Not just the job: Report of a working group on disabled people using personal assistance and work incentives
An examination of the issues around work incentives for disabled people using personal assistance and around charging for support packages.
Not just the job examines issues around work incentives and charging for support packages in the light of new guidance to social services authorities. Drawing on the experience of a working group, set up by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the National Centre for Independent Living and the Disability Rights Commission, it examines the context within which organisations like the Independent Living Fund and social services departments calculate an individual’s financial contribution towards their support package.
It looks at the impact on the individual, as well as specific barriers to work faced by personal assistance users, including negative assumptions about disability and work. A key objective considered by the working group was a ‘level playing field’ between those who use assistance and those who do not.
The report explores the principles that the group felt flowed from this objective and against which policy options could be measured. The report also includes chapters discussing a range of options for setting a financial contribution and some different models of delivery.