“Councils must cut bureaucracy for service users”

19th October 2011

Local authorities should lift restrictions on how service users spend their personal budgets, according to the Think Local Act Personal (TLAP) coalition.

The group says that there is too much red tape involved in the current process, and despite these restrictions often being used to control costs, they have lead to inefficiency and reduced outcomes.

TLAP programme manager Martin Routledge told Community Care that councils “have other means of controlling how money is allocated, they don’t need to place conditions on people.”

The group specifically wants to see restrictions on the use of direct payments lifted, in order to encourage increased use.   Their ‘National Personal Budgets Survey’, published earlier in 2011, found that people on direct payments generally experienced better outcomes than those on council-managed personal budgets.