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Dear Colleague

DIRECT PAYMENTS - NEW DRAFT POLICY AND PRACTICE GUIDANCE

This letter invites your views on new draft guidance on direct payments which may be used by certain categories of people to buy community care and children's services that they are assessed as needing. Once finally approved, the new guidance will be issued under Section 5(1) of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 and will replace the earlier policy and practice guidance issued on 20 June 2003.

At the recent Care Inquiry conducted by the Health Committee, Lewis Macdonald, Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care, voiced his determination to improve take-up. Additional resources have already been provided to local authorities to assist with developing local direct payments schemes by: funding local direct payments support services; training of direct payments recipients and personal assistants ( PAs); providing a designated direct payments officer within each local authority, and training local authority staff. The purpose of the draft guidance is to increase local access to this form of self-directed care so that more people who wish to can benefit from the increased independence that it can bring. The draft guidance is based on best practice recommendations from national working groups, and the evidence of the Care Inquiry.

The following is a summary of new expectations of local authorities within sections of the proposed guidance:

1. To provide a designated direct payments officer within each local authority (paras 156, 226)

2. To fund a direct payments support service which should ideally be independent and user-led (paras 156, 226)

3. To fund pre-assessment work with potential users, to enable them to get the best from their assessment and care planning (para 142)

4. To fund other essential training for direct payments recipients, and training of personal assistants ( PAs) (paras 164 and 165)

5. To fund direct payments training for care managers, finance managers and local authority directors (paras 166, 226)

6. To meet the costs of disclosure checks for direct payments recipients employing PAs (paras 126 to 129)

7. To fund employers indemnity for PA employers (para 126)

8. To fund direct payments packages during short stays in hospital (para 208)

9. To recognise that long term best value should take account of individuals' quality of life, and allowance made for exceptional circumstances (para 227)

We would be interested in your views on the draft guidance and in particular specific changes to the text which would enhance its value as a tool to increase direct payments uptake locally. If you are aware of anyone not on the enclosed copy list who may have an interest in responding to this consultation, please draw it to their attention.

Annex A provides details on responding to this consultation and you should ensure that Annex B, the Respondent Information Form, is completed and returned along with your response. Further information on the Scottish Executive consultation process is contained in Annex C.

Yours sincerely

JEAN MACLELLAN
Scottish Executive Health Department
Adult Support and Protection Unit

List of Recipients

Age Concern Scotland
Alzheimer Scotland - Action on Dementia
Association of Directors of Social Work
Barnardos
Barnardo's Apna Project
Capability Scotland
Care Commission
Carers Scotland
Centre for Research in Education, Inclusion and Diversity, University of Edinburgh
Church of Scotland Board of Social Responsibility
Citizens Advice Scotland
Clerk to Health Committee
Coalition of Carers in Scotland
Commission for Racial Equality
Community Care Providers Scotland
Convention of Scottish Local Authorities
Crossroads Scotland
Dementia Service Development Centre
Department of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow
Direct Payments Caledonia
Disability Rights Commission
ELCAP Ltd
Enable
Equal Opportunities Commission
Ethnic Enable
Glasgow Centre for Inclusive Living
Health and Social Work Professional Bodies
Help the Aged
Local Authority Chief Executives
Local Authority Directors of Social Work/Chief Social Workers
Local Authority Head of Children's Services
Local Authority Directors of Finance
Local Authority Directors of Housing
Local Authority Direct Payments Children's Group
Lothian Centre for Integrated Living
Men in Mind
Mental Health Foundation
Mental Welfare Commission
MECCOP
National Autistic Society
NHS Board Chief Executives
PAMIS
People First
Princess Royal trust for Carers Scotland
Quarriers
RNIB Scotland
RNID Scotland
Scottish Consortium of Direct Payment Support Organisations
Scottish Association for Mental Health
Scotland's Commissioner for Children and Young People
Scottish Consortium for Learning Disabilities
Scottish Churches Parliamentary Office
Scottish Council on Deafness
Scottish Development Centre for Mental Health
Scottish Human Services Trust
Scottish Executive Library
Scottish MEPs
Scottish Parliament Information Centre Library
Scottish Personal Assistant Employers Network
Scottish Recovery Network
Scottish Social Services Council
Scottish Society for Autism
Scottish Trade Union Congress
Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research, University of Glasgow
The Bodleian Library, Oxford
The British Library
The Library of Trinity College, Dublin
The University Library, Cambridge
The National Library of Scotland
The National Library of Wales
SCVO
United Kingdom Home Care Association
UNISON
UPDATE
Values into Action

