I am looking for support for my motion to save the Welsh Independent Living Grant at the Welsh Labour Conference at the weekend. A quick summary of why this is so important appears below:
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You may be familiar with the demise of the Independent Living Fund (ILF) and the transition of funds to the devolved Governments.
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In Wales, WILG was created while the Welsh Government carried out a consultation to decide the best way forward. There were four different options on the table and disabled people and their families made it clear that their favoured option was to create an ILF for Wales. Respondents to the consultation were strongly opposed to transferring the funds entirely to Local Authorities.
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Alas, in November 2016 the Welsh Government decided to ignore the will of the people and transferred funds to Local Authorities starting on March 31st 2018. This has now been put back until March 31st 2019.
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The Welsh Government claim that this decision was made with the unanimous support of the WILG stakeholder group. This is simply not true as I know five members of that group who were opposed to the decision but their views were lost as they were drowned out by the Local Authorities who were represented on the stakeholder group and the Welsh Government with the injection of cash they would receive via the Revenue Support Grant. This means that the money that the Local Authorities will receive is not ring fenced.
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In May 2015, I was told by my Social Worker that without WILG my hours of care and support would be reduced from 86.5 hours a week to just 31. I have a progressive disease of the nervous system so I need more hours of care now, not less.
