Consultation on extending Right to Control
The Government has announced a consultation on whether to extend Right to Control for a further 12 months from December 2012.
Right to Control is intended to ensure disabled people have greater choice and control over the support they need to go about their daily lives. It aims to shift the balance of power from the State to the individual, assisting disabled people to achieve better outcomes from the support they currently receive.
Through the Welfare Reform Act 2009 and The Disabled People’s Right to Control (Pilot Scheme) (England) Regulations 2010, the Government legislated to put in place a Right for disabled people to request choice and control over certain public funding they receive to go about their daily lives and to test the best ways of delivering that right in a number of local authority areas in England. Those areas are known as Trailblazers and include:
• Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council and Sheffield City Council;
• Essex County Council;
• Manchester Area Partnership, which comprises Manchester City Council, Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council, Bury Metropolitan Borough Council, Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council and Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council;
• Leicester City Council;
• London Borough of Barnet;
• London Borough of Newham; and
• Surrey County Council (two parts only: Epsom and Ewell Borough Council and Reigate and Banstead Borough Council)
The consultation is open until 19 September 2012 and can be viewed at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/consultations/2012/right-control.shtml
The Government has now signalled its intention to extend the Right to Control pilot to December 2013 following the consultation exercise. Legislation to extend the pilot will now be laid before Parliament for approval.
An interim evaluation published earlier this year found that while there were many examples of good practice within Trailblazer areas, more evidence was needed about the pilot’s impact.
http://odi.dwp.gov.uk/odi-projects/right-to-control-trailblazers.php
