Welfare Reform Bill

Speaking for myself, I strongly support this amendment. It removes the exclusion of community care services and funding from the ambit of right to control. It makes no sense for a scheme that is all about ending fragmentation and introducing a seamless approach to support planning to explicitly exclude such a key funding stream. The Minister will doubtless state that the intention is for social care funding to be included in individual budgets under the trailblazers. However, the Bill provides no mechanism to insist on adult social care co-operation. Given the length of time that it is taking to roll out the personalisation and the relatively few adult social care authorities which have individualised budgets, I do not think that we can be confident that alignment, let along integration, will necessarily take place. Remember that we are talking about individualised budgets and new ways of working, not simply direct payment. I would urge the Minister to undertake to work with the Department of Health to reconsider the exclusion of community care from the Bill. The message that exclusion sends out is that we are not being joined-up. I do not believe that that is a very helpful message to send out at all.