Right to Control

What is the Right to Control?

The Right to Control is a new legal right for disabled people. It gives disabled people more choice and control over the support they need to go about their daily lives.

Disabled adults living in seven test areas (Trailblazers) will be able to combine the support they receive from six different sources (Access to Work, Work Choice, Independent Living Fund, non-statutory housing related support (also known as Supporting People), Disabled Facilities Grant and Adult Community Care) and decide how best to spend the funding to meet their needs.

Disabled people will be able to choose to:

Continue receiving the same support
Ask a public body to arrange new support
Receive a direct payment and buy their own support
Have a mix of these arrangements.

The Right to Control has been developed by the Office for Disability Issues (ODI) in partnership with disabled people and their organisations, through the Right to Control Advisory Group, chaired by Baroness Jane Campbell. Government departments and service providers are also members of this group as are Sitra.

Click here for a Sitra briefing which looks at the first full year of the Right to Control.

Right to Control trailblazers launched

Five Trailblazers were launched on 13 December 2010:

Essex County Council
Leicester City Council
London Borough of Barnet
London Borough of Newham
Part of Surrey County Council (the two parts are Epsom and Ewell Borough Council, and Reigate and Banstead Borough Council).

Two further Trailblazers were launched on 1 March 2011:

Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council
Sheffield City Council.

The last Trailblazer, Greater Manchester (including Manchester City Council, Oldham Council, Bury Council, Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council and Trafford Council) was launched on 1 April 2011.

For the first time, disabled people in the Trailblazer areas can combine money from different state funding streams, for example as a cash payment, to be spent on whatever they think most appropriate for their needs. This will allow a more personalised service, joining up housing, employment and community care.

Trailblazers (partnerships between local authorities, Jobcentre Plus and disabled people’s organisations) will work with disabled people to develop individual support plans. Each plan will make effective use of all the funding available to an individual, to meet their goals.

The DCLG facilitated working group on personalisation heard from the ODI on Right to Control in the December 2011 meeting.

Click here to see the presentation.

Click here for the good practice guide on delivering Right to Control

Supporting People event

The Office for Disability Issues (ODI) held a special one day event on Supporting People for the Right to Control Trailblazers on 13 May in Manchester.

In addition to the Trailblazers, ODI invited Lorraine Regan from DCLG, Neil Tryner from Midland Heart and Geoffrey Ferres from Sitra to take part in the event.

Download short notes of the discussions at the event (pdf)

Presentation: Right to Control - the Supporting People question (pdf)
A fascinating presentation from Barnet outlining a bold approach to personalising the part of their former Supporting People programme now held within adult social care.