Abstract:

The allocation of resources to health and social care agencies for services for people with intellectual disabilities has led to considerable debate about the failure of the balance of finanacing to reflect recent changes in policy. Although the overwhelming need of people with intellectual disabilities is for social care in the community there is still concern that funds are tied to health or institutional services. This paper presents the results of a two-year project to explore these and related issues by developing national estimates of expenditure on services for people with intellectual disabilities through information gathered from a stratified sample of local authority areas. At local levels, information was requested from social services, health authorities, district housing authorities and local education authorities was extrapolated to national levels to allow comparison with the most recent national programme budget figures.