UNISON Scotland is committed to the principle of the right to independent living for all care users. We therefore welcome the publication of a strategy, to be followed by appropriate legislation to govern and regulate the use of self directed support. We support the strategy’s aims of drawing together all the current information, results from pilots, etc involving COSLA, the community and voluntary sector, training providers and other relevant stakeholders in the field and assessing the way forward on a long-term basis. However, we have concerns at the long term future of core services which we believe should be maintained at a sustainable level, to provide real choice for people who do not want to use direct payments or individual budgets.
We also believe that the lack of uptake of direct payments should not be taken as a negative performance indicator and comparing Scottish figures with those in England is not comparing like with like…
https://unison-scotland.org/wp-content/uploads/SelfDirectedSupportNational-Strategy2010_Response.pdf