The role and influence of ECDP as a

disabled people’s organisation

Visit of Maria Miller MP, Minister for Disabled People
16 July 2010

Mike Adams, Chief Executive Officer

Rich Watts. Director of Policy and Development

© Essex Coalition of Disabled People, July 2010

 ECDP: key facts
• Established in 1995

• 47 staff, nearly £1.9m turnover

– 65%-25%-10% mix

• 100% Board Members with a self-declared impairment

• Over 3,800 clients in 3 services across 4 local authority areas

– IAG, Support Planning, Payroll

• 1,570 members
– 21.6% have a learning disability
– 6.8% have a long-term health condition
– 5.2% have a mental health condition

• Nearly 100 volunteers

© Essex Coalition of Disabled People, July 2010

Our Voice–Business Model
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Campaigning
Voice

Contracts only
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- © Essex Coalition of Disabled People, July 2010
Business +
 Voice-business in practice (1)

• Support planning operating model

– Quality measures identified and developed by service users
– Contract specification based on quality measures
– Peer-led delivery through ECDP
– Results:
• 16% of LA support plans = cash payment
• 100% of ECDP support plans = cash payment

• Safeguarding
– 93% of social workers think CRB checks for PAs should be
mandatory
– 2.5% of ECDP service users undertake free CRB checks of PAs
– Implications for workforce development and regulation

© Essex Coalition of Disabled People, July 2010

 Voice-business in practice (2)
• Right to Control
– Engagement and consultation phase
– Bid development in co-production with statutory
partners
– SUs at every level of project governance
• Chair of Programme Board
• Service User Reference Group
• Member of Core Delivery Team
– Trailblazer delivery
• Peer-led IAG
• Peer-led support planning
• Peer-led reviews

© Essex Coalition of Disabled People, July 2010

 Voice-business in practice (3a)
• 3-year longitudinal study
– Two overall aims:
• Understand impact of Personal Budgets on service user
experiences
• Gather evidence on effectiveness of practices and processes
that underpin implementation
– Participants
• 46 service users (25 OP, 13 PSI, 8 LD)
• 9 senior LA managers (Practitioners, OTs, Service
Managers, Social Workers)
• 10 service providers

© Essex Coalition of Disabled People, July 2010

 Voice-business in practice (3b)
• Findings from service users (demand-side)
– Family and social networks vital for support
• Network => take-up of PB
• PB => enabler of networks
– Finding services
• Quality assurance of providers a key issue
• Knowledge of market limited
– Personal skills vital to success
• Confidence, assertiveness and flexibility
– Frontline staff crucial to choices available
• But…

© Essex Coalition of Disabled People, July 2010

 Voice-business in practice (3c)
• Frontline staff
– Variation in engagement with choice
• Some evidence of judgments being made prior to offering choice
• When SW confident, good outcomes follow
• Suppliers
– Generally positive, good business opportunity
– Attitudes strongly informed response
• PSI thought of as “suitable” for PBs
• OP / LD thought of as “less suitable” for PBs
– Double standards over formal/informal workforce
– Information asymmetry
– … Slightly more than less providers proactively adapting to PBs

© Essex Coalition of Disabled People, July 2010

 Prevention and early intervention
• Enhance = support and improve
2008 4-year strategy 10-year strategy
(2012) (2012)

© Essex Coalition of Disabled People, July 2010

 Our ambitions
• Achieving prevention and early intervention
– Lived Experience as a pathway / means of opportunity
– “The PB holders of today are the support planners of tomorrow”

• Expanding demand-side of the market

– People with rights under disability law
– Approximately 11m people (1 in 5)
– All impairment groups
– Older people

• Joining up policy dots on the ground

– Right to Control (Employment, Housing, Social Care)
– Health and social care (potentially through HealthWatch)
– Leadership and Service Leavers (through our LeadingAbility
programme)

© Essex Coalition of Disabled People, July 2010