Version: 4
Last Amended: 19 November 2024
Next Review: 31 March 2025
The Independent Living Fund Scotland (ILF Scotland) exists to support independent living[1] for disabled people in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
ILF Scotland wants to ensure that the disabled people it funds can exercise choice and control over how they use their funding to help achieve their own independent living outcomes[2]. We aim to adopt a human rights approach to all that we do and seek to ensure our actions support the realisation of Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - “living independently and being included in the community”.
We believe this policy incorporates the principles of Co-Operation, Dignity, Informed Choice, Involvement and Participation embedded in the Social Care (Self-Directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013.
We understand that recipients will use their ILF Scotland funding differently to help them to achieve the independent living outcomes that are important to them. This policy discusses different types of support that ILF Scotland funding can purchase.
ILF Scotland funds two groups of recipients:
ILF Scotland funds are not designed to meet statutory needs as assessed by HSCPs / HSCTs. For Group 2 recipients to maintain eligibility for ILF Scotland funding, HSCPs and HSCTs must provide a minimum amount of funding. We call this the Threshold Sum.
ILF Scotland expects that the Partnership or Trust will complete a Self-directed Support (SDS) assessment and subsequently share evidence with ILF Scotland that it continues to meet the relevant ‘Threshold Sum’. For further details, please see Policy 24 Statutory Input to ILF Scotland Funding.
ILF Scotland funding is additional to HSCP / HSCT responsibility, and we expect recipients to use ILF Scotland funding to meet additional and complementary Independent Living outcomes.
ILF Scotland encourages recipients to use their funding flexibly to achieve Independent Living outcomes in a way that suits their individual needs and helps overcome any barriers they might face to independent living. This may be different for each recipient and there can be a variety of different ways to use the funding. ILF Scotland funding can help recipients to:
Most people use ILF to fund social care assistance from a Personal Assistant or care provider, however, the use of funding is not limited to this if there are other appropriate ways of achieving independent living outcomes. Recipients should discuss and agree how they wish to use ILF Scotland funding with an ILF Scotland Assessor during an initial or review visit. Any arrangements that ILF Scotland agrees to fund must be lawful in purpose and assessed by ILF Scotland as appropriate in use.
ILF Scotland will have agreed with the recipient how they wish to use their funding and what independent living outcomes this will help achieve. Within this arrangement, recipients should be able to manage their funding flexibly throughout the year in a way that best meets their identified independent living outcomes.
If a recipient then wishes to achieve a different independent living outcome, they should always discuss this with ILF Scotland first as we are not able to approve a change in use retrospectively. Any changes not agreed could result in an overpaid award, and we may then ask for the appropriate amount of funding to be repaid.
ILF Scotland can agree to a change, providing any changes are, in our judgement, demonstrably in the recipient’s best interests and sit within this Policy 41 and within ILF Scotland’s overall policy framework.
ILF Scotland will consider any proposed changes to a recipient’s use of funding that result in an increased award, in line with Policy 18 - Increases in ILF Scotland Awards and Policy 20 - ILF Scotland Payments.
ILF Scotland will not normally approve funding for support and services that are the responsibility of another provider / source. Examples of this are:
Recipients may, on an exceptional basis, seek additional funding from ILF Scotland to enhance or maintain their independent living outcomes. We call this a ‘Flexible Funding’ request.
Recipients should make requests and receive agreement from ILF Scotland before committing to any expenditure. This is because we will not approve flexible funding requests retrospectively.
Any request for flexible funding must sit within this policy 41 and within ILF Scotland’s current policy framework and within available resources.
Recipients can keep up to one week of their normal ILF Scotland award as a contingency fund to pay for any extra assistance or support. The contingency should be net of any outstanding payroll or invoices for support.
Recipient must return any excess funding, which we refer to as unspent monies, to us. ILF Scotland is responsible for the use of its public funds and is accountable to the Scottish Government. ILF Scotland can ask recipients to return any unspent funding or to pay back any funding that it considers has been misused.
When returning unspent monies, recipients can, if they wish, submit a flexible funding request to use part of this money to fund an independent living outcome previously agreed with ILF Scotland. The ILF Scotland Specialist Caseworker will submit all such requests to ILF Scotland’s Senior Management Team to consider on an individual and discretionary basis.
We aim to carry out a review visit approximately every two years. At this visit, we agree, with the recipient, the independent living outcomes that we will fund.
If required, and on an exceptional basis, a recipient can discuss the need for a flexible funding request with their ILF Scotland Assessor at a review visit, whether there are unspent monies to be returned or not. A recipient can request one flexible funding request after each ILF Scotland review visit.
The request for flexible funding must clearly identify the applicant’s independent living outcome, the barriers to achieving this outcome, how the funding will facilitate its achievement, and confirm that there is no other way of achieving the outcome. ILF Scotland Assessors must be satisfied that the request is in the best interests of the recipient and that the recipient agrees and that the proposed arrangements are safe, legal, and appropriate.
The Assessor should submit all such requests with their recommendations via a referral to ILF Scotland’s Management Team who will consider these on an individual and discretionary basis.
Recipients should always keep a clear financial record of how they have used their ILF Scotland funding. Further details are contained in the ILF Scotland Your Responsibilities Guide
Policy 18 - Increases in ILF Scotland Awards
Policy 20 - ILF Scotland Payments
Policy 24 - Statutory Input to ILF Scotland Funding
1 July 2015
14 January 2021
31 March 2024
31 October 2024
[1] Independent living means, “Disabled people have the same freedom, choice, dignity and control as other people at home, at work and in the community. It does not mean living by yourself or looking after yourself on your own. It means the person has rights to practical assistance and support to participate in society and live an ordinary life.” (Independent Living in Scotland Project, 2008).
[2] Where we refer to ‘outcome’ in this policy, we mean a result that is important to the recipient.
