Events

A Budgets Report: The risks and opportunities of personal budgets

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23 July 2008

ippr policy seminar in partnership with Save the Children UK, The Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Crossroads Caring for Carers.

ippr offices, Covent Garden

With an opening speech from James Purnell MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

How can the welfare state promote greater choice and control for individuals? Does individual autonomy deliver better outcomes? Advocates of personal budgets, individual accounts and lump sum payments are motivated by an understanding that the standard way in which the state provides services and financial support places limits the options available to individuals – restricting people to particular, and not necessarily the right services or patterns of spending.

Personal budgets give individuals a notional cash pot with which to choose the services and support they get. Using them to improve services and outcomes is generating great interest from across the political spectrum. The government recently committed to introducing personal budgets for adult social care services, and for some long-term conditions and for carers too.

This seminar aimed to make a proper assessment of the experience of personal budgets to date, their risks and the potential to use them across a wider range of policy areas. In particular, this expert seminar asked whether more personal support through budgets and lump sum payments could help move us forward on government ambitions for promoting independent living and work-care balance, employment and tackling child poverty.

Downloads

Care Budgets (.ppt)
Alex Fox, Assistant Director (Policy), The Princess Royal Trust for Carers

Following pilots, adult social services are now bringing in personal budgets over three years. This presentation will cover the experience of personal budgets for disabled people, and also look at the possibility of personal budgets for carers. It will consider the family context to personal budgets, and the challenges for services and the workforce in bringing in budgets. This presentation will also consider the pros and cons of using individual budgets to integrate welfare and social care cost support for disabled people.

Welfare Budgets (.ppt)
Ian Mulheirn, Chief Economist, Social Market Foundation

Despite progress on employment, helping individuals get into sustainable employment remains a significant challenge. This presentation will explore the idea that people out of work be given a personal employment account – a notional cash budget for employment support - as part of a more personalised welfare service and contrast it with the existing and incoming systems of support available for jobseekers. Could personal advisors or claimants be given individual budgets to provide training and employment support tailored to individuals’ needs? How could the use of such budgets be used to reward and incentivise job retention, and progression as well as entry?

Seasonal Grants (.ppt)
Jason Strelitz, UK Poverty Advisor, Save the Children

Back-to-school time and Christmas holidays put extra strain on low-income families. In the context of credit insecurity and debt, this presentation will explore the potential of rolled-up seasonal grants to advance against government targets to reduce child poverty. The prospect of seasonal grants will be explored as part of a wider discussion as to the best ways to provide and target cost support to low-income families.

Speakers

A roundtable discussion, chaired by Lisa Harker, Co-Director ippr, will follow presentations from Ian Mulheirn, Chief Economist, Social Market Foundation, Alex Fox, Assistant Director (Policy), Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Jason Strelitz, UK Poverty Advisor, Save the Children.

Contact

Sophie Moullin - s.moullin@ippr.org