Watch SCIL Give Evidence At HCC Personalisation Commission

Many blog readers may have been following the work of the Personalisation Commission run by Hampshire County Council.

Below is the edited highlights video of the third evidence session where Robert Droy and Ian Loynes from SCIL gave evidence.

Here’s a few excerpts from our presentation:

‘The principles underpinning the personalisation agenda ‑ and that is self‑assessment, choice, control, flexibility ‑ have all been fought for by disabled people for over 20 years now….. self‑assessment should be from the perspective of their peers, people who understand what options there are in life.  All of these issues have been debated and talked about and done in many respects, and Hampshire was one of the early authorities to latch onto the idea of self‑assessment before it became Government policy, and we look forward to the day where self‑assessment again becomes a priority in local authorities. 

Individual budgets are different to direct payments and various other things, but they are different flavours of the same thing, so there is nothing new under the rainbow.  Let’s not reinvent new wheels unless we really need to, and occasionally we might.  The point we make and we always make is that direct payments worked well because disabled people developed it. 

I think we would like to see this whole Commission and what comes out of it actually being led by disabled people, not the people who think they might know what we want, because all too often they do not. If disabled people are to control their own lives, then they have to be in control of how their services are developed and provided.  We cannot just have a solution provided to us and say, “Right, off you go.  Here’s 500 quid a month, you decide what to do with it”.  We have got to be in control of how those are developed, how they are supported, and all the infrastructure around that.

At SCIL we support people both in Hampshire and Southampton, and we support hundreds of disabled people who have their own personal assistant, and the incidence of abuse is actually very small. Risk needs to be kept in perspective.  There are risks in all areas of life and I am very aware of that. Choice and control means actually allowing users to make risky choices.  We cannot just talk about choice and control and then say, “Yes, but when you do something that we don’t agree with, we are going to step in…”.

In terms of flexibility, everybody wants some degree of choice and control over how they receive their basic support.  One of the biggest things that irritate me is when people say “Well, some people won’t necessarily want choice and control”.  Well, they might not want choice and control over a trivial aspect of their life, but believe me anybody, no matter what age, no matter what stage in their life, and older people and people at the end of their life probably want more choice and control over who is actually going to be supporting them.  So I totally reject this notion that some people will not want choice and control. 

I personally think, if day services do not offer people stimulation and support, they should shut down.  You know, too many day services I am aware of I believe are just holding pens for cheap respite care.’

You can also read the full transcript of the session here.

SCIL Announce Landmark Conference

SCIL are pleased to announce an important conference for Disabled People regarding their human and legal rights.

Date:         Tuesday 28 October 2008

Time:        10.30am – 4.00pm

Venue:      Unity 12, 9-19 Rose Road, Southampton, SO14 6TE

The keynote speaker will be Luke Clements who is a Professor at Cardiff Law School and is renowned for his academic research and litigation work around the rights of people who experience social exclusion such as Disabled People, Carers and Travellers.

Luke Clements

The aims of the conference are to:

• Understand Disabled People’s rights to Independent Living

• Understand the impact of UK & European legislation

• Understand where the new United Nations Convention on the rights of Disabled People might help

 In afternoon workshops you will have an opportunity to:

• Discuss individual issues with Luke Clements

• Discuss how involvement with Skills for Care may assist in the improvement of services (with other service users)

• Discuss how working with SCIL and other organisations run by Disabled People could make our collective voice stronger

The conference for Disabled People ONLY will be held in our new fully accessible conference suite at Unity 12. More information and a booking form are downloadable below but demand for places are expected to be high so please return the booking form as soon as possible.

conference-booking-form1