iConnect have recently merged with SPAEN (Scottish Personal Assistant Employers Network) to allow us to provide more and improved services not just in the North-East but throughout Scotland.
Colin Millar our new Chief Executive Officer for SPAEN iConnect Support Services responded to the Audit Scotland report with the following:
“Responding to today’s Audit Scotland report on the implementation of Self-directed Support, Colin Millar, Chief Executive of the Scottish Personal Assistant Employers Network (SPAEN) said he was disappointed that progress has remained painfully slow and the quality of peoples’ lives continues to suffer as a result.
Our recent Social NOTworking report reflected on the failure of SDS to fundamentally address basic quality of life issues for disabled people in Scotland.
The report reads like a re-write of earlier reports with the same issues being identified, the same recommendations continuing to be made and the same people losing out. The only thing that has changed is the vast amounts of money being spent doing the same thing whilst expecting a different result.
It’s time for transformational change at local level. The Scottish Government has presented a simple, effective framework for improving the lives of disabled people in Scotland. It’s being over-complicated; micro-managed and stifled somewhere between policy and practice.
Going forward, SPAEN will be measuring and reporting on a range of indices including progress toward “outcomes” and measuring “well-being” at both an individual and local authority level.
Once again, the report focusses on the modal methods of care and support provision rather than on the difference it’s making to peoples’ lives, we need to change what we measure if we’re serious about improving people’s quality of life.
We want to use an evidence based approach to transforming services but that will only happen if all stakeholders are equally committed and determined to genuinely make the practical changes that are so desperately needed to avoid a full on social care crisis.”
