• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Independent Living / Welsh government ducks challenge to set up its own ILF
Independent Living Fund users protesting outside the Royal Courts of Justice

Welsh government ducks challenge to set up its own ILF

By John Pring on 20th March 2015 Category: Independent Living

Listen

The Welsh government has refused pleas to set up a replacement for the Independent Living Fund (ILF) in Wales, but it has protected the budgets of ILF-users for at least another nine months.

The Welsh government had been consulting on the future care and support arrangements for ILF-users, following last year’s decision by the UK government to close the fund for good on 30 June.

From July, the UK government will pass the non-ring-fenced funding previously allocated to ILF – a government-resourced trust which helps about 17,000 disabled people with the highest support needs to live independently – to English local authorities and the Welsh and Scottish governments.

The Scottish government announced last year that it would set up its own ILF, for both existing and new users in Scotland, using the UK government’s funding and an additional £5.5 million of its own money.

But the Welsh government has opted instead to transfer the Westminster funding and responsibility to local authorities, but with conditions attached on how the money should be spent.

It will protect the budgets of existing ILF-users for the first nine months, with funding for the following 12 months dependant on funding allocated in the next UK government’s spending round.

The Welsh government had offered three other options in its consultation: to set up a Welsh successor to the ILF; to create a national independent living scheme; and to transfer funding and responsibility to local authorities, in the same non-ring-fenced way that is happening in England.

A national independent living scheme would allow Welsh councils to ask for funding towards some of the cost of more expensive packages of independent living support.

Mark Drakeford, the Welsh minister for health and social services, said he would consider setting up a Welsh ILF if the UK government provided the necessary funding as part of the Welsh government’s long-term budget.

He said: “I am fully aware of the ongoing anxiety and concerns experienced by current ILF recipients as a result of the announcement of the closure.

“The grant scheme I have announced today will ensure that current levels of funding are maintained whilst keeping open the possibility of a permanent body to operate ILF in Wales, should conditions permit.”

But Disability Wales said the announcement was a missed opportunity.

It believes that many of the responses to the consultation from ILF-users, other disabled people and disabled people’s organisations and carers, “firmly opposed the transfer of responsibility for ILF to local authorities”.

And it said there was “strong support” for setting up a national independent living scheme for Wales, which it believed would help all disabled people – and not just ILF-users – to have control over their lives and their support.

As of 30 January 2015, there were 1,648 ILF recipients in Wales, receiving an average of about £335 a week.

Disability Wales welcomed Drakeford’s pledge to keep open the possibility of a Welsh ILF in the future, and said the option he had chosen would “afford more protection” to ILF recipients than simply handing the funds over to local authorities with no conditions attached.

But it said that setting up a national independent living scheme was the only option that matched the Welsh government’s aspirations to “transform social services” through its Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act, which became law in May 2014.

The act aims to promote independence and give service-users a stronger voice and more control over their services.

A Disability Wales spokeswoman added: “We now look forward to on-going engagement with Welsh government, local authorities and other stakeholders with a view to establishing a national independent living scheme before the current [ILF] grant ends on 31 March 2017.”

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Tags: Disability Wales Independent Living Fund Welsh government

Related

Round-up: Unheard voices, a new manifesto for Wales… and Unlimited goes digital
10th December 2020
Watchdog’s report spotlights ‘shocking’ impact of pandemic on social care in Scotland
8th October 2020
Councils face calls to re-think COVID streetscape changes
1st October 2020

Primary Sidebar

Access

Latest Stories

New figures on COVID deaths of younger disabled people ‘show need for vaccine action’

Atos pays out for negligent PIP assessment after visit from debt enforcement officers

Budget’s double blow to disabled people

Treasury rejects delivery of last-ditch appeals for £20 uplift

Anger over disability survey’s ‘degrading’ and ‘insulting’ relationship question

DWP brands DNS ‘vexatious’ for seeking truth about impact of universal credit

Government questioned over ‘unforgivable’ failures on vaccine priority

Regulator fails to record key details from scheme sending COVID patients into care homes

‘Why did it take disabled man’s death to lead to rail safety action?’ campaigners ask

Ministers silent after sitting on report on discrimination in politics for more than a year

Advice and Information

DWP: The case for the prosecution

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2021 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web