Clause 32
1:45 pm
Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Forest of Dean, Conservative)
The clause includes provisions for, and gives powers to Ministers to make regulations about, direct payments. Amendment 28 addresses the extent to which a local authority is able not to allow a direct payment, and to what extent a disabled person can demand direct payment, because in the circumstances, the local authority will not have to pay. There is a range of reasons, if we are being generous—excuses, if we are not—why local authorities can refuse to comply with a request for an individual budget to be converted to a direct payment, and there is a question about whether or not that gives the disabled person enough freedom to spend the money. The clause, by my reading, enables an authority to make direct payments in respect of the person securing the provision of the equivalent service, instead of their having to provide the service itself. The question is whether that, rather than giving them the money to spend, will give the disabled person enough freedom. What I want from the Minister is an understanding of the extent to which the presumption will work. If the person has their individual budget—their resource allocation—will they be able in most cases to take it as a direct payment, or will the local authority have too many reasons or excuses not to comply?
Amendment 29 addresses the provision allowing a local authority not to provide a direct payment. It considers the words
“unreasonable financial burden on the providing authority”.
The amendment, which was proposed by Mind among others, suggests that when measuring undue financial burden, one should take a proper long-term perspective. What we do not want is for a local authority to say, “If I fund a service in the current year, it may well be expensive this year.” However, it could result in long-term savings. For example, it may enable the person to be more independent, and to get back into work, which would effectively support the welfare reform agenda that both sides of the House share. Moreover, savings may accrue in later years.
When making a judgment about the undue financial burden, we want the local authority to weigh up the short-term cost against those long-term savings rather than just looking at the present-year cost and saying, “Because it is a bit more expensive this year, we won’t do it at all.” That effectively would mean giving up those long-term savings. It would be perfectly possible for the local authority to say to the Government that in return for some extra funding this year and next, there will be some long-term financial savings. That would be in everyone’s interest, affecting local government and health spending, for example.
The other issue that could influence the extent to which local authorities roll out the scheme is the funding and costs of parallel running. That came through very clearly from what Paul Davies and Liz Sayce from RADAR said in the evidence session. Liz Sayce said:
“One of the issues that has been raised with us is that it can be more costly to double-run different systems”.——[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 10 February 2009; c. 19, Q20.]
A system in which we have individual budgets, direct payments and the existing provision in one area could be more expensive than moving wholeheartedly to a system of individual budgets and direct payments for most people. In the present economic environment, the focus of all parties will be to spend resources in the wisest and most cost-effective way possible to provide sensible outcomes. We do not want to set up two parallel systems that will create extra costs and burdens. The thrust of both amendments is to look at whether Ministers have correctly assessed that, whether local authorities will use that as an excuse for not doing such things and whether we are giving them too many tools to slow down the process. Moreover, when we are making cost decisions we must ensure that we consider not just present-day costs but costs in the future.
Real benefits can be derived from the success of the right to control. If we do all the things that I listed in clause 29, such as allowing disabled people to get into further education, higher education, employment and training to a much greater extent than today, we will find that as well as improving their quality of life and their life chances, they are also likely to be in a position to make a greater contribution to society. Hence, the cost to society will be lower, and disabled people will have a better quality of life. We should bear that in mind when we consider the Bill. I fear that we are giving local authorities too many reasons to say no, rather than giving them the reasons and incentives to say yes.