Disabled People: Independent Living Fund

Lord McAvoy Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord McAvoy (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations and thanks to those of colleagues who thanked the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, for her integrity in bringing us here and for the quality of her presentation. The quality of presentations from other colleagues has also been first class.

The closure of the Independent Living Fund is a truly reprehensible decision, which is already causing recipients of the fund immeasurable hardship. The fund has served disabled people well. For those in receipt of the fund there is now a continual anxiety and fear about what comes next.

Like other colleagues, I press the Government to say what arrangements they are making to communicate with recipients of the fund and with local authorities. Responsibility will be devolved to local authorities from June 2015, but there remains no comprehensive strategy for implementation. Is it really the case that local authorities have no information on how the fund is to be devolved, divided, or maintained? What discussions are the Government having with local authorities?

Even more importantly, what is being done to inform recipients of the changes being made and to guide them through them? The closure of the ILF is already adversely impacting upon recipients lives; many feel ignored and marginalised. Worryingly, the Government’s equalities analysis, which the courts forced them to carry out, is full of imprecision. The Government seem unsure of the actual effects their policy will have. Some £262 million will be available to local authorities and devolved Administrations in place of the ILF in 2015-16, but what will happen after that date? The money being given to local authorities, as I think every Member of the Committee has mentioned, is not ring-fenced. Local authorities’ social care budgets were cut by £893 million in 2012-13 and will be cut by a further 28% in 2013-14. It would be unsurprising if cash-strapped local authorities used this money to mitigate the effect of these cuts. What protections are the Government putting in place to ensure that this money is used appropriately? Why is the money not being ring-fenced?

It is clear that local authorities will have to apply their own assessment and eligibility criteria unless the Government build in some form of protection on transfer. Why have the Government not done this and what assessment has been made of this likely postcode lottery? That concern was also raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack.

It has been suggested that existing social care support assessments provide a means for determining support. However, in submissions to the Government’s consultation, several local authorities reported that group 1 users may not meet social care criteria. The equalities assessment noted:

“For those Group 1 users not in receipt of any support from their local authority, the loss of ILF funding will most likely have a significant effect”.

This represents 40% of group 1 users. There is a clear identification of risk to these people. What is being done to address this?

There is a disturbing lack of information on what is going to happen after June 2015. It is essential that recipients and local authorities have more information and are kept informed. What guarantees are the Government planning to ensure that former ILF funds are spent correctly? What protections will there be for group 1 recipients who are not in receipt of local authority support? These issues are already causing immense distress to disabled people and, if they go unaddressed, will cause serious hardship. Like the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope, I fully support the call of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, for a reference group. If there is no one there to fight the corner of people who are less able than the majority around them, they will in my opinion inevitably suffer. I call on the Government to respond to the noble Baroness’s call for a reference group.