Control and Coporduction

 

There seems to be very little coproduction in our local authorities and why do you think this may be is it because they are not willing to work with people like myself who have lived experience or don’t like the thought of stepping outside of their comfort zone. For people who have lived experience this is more common than you think, and I know that there will people out there who will be questioning this.

The problem is that they think that they will be losing control and that this will cause more problems for them, and they are incorrect or does this show that they are incompetent at the role that they are there for. No one said that coproduction is easy on the contrary there are times when it is tough and demanding, because it depends on which context you are dealing with.

We all know that there are significant issues with the health and social reform and the (White Paper) but are local authorities prepared to accept these changes for the better and implement some of them or carry on in their own sweet way of treating people in receipt of direct payments and something that crept from the gutter.

For this reason I refer to their attitude towards people with High Functioning Autism and their disgusting attitude to ignore people with these needs as complex needs which is an excuse for not acknowledging people with disabilities including Autism and giving as little as they can in the way of help and yes we all know about budgets, which they use as an excuse to prevent individuals for being given the help that they equally deserve to employ their own care staff for which I refer to as PA’s.

Do you know it would be great if my local authority could just do away with area teams and treat us all in my local authority as the same and yes, the county in which I live is large, so what there are many other that are and I am sure that they are not run like tyrants running the local asylum, honestly my local authority is so mean.

Yet they have signed up to “Think Local Act Personal” in response to the I/We statements and claim that they are in use, show me the proof and that this is being implemented when doing people’s assessments, because I have not seen the evidence to suggest this. The reason is that they do not like losing their heir of importance and control, also they do not like individuals questioning their plans about coproduction and what they are doing about involving people in this activity.

Have you ever seen or been invited to get involved with coproduction with your local authority and does the local authority known what coproduction often is or do they get this confused with consultation which is not the same thing as this all comes down to control, because they do not like change, but change is coming and is it not time to lower the drawbridge and get rid of those people in positions of power who are unwilling to change their attitudes and to stop closing people into the box of this is good for them and oh no that is not good, so we will continue to patronise these people who dare to know more than we do.

We are the people with lived experience with disabilities and not just Autism or the complex needs that should be able to determine our future and how and what we need for the easing of control and the implementation of I/We statements in assessments. What we want is full coproduction not consultation used as an excuse for coproduction and please stop patronising us by thinking we are unable to cope and by emailing and sending by post silly stories on how Jane and John used their budgets during covid, excuse me we are not idiots.

We live everyday within our needs, and we do not want to be dictated to by people who just have no idea what is like to live with different ranges of disabilities or needs thank you, please stop be overwhelmingly bureaucratic in your attitudes and respect, which is lacking towards us.

What is the answer, certainly in my local authority to get rid of commissioners who are not willing to change as they are the ones who hold back the whole process. The next step is to recentralise services so we do not have this series of quadrants, because we must deal with managers who dictate what people should have in their budgets and what they are not happy with, because it might skew their budgets, surely it is about need at the end of the day and just because someone has High Functioning Autism their needs will be higher so they should receive more money, and surely all of this can be achieved through coproduction for which most LA’s are lacking.

Please discuss and inform me what you think.