Putting the cart before the horse: resource allocation systems and community care

Abstract

The English Care Bill provides for all eligible community care service users to have a personal budget – and councils were required to ensure that 70% of such users had one by April 2013. Almost all English authorities are experimenting with Resource Allocation Systems (RASs) as a way of calculating these budgets. This paper describes and critically analyses the nature of the RASs being used and the increasing body of case law they are attracting – in particular the Supreme Court's 2012 judgment in R (KM) Cambridgeshire County Council. The paper draws on research involving 20 local authorities concerning their use of RASs and represents the first in-depth legal examination of the claims made by proponents of the use of RASs. It challenges many of the claims made concerning such systems- in particular that they are ‘more transparent’, ‘more equitable’, ‘simpler’ and less discretionary than the traditional social work led community care assessment process.

Keywords:

• community care
• personalisation
• R (KM) Cambridgeshire County Council
• Resource Allocation Systems

Notes

1. These were not always described in terms of the percentage of points remaining after the application of the deflator, some were described in terms of fractions or multipliers of either the proportion by which points should be decreased, or the proportion that remained.