The council's Executive Committee has agreed to adopt a system called personalisation, which see service users in four major care groups gain access to a wider choice of services and able to take more control over how the support they require is provided.

Personalisation sees  service users undertaking a self-evaluation questionnaire as the starting point  to help identify their needs and then devise a support plan to meet those needs in consultation with their social worker. The service user is then allocated an individual budget, which is used to plan how their needs are met and support arranged.  Service users may choose to arrange support in different ways and take maximum control through an approach called self directed support.

Personalised support arrangements include a variety of flexible and creative options such as employing a personal assistants, using technology or purchasing support from a wide range of providers or combinations of these.  The individual budget must always be used to meet the outcomes identified in the person’s support plan.

Glasgow’s move towards personalisation of social care follows the widespread use of self-directed support in England along with forthcoming legislative moves by the Scottish Government, which would require service users to opt out of self-directed support. With12% cuts in social care budgets anticipated over the next three years, personalisation also represents the fairest way to ensure that all people who need support are allocated a share of the available resources.

Councillor Matt Kerr, the council’s Executive Member for Social Care, said: “The evidence also shows that self-directed support allows people to take more control over their daily lives. Self-directed support can empower service users and put them firmly in charge of the support they receive.  It would let our service users choose exactly which services they use, when they use them and who they get those services from.

“The council must be prudent as we deal with changing budgets and all evidence indicates that self-directed support is more cost effective than providing support in the traditional way.  We have finite resources to work with and self-directed support can help us achieve a better balance of fairness and transparency for all service users.”

Glasgow’s experience of how to operate self-directed support has been developed through a pilot project work within Learning Disabilities Services in East Glasgow CHCP. Self-directed support will be first introduced in Glasgow across all of the city’s learning disabilities services.  Thereafter, self-directed support will be rolled out to people with physical disabilities, children with disabilities and people with mental health issues.

It is proposed that £520,000 will be invested in the implementation of this plan between 2011 and 2013. Based on the English experience, it is anticipated that a resource redirection of 20% can be achieved against existing budgets.

There are 1800 service users with Glasgow learning disability services, 900 with physical disability services, 3000 with children’s disability services and 1950 with mental health services.  Service users would retain the right to opt-out of self-directed support and use supports provided directly by social work services although this would be within the confines of an individual budget.

Glasgow east has been one of three test sites in Scotland. The national move to personalization of social care has been expressed in the 21st Century Review of Social Work (Feb. 2006), Scottish Government draft personalization strategy (Feb. 2010), the Scottish Government consultation on the personalization bill (expected by Sept 2011) and the COSLA Health and Well-being Committee (Sept 2009). Self-directed support also features in the policy statements of all major political parties in Scotland.