Ms Lucianne Bird:

In terms of the end user, across all of our services there is huge frustration that we are not able to provide exactly what people need or to provide the best because we do not have access to a funding pot. Access to more multidisciplinary team funding would make a huge difference to the quality of the service we can provide. We do not have access to adequate levels of funding. The other issue is flexibility in funding. We should be able to go to the funder if the needs of the people we are working with have changed and get agreement to move or shift funding in a different direction. I am thinking of things like transitional support services for people moving from school to further education or from education to employment. People have very different transitioning-support needs but there is very little funding available there. There is a lot of funding in the pot and there are many supports available, but the issue is how we, as a society and a country, use those to the best possible benefit of the end users. More flexibility is needed. Just because we are providing X, Y and Z now does not mean that is what we should be providing in three year's time. We need to work out what the needs are now, what they likely to be in the future and what types of services need to be developed to meet those needs. That needs to be a dynamic, ongoing and constant cycle. As providers, we are limited in what we can do in that regard. We do a great deal, but we could do a better job if there was more flexibility and we were able to make more proposals around the transitioning and funding of services. That would be important.

Mr. Stewart has covered the employment issue already so I will not go into that. In terms of personalised budgets, we have participated in the various pilot programmes and would be supportive of the principle. It is very important to give people ownership of their budgets and to give them the opportunity to make the choices that they want to make but it is necessary to have the infrastructure in place within which they can make those choices. Again, there is a transitioning piece there; it involves moving from one to the other. That needs to be carefully thought out because there is a danger that people will have a budget but no place from which to buy their service. That needs careful consideration and management but we would be very supportive of people having access to their own budgets. Hopefully, that answers the Senator's questions.