Safeguarding and system change: early perceptions of the implications for adult protection services of the English Individual Budgets pilots: a qualitative study

Cash for care or consumer-directed services are increasing in scope and size in Europe

and North America. The English Department of Health initiated a pilot form of personalised

support for adults (Individual Budgets) in 13 local authorities that aimed to extend

opportunities for users of social care services to determine their own priorities and preferences

in the expectation that this will enhance their well-being. This article reports on

and discusses interviews undertaken with adult protection leads in the 13 Individual

Budgets sites about the linkages to their work, their perceptions of the launch of the

pilots and the policy s fit with safeguarding and risk agendas. The interviews were

undertaken as part of the national evaluation of the pilots, which aims to evaluate

outcomes and identify the contexts and mechanisms of those outcomes. Findings of

this part of the study were that the adult protection leads were not central to the

early implementation of Individual Budgets and that some of their concerns about

the risk of financial abuse were grounded in the extent of this problem among

current service users. The implications of their perceptions for the roll out of Individual

Budgets are debated in this article with a focus on risk and the policy congruence

between potentially competing agendas of choice and control and of protection and

harm reduction.