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Thousands of Severely Disabled in England Face Uncertainty as Independent Living Fund set to end in June

24/06/2015

As the Independent Living Fund (ILF) will end on 30 June 2015, thousands of England’s severely disabled are going to face uncertainty.

ILF was created nearly three decades ago by Margaret Thatcher's administration in 1988 to help individuals who are severely disabled live independent lives in the comfort of their own houses by providing care and support services for day-to-day functions, such as, eating, drinking, getting up and going to the shower.

The fund from ILF assisted about 18,000 beneficiaries across UK in paying for services and support like full-time home care. Now that the fund is going to be ended by the government in England, thousands of severely disabled individuals in England may be forced to enter residential care homes.

The termination of the fund was announced last 6 March 2014 by then Minister of State for Disabled People Mike Penning. It was met with vehement protest and a case was brought all the way up to the high court, which was unfortunately rejected.

But the fund’s end will only be limited in England. Scotland and Northern Ireland already said current beneficiaries will continue to be covered while their respective governments will form a replacement system. Wales, meanwhile, promised to allocate assistance to its current beneficiaries for a period of nine months and is seeking opinions from various groups as to how support for the severely disabled will be delivered in the future.

ILF costs £262 million annually across UK. Several cuts, however, have been made during the last couple of years, forcing local authorities to bear the brunt of the cost to dole out support services for severely disabled people.

Linda Burnip, a spokeswoman of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), one of the groups campaigning for continuation of ILF, decried the government’s move. DPAC is set to meet MPs on June 24 to discuss the predicament faced by thousands of ILF’s beneficiaries in England.

Burnip, speaking in a report in The Guardian, said:

“The closure of the ILF in England will exacerbate the grave and systematic violation of disabled people’s rights to live independently in the community.”