Part 2 – Disabled people: right to control provision of services
25.In 2005, the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit published the report ‘Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People’. This report set out a cross-government strategy to improve disabled people’s opportunities and quality of life, with the commitment of achieving full equality for disabled people by 2025. The report recognised that disabled people are often expected to fit into an inflexible framework of service provision, rather than services being personalised to respond to individual need. Subsequent publications including the concordat ‘Putting People First’ (2007) and the ‘Independent Living Strategy’ (2008) have outlined commitments to creating a system that allows disabled people to have maximum choice and control over the support services they receive.
26.Part 2 confers regulation-making powers that can be used to give adult disabled people greater choice and control over the way in which relevant services (defined in section 39) are provided by relevant authorities (defined in section 40). The Government intends that regulations should initially make pilot schemes having temporary effect, so Part 2 includes provisions allowing this. It also introduces a statutory requirement to consult over specified draft regulations.