibility of statutory bodies to ‘grow community’. In fact increasing levels of centralisation undermine community development. The challenge is to shift resources directly to citizens and to communities and to encourage service providers to act as responsible community organisations, rooted in and supportive of the local community.
In the following sections we share some practical examples of where these myths are being challenged.
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