Working groups:
Direct Payments for Users of Disabled Children's Services ( DPCS)
Direct Payments for Mental Health Service Users ( DPMH)
Direct Payments for Older People ( DPOP)
Same as You Implementation Group
Users and Carers

ANNEX A: Responding to this consultation paper

We are inviting written responses to this consultation paper by Thursday 21 December 2006. Please send your response to: Dorothy Warren at dorothy.warren@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or by post to Adult Support and Protection Unit, Room 2.E.R, St Andrew's House, Regent Road, Edinburgh EH1 3DG. If you have any queries contact Dorothy on 0131 244 4778.

We would be grateful if you could clearly indicate in your response which part of the consultation paper you are responding to as this will aid our analysis of the responses received.

This consultation, and all other SE consultation exercises, can be viewed online at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations. You can telephone Freephone 0800 77 1234 to find out where your nearest public internet access point is.

The Scottish Executive now has an email alert system for SE consultations ( SEconsult). This system allows stakeholder individuals and organisations to register and receive a weekly email containing details of all new SE consultations (including web links). SEconsult complements, but in no way replaces SE distribution lists, and is designed to allow stakeholders to keep up to date with all SE consultations activity, and therefore be alerted at the earliest opportunity to those of most interest. We would encourage you to register.

Handling your response

We need to know how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to be made public. Please complete and return the Respondent Information Form (Annex B) as this will ensure that we treat your response appropriately. If you ask for your response not to be published we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.

All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Executive are subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and would therefore have to consider any request made to it under the Act for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.

Access to consultation responses

Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public (see Annex B), these will be made available to the public in the Scottish Executive Library by 24 January 2007. We will check all responses where agreement to publish has been given for any potentially defamatory material before logging them in the library or placing them on the website. You can make arrangements to view responses by contacting the SE Library on 0131 244 4556. Responses can be copied and sent to you, but a charge may be made for this service.

ANNEX B: RESPONDENT INFORMATION FORM - DIRECT PAYMENTS: NEW DRAFT POLICY AND PRACTICE GUIDANCE

Please complete the details below and attach it with your response. This will help ensure we handle your response appropriately. Thank you for your help.

ANNEX C: The Scottish Executive Consultation Process

Consultation is an essential and important aspect of Scottish Executive working methods. Given the wide-ranging areas of work of the Scottish Executive, there are many varied types of consultation. However, in general, Scottish Executive consultation exercises aim to provide opportunities for all those who wish to express their opinions on a proposed area of work to do so in ways which will inform and enhance that work.

The Scottish Executive encourages consultation that is thorough, effective and appropriate to the issue under consideration and the nature of the target audience. Consultation exercises take account of a wide range of factors, and no two exercises are likely to be the same.

Typically Scottish Executive consultations involve a written paper inviting answers to specific questions or more general views about the material presented. Written papers are distributed to organisations and individuals with an interest in the issue, and they are also placed on the Scottish Executive web site enabling a wider audience to access the paper and submit their responses ¹. Consultation exercises may also involve seeking views in a number of different ways, such as through public meetings, focus groups or questionnaire exercises. Copies of all the written responses received to a consultation exercise (except those where the individual or organisation requested confidentiality) are placed in the Scottish Executive library at Saughton House, Edinburgh (K Spur, Saughton House, Broomhouse Drive, Edinburgh, EH11 3XD, telephone 0131 244 4556).

All Scottish Executive consultation papers and related publications ( e.g., analysis of response reports) can be accessed at:

Scottish Executive consultations ( http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations)

The views and suggestions detailed in consultation responses are analysed and used as part of the decision making process, along with a range of other available information and evidence. Depending on the nature of the consultation exercise the responses received may:

• indicate the need for policy development or review
• inform the development of a particular policy
• help decisions to be made between alternative policy proposals
• be used to finalise legislation before it is implemented

Final decisions on the issues under consideration will also take account of a range of other factors, including other available information and research evidence.

While details of particular circumstances described in a response to a consultation exercise may usefully inform the policy process, consultation exercises cannot address individual concerns and comments, which should be directed to the relevant public body.

If you have any comment about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to Dorothy Warren, whose contact details are in Annex A above.

1 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations

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