Please note that this project concluded in 2005 and the findings have been published.
What is the Direct Payments Development Fund ?
Who are the Local Authority partners ?
Who is the project working with ?
This is £9 million made available over 3 years to voluntary organisations in partnership with local authorities. The money has been divided into two 18 month project cycles. (See www.dh.gov.uk/PublicationsAndStatistics/PressReleases/PressReleasesNotices/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4047243&chk=1DpGxT for the first round and http://www.dh.gov.uk/PublicationsAndStatistics/PressReleases/PressReleasesNotices/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4083967&chk=jEtAId for the second round info on successful bids).
The Rowan Organisation in partnership with 8 local authorities received approval for the second largest successful bid in the first project cycle. An award of £405,000 was made for an 18 month project to look at the barriers 5 under represented groups face when trying to access direct payments. Once the barriers are identified the project team will work to remove them in order to increase the take up of direct payments amongst these groups. Part of the project will also look at PA training and Career Development.
Sadly, two Local Authorities have withdrawn from the project:
We aim to increase take up of direct payments in four out of the 8 local authorities for each of these groups.
We will also work in 4 of the 8 local authorities with the following group:
We conducted semi structured face to face and phone interviews with the following groups of people in the respective areas:
We also used postal questionnaires for people who preferred to share information with us in this way. In total, we have collected the experiences of over 270 people and found out about the barriers they have experienced.
The interviews took place during summer/autumn 2004. The interview content was based on barriers identified from research already conducted elsewhere into the barriers that disabled people face when trying to access Direct Payments.
We have analysed the interviews and have a detailed picture of the barriers that each target group faces in each area. We have reported these back to the local authorities and have agreed action plans with them that we are now working on until the end of June. We are working with individuals and the local support schemes to support them to access Direct Payments.
Between June 2005 & September 2005 the project team will produce a report containing good practice guidance and detailing how the project was conducted. We will also report on the barriers we found and how successful we were in increasing the take up of direct payments and how we did this. We have already started working on this.
We are also raising awareness of some barriers at a national level for example with the Independent Living Fund, with MPs at the Houses of Parliament via the All Party Disability Group, and running a workshop at the Association of Directors of Social Services Conference in October 2005.
The project team was structured as follows:
The PA training and development work is shared across the team. The team will leave the Rowan Organisation at the end of the project on 30 September 2005.