202302 - Scotland Advisory Group Minutes - February 2023 (Easy Read)

Independent Living Fund Scotland

When was this meeting?

The meeting happened on 23 February 2023 on Zoom from 1.30pm to 3.30pm.

Who was at this meeting?

Jim Elder-Woodward
Chloe Mckee
Gordon Mckee
Julia Smith - joined the meeting at 1.45pm
Justina Oguguo

ILF Scotland Staff
Lee House
Catherine Symington
Harvey Tilley
Paul McPartlin
Sandra Robertson

Who could not come to the meeting?

Hugh John Clancy
Joan Turner
Christine Mercer
Nic Reid
Martha Shortreed
Robert White
Linda Scott
Emma O'Neill

Actions

1. Harvey and Peter will draft a letter to the Cabinet Secretary for Jim to sign, about the re-opening of the 2015 fund.

It should have information about PAs and how much they are paid an hour.

2. Linda and Harvey will draft a proposal for the joint stakeholder event.
Jim will look at it.

Welcome and Introductions

Jim Elder-Woodward welcomed everyone to the meeting.

Everyone agreed to Lee recording the meeting.

1. Minutes from previous meeting

The minutes of the last meeting were agreed.

Lee will give them to the communications team so they can put them on the website.

Actions from the last meeting

1. Peter and Linda will talk about writing to organisations that agree to contracts and send invoices for backdated increases.

They do this without giving warning to the organisations or to the managers who have given the contracts.

An invoice is a type of bill.

Backdated increases means the amount they owe has gone up and new invoices are sent for work that has already happened.

2. Lee will add preferred terminology to the agenda of the next meeting.

This means the words we want to use – for example ‘disabled people’ instead of ‘people with disabilities’.

3. Lee to add an agenda item for the joint stakeholder event.
   
4. Lee to keep Planned Registration & Regulation of PAs on the agenda for the next meeting.

5. At the next meeting Robert White will give a short presentation about the changed Self-Directed Support guidance.

2. Matters arising - what do we need to talk about

There were no new things we needed to talk about.

3. Letter to and from Kevin Stewart about available income reduction

Each person who gets money from ILF Scotland pays some money towards their award.

This is based on a person’s level of income and is called available income.

Income is the money coming into a household from work or benefits.

Jim asked the advisory group what they felt about the letter from Kevin Stewart - the Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care.
Joan and Gordon commented that the response is what they expected.

The group then discussed and agreed to send a letter to the Cabinet Secretary about re-opening the 2015 fund.

4. Joint Stakeholder Meeting Update

Harvey said this has been delayed until around October.

The delay has taken place because of:

• pressures on ILF Scotland staff
• changes to the First Minister

The management team are making information for the sponsor team that shows what impact the event will have.

5. Self-directed support guidance update by Robert

Everyone agreed that this would happen at the next meeting when Robert will be there.

Everyone agreed this will happen at the next meeting when Nic will be there.

7. Social care wage increase

Harvey talked about the hourly rate for Personal Assistants (PAs) or self-employed assistants.

The hourly rate is how much a person is paid for each hour of work.

When the hourly rate goes up, the amount is backdated and taken from the funding packages of people who get ILF Scotland money.

Agencies have been increasing how much PAs are paid each hour, without telling:
• the recipient – this is the person who employs the PA
• the award manager – the person who agrees the amount of money the person gets

Agencies should be writing to the recipient or award manager in advance to advise of any increases.

Agencies are the organisations that arrange where the PAs work.

Gordon has been advertising for PAs for months and has only had 2 applications.

He said it is getting harder to recruit and keep PAs because £10.10 an hour is not enough to get someone to work for them.

8. Planned registration and rules for PAs

Everyone agreed this will be talked about at the next meeting.

9. Policy Update

Harvey said:
• stopping available income contributions was not possible

ILF Scotland could not afford to pay the extra money for each person.

• care tax is being discussed

The highest amount of money that ILF Scotland can pay will be decided before the end of March 2024.

10. Re-opening the ILF Scotland 2015 Fund

There was nothing new to talk about.

There are still the same issues about funding and how the fund will work in the future.

The Scottish Government thinks the most important work just now is to help with the cost of living crisis.

This means people not having enough money to keep warm or to buy food.

11. Charter for Involvement

Everyone agreed this would be talked about at the next meeting so that Linda and Emma can give us new information.

12. Any other business – what else do we need to talk about?

There was nothing else we needed to talk about.

13. Date of the next meeting

Lee will send out a Doodle Poll.

The meeting will be held on Zoom.

Copyright images © Photosymbols. Prepared by Disability Equality Scotland