Power to the People, Really!

Last night the Minister for Care Services presented the RSA Albert medal to Dr Simon Duffy, the inspired founder of “in-Control”, which liquidates the extravagant mess of publicly funded services to a needy user, putting the available resources under the direction of the user and his family.

Congratulations Dr Duffy, and well done too to Ivan Lewis MP.

This new government policy really gives power to the people, instead of to local authorities claiming to act in our name. The sad thing is that the Minister felt it necessary to apologise for doing so: there is still a drag of soviet thinking upon British socialism. There are many, many vested interests in the old system, more interested in power and control rather than in users’ needs, but that is not any particular party’s problem.

Of course the bureaucrats will still distribute the available resources between the users, and perhaps commission services. And since governments have failed for sixty years to integrate the inefficient tangle of cash benefits, are there any bets when they can integrate the value of services too?