Do personal budgets increase the risk of abuse? Evidence from English national data

TY - JOUR

T1 - Do personal budgets increase the risk of abuse? Evidence from English national data

AU - Aspinal, Fiona Jane

AU - Baxter, Kate

AU - Stevens, Martin

AU - Manthorpe, Jill

AU - Samsi, Kritika

AU - Hussein, Shereen

AU - Ismail, Mohamed

AU - Woolham, John

N1 - © Cambridge University Press, 2016. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

PY - 2017/3/1

Y1 - 2017/3/1

N2 - With the continued implementation of the personalisation policy, PersonalBudgets (PBs) have moved to the mainstream in adult social care in England.The relationship between the policy goals of personalisation and safeguardingis contentious. Some have argued that PBs have the potential to empowerrecipients, while others believe PBs, especially Direct Payments, mightincrease the risk of abuse.This paper provides empirical evidence about levels of uptake of PBs andsafeguarding referrals in England based on in-depth analysis of national dataat aggregate, local council level in England, covering 152 Councils. This iscomplemented by analysis of 2,209 individual referral records obtained fromthree purposively selected study sites. The aim is to explore whether availabledata could provide evidence of association between the uptake of PBs andsafeguarding referrals. Analysis of the national dataset found no significantrelationships between PB uptake and the level and type of alleged abuse.However, analysis of individual level referral data, from the three selectedsites did find some significant associations particularly with financial abuse;and the main perpetrators of the alleged abuse to be home care employees.The findings are discussed within the context of current policy and practicecontext.

AB - With the continued implementation of the personalisation policy, PersonalBudgets (PBs) have moved to the mainstream in adult social care in England.The relationship between the policy goals of personalisation and safeguardingis contentious. Some have argued that PBs have the potential to empowerrecipients, while others believe PBs, especially Direct Payments, mightincrease the risk of abuse.This paper provides empirical evidence about levels of uptake of PBs andsafeguarding referrals in England based on in-depth analysis of national dataat aggregate, local council level in England, covering 152 Councils. This iscomplemented by analysis of 2,209 individual referral records obtained fromthree purposively selected study sites. The aim is to explore whether availabledata could provide evidence of association between the uptake of PBs andsafeguarding referrals. Analysis of the national dataset found no significantrelationships between PB uptake and the level and type of alleged abuse.However, analysis of individual level referral data, from the three selectedsites did find some significant associations particularly with financial abuse;and the main perpetrators of the alleged abuse to be home care employees.The findings are discussed within the context of current policy and practicecontext.

M3 - Article

SN - 0047-2794

VL - 46

SP - 291

EP - 311

JO - Journal of Social Policy

JF - Journal of Social Policy

IS - 2

ER -