Service Charter

Service Charter

ILF Scotland is a public body that administers social care funding for disabled people in Scotland and Northern Ireland. It has two funds – the Independent Living Fund and the Transition Fund.

The Independent Living Fund

Through its Independent Living Fund, ILF Scotland provides an ongoing weekly financial award, paid monthly, to disabled people in Scotland and Northern Ireland. This funding enables people to purchase additional social care support, normally complimentary to statutory support, so they can live independently in their communities. Visit What is it? to find out more about the fund.

Transition Fund

ILF Scotland provides one-off, discretionary, grants of up to £4,000 for one year, through its Transition Fund to young disabled people aged 16 to 25, living in Scotland. These grants help young disabled people to become more engaged and active in their community. Visit Transition Fund to find out more about the fund.

As part of the ILF Scotland Feedback Strategy, we have developed an ILF Scotland Service Charter that outlines the minimum levels of service that we commit to provide to Recipients, Award Managers, and others.

The Charter sets out the service standards others can expect from us, and it explains how they will receive services from us, the expected timeframe for delivering those services, and the process people can follow if their expectations are not met.

Ongoing feedback about our services, both positive and negative, is central to ongoing review and development of our Service Charter.

Service Charter Statements

As an organisation we will:

• treat everyone with dignity, trust, respect, and compassion based on their individual rights and freedoms
• be open, transparent, and accountable in everything we do
• work with disabled people and those individuals or organisations who support them to develop our services
• act ethically, with empathy towards disabled people and the people who care for and support them
• meet our statutory obligations
• provide the best possible services as our finances allow
• support our Recipients in the most sustainable, carbon neutral manner to protect the climate

In the delivery of our services, we will:

• treat you politely, respectfully, and equally
• be helpful and open with you
• listen to you and your needs
• explain decisions and outcomes clearly
• respect your rights to privacy and confidentiality in line with the Data Protection Act 1998
• ensure our information is in a format that can be easily accessed and understood by you
• answer your telephone calls
• acknowledge your emails by receipt
• respond to social media communications promptly
• process your Transition Fund application within our published timescales
• take a human-rights based approach to decision making as opposed to automated decision-making processes
• acknowledge Decision Review requests within 5 working days and communicate the outcome of the Decision Review within 15 working days Policy 13 - Decision Review Requests
• carryout reviews for Independent Living Fund Recipients every two years
• complete support calls after one year after implementation for all Independent Living awards under the re-opened Fund.
• encourage and help you to complain and handle any complaints with professionalism and learn lessons if we fall short of our standards. For Stage One complaints we will investigate in 5 working days or less, or for Stage Two complaints, we will investigate within 20 working days. Complaints Handling Procedure
• endeavour to support our Recipients in the most carbon neutral manner to protect ourselves and the planet for the future

To develop our services, we will:

1. encourage you to give us feedback using the methods set out in this feedback strategy
2. put you at the centre when we are designing or developing our services and co-produce new policies and services with you whenever possible
3. publish our performance to show you how we are doing

To help us, we would like you to:

• treat us politely and respectfully
• ask us to explain things you are not sure of
• acknowledge we may need to pass on your request (internally or externally) so we can deal with it in line with our Data Sharing Agreement
• acknowledge we may need to pass information to other authorities to ensure the protection of a child or adult and to safeguard the appropriate use of public funds: Policy TF05 - Protection of Children and Adults, Policy 34 - Protection of Children and Adults, Advice for Award Managers
• recognise that we will not be able to meet every need but be aware that we will record and report on unmet needs anonymously to our colleagues and partners to help shape future social care policy
• be aware of our financial constraints
• offer us ideas to help us improve what we do
• take part in feedback opportunities such as surveys or focus groups to develop our services and policies if you would like to
• take part in training opportunities for our staff teams if you would like to
• take part in awareness raising or promotional activities as part of ILF Scotland campaigns if you would like to
• let us know if we fall short of our standards and you wish to complain by using our Complaints Procedure

Review and Update of Our Charter

We will review and update our Service Charter regularly. The review process will include consideration of any changes to service delivery, policy amendments, wider policy issues and relevant emerging research / literature, feedback projects, complaints, equality impact assessments, and recent / pending improvements.

We will ensure that our charter is accessible, visible, flexible, and current. In line with our organisational principle of co-production, we will involve our key stakeholders in future development of the Charter.