Version: 3
Last Amended: 31 March 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 an HSCP / HSCT. For Group 2 recipients to maintain eligibility for ILF Scotland funding, ILF Scotland expects that the HSCP / HSCT will complete a Self-Directed Support (SDS) assessment and subsequently share evidence with ILF Scotland that it continues to meet the relevant ‘Threshold Sum’, which is a minimum amount of funding provided by a local authority for support agreed by ILF Scotland. For further details, please see Policy 24 - Statutory Input to ILF Scotland Funding.
ILF Scotland funding is additional to the HSCP / HSCT responsibility and we expect recipients to use ILF Scotland funding to meet additional 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:
Recipients should discuss and agree how they wish to use ILF Scotland funding with an ILF Scotland Assessor during an arranged review. Any arrangements that ILF Scotland agrees to fund must be lawful in purpose and assessed by ILF Scotland as appropriate in use.
If a recipient wishes to make a significant change to how they use their funding as previously been agreed with ILF Scotland, or they want to achieve different outcomes, they should first discuss this with ILF Scotland. If a recipient is at all uncertain whether a change is ‘significant’ or not, they should always discuss this with ILF Scotland.
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 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 usually approve the flexible use of funding retrospectively.
Recipients can keep up to one week of their normal ILF Scotland award as a contingency fund to pay for support but must return any excess funding “unspent monies” to us. This contingency figure is net of any outstanding PA wages or Provider invoices.
Recipients may, on an exceptional basis, seek to use some of their unspent monies on social care support to maintain their independent living outcomes. We call this a ‘Flexible Funding’ request.
ILF Scotland will only consider a flexible funding request once we receive all returned unspent money. Recipients must obtain permission from ILF Scotland to use any unspent money before doing so. We will not approve flexible funding requests retroactively.
Any request for flexible funding must sit within this policy (41) and within ILF Scotland’s current policy framework.
ILF Scotland will not fund arrangements under ‘Flexible Funding’ that another public body is responsible for, e.g. Access to Work / Disabled Facilities Grants.
The request for flexible funding must clearly identify the social care support needed to achieve the person’s independent living outcome, already assessed and agreed in their support plan. ILF Scotland Assessors must be satisfied that the request is in the best interests of the recipient and that the recipient agrees. The Assessor should submit recommendations via a referral to ILF Scotland’s Management Team who will consider all such requests on a discretionary basis.
The proposed arrangements must be safe, legal and appropriate, and should not compromise the reputation of ILF Scotland.
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. 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 ILF Scotland considers has been misused.
ILF Scotland will not normally approve funding for support and services that are the responsibility of another provider / source. Examples of this are:
1 July 2015
14 January 2021
31 March 2024
Policy 18 - Increases in ILF Scotland Awards
Policy 20 - ILF Scotland Payments
Policy 24 - Statutory Input to ILF Scotland Funding
Your Responsibilities Guide - 2015 Fund
[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.
