Hi, just joined.
I’m a veteran of SDS, having been using various manifestations of it to support my son since around 2010, when we had the early pilot of ‘In Control’.
It was brilliant: there were no limits and almost no controls. We had so much fun, and were able to be very creative. Sadly since then it has all been downhill: endless rules and regulations… we just bu**ered off to France and went skiing together as father and son, at a cost per week significantly less than using an official registered respite facilty in some god-forsaken village in North Lanarkshire.,
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Hi @Scally , welcome to the Forum! It’s frustrating to hear about your experiences with SDS after having got off to such a promising start, but happy to see you and your son enjoying yourselves - even if you haven’t been able to do this through SDS.
I’m wondering what advice would you give to folk in your position about navigating those rules and regulations?
My son has recently moved into his own tenancy: a tidy mid terraced village house that we purchased and renovated for him. We have had a long slog getting guarantees of a full budget to employ his support staff and are still putting in long unpaid caring hours for 5 sleepovers a week, but hopefully we are near resolution on that front. Work in progress, and I wont go into more detail until I see what the final offer is.
The financial rules are becoming more inflexible and being creative by using volunteers and spending money on shared holidays with family appears to be frowned on, making things more complex and expensive.
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When you say ‘rules and regulations’ do you mean:
A+) Primary legislation (Acts of the Scottish Parliament)
A) Secondary legislation (statutory instruments such as the 2014 SDS regulations)
b) national statutory guidance (e.g. statutory guidance to the SDS 2013 Act)
c) local authority policy
d) policy-on-the-hoof decisions of LA managers?
In my experience, most of the practical restrictions come from (d), and perhaps (c). I.e. not actual rules and regulations at all.
We finally have a result - it seemed to get stuck in some kind of admin loop, but we keep communications open and reasonable. We will start the new payment schedule in October … now of course we are recruiting !
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That’s great news, thanks for coming back to share an update! Will be good to hear how you get on with recruitment and any experience & advice you can share with others around this.
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We tried a couple of online recruitment websites, but found them a waste of time, with many applicants being ‘chancers’ resident overseas with no work visas, or overseas students looking for short term, casual work. As private employers we are not permitted to sponsor overseas workers. So I put up a post on my local community facebook page, and one on the village shop noticeboard, and we had five excellent candidates almost immediately.
We have subsequently appointed some first class staff, all living locally and with decent experience.
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Yes, those two I guess. In practice its possible to get round them, with care and attention to detail.