The government has challenged councils to significantly improve take up of direct payments and work towards making them the default offer for adult social care.
We believe that this is the right direction of travel. Evidence from the recent POET survey has shown that direct payments significantly improve outcomes for all groups of people who use them, but so far increases in personal budgets have not been matched with increases in direct payments. Whilst direct payments are not right for everyone, we think that to truly transform Adult Social Care, much more needs to be done to make direct payments accessible, safe and manageable for the majority of people using social care services.
To coincide with the launch of Think Local Act Personal’s (TLAP’s) guidance on direct payments, TLAP, and the National Centre for Independent Living are hosting a series of nine regional events across England aimed at giving practical support and tools to councils to make a step change in their local delivery of direct payments.
