‘eBay should inspire future of social care’

Social care needs to learn lessons from online retailer eBay and put control and money in the hands of service users if it is to move to more personalised services, a government adviser said.

Charles Leadbeater said eBay had grown from 122 users to 122 million in 10 years by allowing users to create and control a self-regulating community.

He also said social care should put money in the hands of users and highlighted the positive effects that personalised services and individual budgets were having on projects he had visited around the country.