Legal action launched over DWP plan to close Independent Living Fund

Six disabled claimants have launched a legal challenge to a Department for Work and Pensions consultation proposing the closure of the Independent Living Fund (ILF).

The ILF is a body of the DWP but is managed by independent trustees. It was closed to new applicants in 2010 after the Department cut the amount of money given to the fund.

Under the consultation the fund will be closed completely in 2015, with users becoming reliant on local authority adult care services.

“This is at a time when the funding for local authorities is being dramatically reduced and many authorities are cutting services for disabled people,” a statement issued by the claimants’ lawyers, law firms Deighton Pierce Glynn and Scott-Moncrieff & Associates, said.

The claimants have put forward three grounds for the claim:

  • The Government had “failed to explain why it is only considering closing the fund, rather than other options, such as continuing the fund and re-opening it to young adults who want to live independent lives”;
  • The consultation did not give enough information about the difference between local authority assessment and provision and the ILF. “Local authority services focus on basic needs whereas the ILF is about enabling people to be independent, to work and be full citizens”; and
  • The Government had failed to undertake any assessment of the way disabled people will be affected by the proposals, “in breach of their legal duties under the Equality Act 2010”.

The court will be asked to declare that the DWP is unlawful and that any decision based on it is also unlawful.

The Department has until 30 October to put forward its defence.

Writing in the forward to the consultation, Maria Miller, the then Minister for Disabled People, said: "It has been clear for some time that the changes we have seen in the wider care and support system have called into question the efficacy of a separate funding stream operating in parallel to, but outside of the mainstream care and support system administered by local authorities.

"Furthermore, while the ILF has applied national eligibility criteria in a consistent way, there is considerable geographical variation in ILF take-up rates."

Miller added: "The Government believes that the care and support needs of existing ILF users can and should be met within one cohesive social care system, in a way that is consistent with our commitment to localism, with funding and services integrated around individuals' need through personal budgets."

The Minister said the Government's preferred approach was for ILF funding to be devolved to local government in England and to the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales.