Background: the aims of resource allocation systems

Resource allocations systems (RASs) are computer algorithms used by local authorities to produce an ‘indicative amount’ for a personal budget, which service users and care practitioners may use to start planning their support. Most RASs work by allocating a point score to a person’s responses on a needs questionnaire, and then converting that – using some algorithm – to a cash value. Some simplified RASs, called ‘ready reckoners’, require local authority staff to estimate how many hours of support per week they believe a person would need, and multiply this by an assumed unit cost of that care to arrive at a cash value.

It was hoped, when RASs were developed, that they would lead to a more fair, transparent and equitable distribution of resources in social care: more fair, because it was hoped that these algorithms would be less subjective than individual professional judgement (Duffy, 2005a); more transparent because they would make visible ‘decision making processes that would otherwise be hidden’ (Henwood and Hudson, 2007, p iii; see also Tyson, 2009; ADASS, 2010); and more equitable because they would eliminate institutionalised inequalities between different client groups with equivalent needs (Henwood and Hudson, 2007; EHRC, 2010).

By providing service users with a personal budget, rather than a care plan devised by professionals, it was hoped that service users would be ‘empowered’ to take control of their own care and support. By reducing the emphasis on professional assessment, and offering service users greater opportunities to plan their own care, it was envisaged that they would also reduce bureaucracy in adult social care. These are all laudable goals, yet growing evidence suggests that RASs are not operating in any of the ways anticipated by those who promoted them. This can, in part, be understood by looking at the discrepancy between what the law requires of local authority care service provision and how RASs work in practice. This chapter first considers the law, and then looks at empirical evidence about how RASs operate.

The legal status of RASs

As Clements (2008) has noted, RASs are creatures of policy not law; they are not referenced in any existing community care legislation.