No place like home

15 August 2007

The Voluntary Organisations Disability Group (VODG) of which the Trust is a member, has just published a major report on an issue that impacts greatly upon the lives of people with disabilities whom we support, that of ordinary residence.

Download No Place Like Home: Ordinary residence, discrimination and disabled people (pdf 682KB).

Ordinary residence is a term used by local authorities to define who is entitled to receive financial help with their residential and living costs, based on their residency in the area that authority has responsibility for.

Often people from outside a particular area may have moved to a new place of residence in order to access specialised services and support (a good example is our brain injury rehabilitation services) and they will usually be funded to do so by the authority from their original area of residence.

However if they decide they want to move into a different type of service or live more independently and additionally don't want to move back to their original place of residence, they will often need a new funding package from the local authority in whose area they now reside.

This can create disputes between authorities over which authority is now responsible for funding that package. The VODG report highlights some individual examples of the consequences and the costs of such disputes and calls on the Government to address this problem urgently.

For more information about this issue and how it affects the Trust please email matt.townsend@disabilities-trust.org.uk , Public Affairs Officer, or telephone 01444 237 295.

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