Question reference: S4W-24370
- Asked by: Michael Russell, MSP for Argyll and Bute, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 6 February 2015
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Current status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 19 February 2015
Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether the statutory guidance accompanying the Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 allows local authorities to provide grant aid to community organisations in order to invest in preventative and universal services.
Answer
The Scottish Government is committed to developing self-directed support as a way of giving individuals and their families, flexibility, choice and control over the support services they receive. The Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 gives people a range of options for how their social care is delivered and places firm duties on local authorities to give people informed choice as to how they will receive their support.
The self-directed support statutory guidance provides a general steer to local authorities and states that they should consider their strategy for investing in preventative and universal services - interventions which prevent or delay the need for formal social care and support.
Whilst each individual local authority holds the responsibility for allocation of their funding, the National Self-directed Support Strategy requires that:
Councils should invest an appropriate amount of funding in effective preventative and universal services.
Services should meet the needs of funded clients and the wider population, thus helping to prevent the escalation of needs.