Annual Report and Accounts 2009-10 - Welfare Reform impact ...

Strategic aim 3.
Engaging proactively with key
stakeholders and partners to promote
independent living across the UK.
Our work with our many stakeholders is central to keeping our
services relevant and effective. Throughout this year we have
made considerable progress to ensure that the ILF is well placed
to contribute to Government priorities.
Partnerships with local
authorities in excess of
200.
Testing Right to Control
with Trailblazers
8.
There is perhaps no organisation
better placed to understand the
needs of disabled people to live
independently than the ILF.
Our national standing together
with our close relationships with
our users, disability groups and the
Government at local and national
level gives us a unique perspective.
Increasingly, our work places us
at the centre of reforms in policy
for disabled people. As a UK-wide
organisation, we keep in close
touch with the administrations
in England, Scotland and Wales.
This year we supported the
Department of Health in developing
major plans for the transformation
of adult social care in England.
Our views and those of our users
helped shape two new White
Papers, ‘Putting People First’ and
‘Building the National Care Service’.
We also worked with them to
introduce personal budgets for
our joint users. Similarly, we are
working with the Scottish Executive
to make self-directed support a
success in Scotland.
We joined with the Office for
Disability Issues (ODI) to develop the
‘Right to Control’ Trailblazers. Right to
Control is part of the Government’s
welfare reform agenda aimed at
giving disabled people more choice
and control over support they
receive from the state.
The policy will be tested by a
number of local authorities –
Trailblazers – across England starting
later in 2010. We worked with the
ODI to develop the legislation for
the Trailblazers, fed in our users’
views and identified ways in which
our Trust Deed should change.
We continue to work closely with
all our stakeholders and partners
to support independent living
for disabled people. This year we
worked with our colleagues from
DWP to identify ways of supporting
more of our users towards work.
At a local level we work in
partnership with over 200 local
authorities in all parts of the UK.
A new joint protocol between us,
currently in development, will
reinforce our relationship and further
align our services for our users.
21 Annual Report and Accounts 2009-10