Essex County Council recently ran a consultation exercise on self-directed support in Essex (see the old news article: Putting Essex People First.

ECDP submitted a formal response to this consultation, which can be downloaded here: ECDP response to ECC consultation.

The response says that ECDP supports the concept of self-directed support (SDS) as it aligns itself very much to the principles of independent living, potentially delivering real choice and control to disabled people. ECDP believes SDS is a natural extension of the current direct payments system which we believe has generally worked well and delivered benefits to users who have taken advantage of it. ECDP will do everything it can to ensure SDS is successful, but will also continue to provide a voice for disabled people in Essex and will therefore be holding the County Council to account accordingly.