Ms Rachel Cassen:

In some countries around the world, personal budgets have been in place for up to 30 years, for example, some states in America and provinces in Canada. In those countries, it is found that up to 30% will opt for a personalised budget when offered one if it has light-touch bureaucracy around it. We are not expecting that everybody will go for this but for those who do, it fits like a glove and is transformative and enabling in terms of their inclusion in ordinary community life, which is the goal.

Sometimes it seems to me that we look at personal budgets through a different lens than congregated disability services, which are showing poor outcomes for the longest time and spend huge amounts of money. The young people and families we work with do not want to go into what we call day-wasting services. They do not want that. Why should they accept segregation because one aspect of their identity is an impairment? We would not do it for any other group in society, so why do we continue to congregate and segregate young people with disabilities when they leave school?

A personal budget is a small parcel of money. By the way, in the aggregate, personal budgets have been proved in all countries that have them to be more cost effective. There will be outliers. There will be individuals who need a lot of funding - individuals who would otherwise perhaps have been placed into nursing homes - but in the aggregate, personal budgets are more cost effective. It is like your own family household budget in that when you are in control of that budget, you spend it wisely and well.