The Department wants to identify local authorities that would like to be involved in developing the use of direct payments in residential care.
The White Paper ‘Caring for our future: reforming care and support’, published on 11 July, committed to “develop, in a small number of areas, the use of direct payments for people who have chosen to live in residential care to test this approach”.
Currently, direct payments only apply in community care. They are used successfully to give individuals and their carers better control over the care they receive. The Law Commission recommended expanding direct payments to residential care, and we have chosen to examine the proposal in more detail by establishing several development sites.
We would welcome expressions of interest from local authorities looking to become development sites.
The letter below contains more information, and an expression of interest form that must be completed and returned to scp-personalisation@dh.gsi.gov.uk, by 5 October 2012.