The State of Personalisation

It was supposed to herald a revolution in service user power, but the indications are that personalisation has yet to win the hearts and minds of social workers.

Two-thirds of social workers have seen an increase in bureaucracy as a result of personalisation. One in eight respondents to our survey with Unison have seen a reduction in social workers in their teams, while 16% have seen an increase in the number of non-social work qualified staff. Mithran Samuel examines what these changes mean.

While social workers fear personalisation may be at risk from impending government cuts, our exclusive survey shows that the agenda is already facing pressures. Jeremy Dunning reports.

There is a significant gap between the skills social care practitioners feel they need to deal with personalisation and the knowledge they actually have. Daniel Lombard investigates.

A project led by Mind to tackle the low take-up of self-directed support among mental health service users has returned some positive results, writes Jeremy Dunning.

There are 16,000 adults with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities in England. Melanie Henwood finds there is still a long way to go before their needs are fully met, although self-directed support points the way forward. (Photo: Rex Features)

Individual budgets can be used to benefit disabled children, but only where the circumstances lend themselves to personalised services, writes Molly Garboden (Photo: Copyright – Charlotte Morse)