Self-Directed Support is being held back by excessive bureaucracy, according to stakeholders, meaning people are being prevented from taking control of their social care.

Instead trusting relationships and good conversations are key to Self-Directed Support working well, an online seminar convened by the Alliance and Coalition of Care & Support Providers in Scotland has heard.

Andrea Wood, from the organisation Key, which provides a range of support services to people in their own homes, said having individual budgets alone was not enough and it was “much more about the conversations” between the supported person and professionals.

Self-Directed Support, or SDS, involves four options for how care is to be organised for an individual that range from having a local council decide on arrangements to individuals receiving and directing their own care budget.

But a recent national review of adult social care found there was still a large gap between what was on the statute books and what was happening in reality.

Malcolm Chisholm, a member of the review’s advisory panel and speaker at yesterday’s seminar, emphasised that a more collaborative approach to procurement of services was needed

The former Scottish government minister for health and community care between 2001 and 2004, said competitive tendering approaches had not worked well for SDS.

Meeting attendees agreed that SDS worked well for many people but others were put off by excessive bureaucracy and a postcode lottery.

Andrea Wood spoke of “endless fights for funding” and being tied up with “hundreds of pages of option 2 contracts” – where individuals choose how their budgets are used but the money is managed by someone else.

Kim Kemp, of the Glasgow Disability Alliance, explained how she had to push back against the local authority to get the right level of support.

But once this was in place, she said: “SDS really supported me in everyday life and work…having the personals assistants was really good because they could adapt what I was doing every day.

 “On the whole SDS has really helped me to carry on working, living, doing the things I want to do. There’s flexibility there; there’s a lot less flexibility when you get agencies in”.

Read more: Bridge the gap between reality and promise, carers urge; “Significant” cash boost for Independent Living Fund; Unlocking a different approach to social care; Covid highlights challenges of self-directed support

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