Removing benefit barriers to getting involved
Updated 24 October 2007
How can organisations pay and reimburse the expenses of people
who use services who get involved in their work without affecting
people's benefits?
That's the challenge looked at by our new report, called
Benefit barriers to involvement.
The report contains the findings of a seminar held earlier this
year. This explored how the inflexibility of the
current benefit system deters, and in many instances prevents,
people who use services from getting involved.
This is despite the involvement of people who use services being
a key government policy in the development of social care and
health services.
The seminar was organised by the Joint Participation
Steering Group, which includes people who use services,
representatives of national organisations who want to involve
people, the Government, and CSCI.
What people said
Delegates at the seminar spoke passionately about why they felt
involvement is so important. A key theme centred upon the desire to
be active citizens through supporting the development of better
services.
But they also talked about how the benefit gets in the way of
involvement. One delegate said: "They are threatening to take me to
court about this. All the trouble has put me off. It was like a
nightmare. I had all my benefits stopped."
Social care and health organisations emphasised that they are
struggling to involve a diverse group of people in their work
because of the current benefit rules.
One of them said: "We do have a problem...the benefit system is
very restrictive...the current benefit regulations make it much
harder to involve people. They create unnecessary red tape."
The report outlines the key themes emerging from the seminar
including identifying the barriers to involvement,
core principles for reform, and some proposed solutions.
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