The investigation focuses on the idea of introducing personal travel budgets for door-to-door service users.
These services are: Dial a Ride, Taxicard, Capital Call, and Community Transport.
The Transport Committee has investigated door-to-door transport several times in recent years in response to concerns from service users, regarding the poor quality of service, particularly around reliability and availability. It has been proposed that TfL introduces personal budgets for service users to spend on this mode of transport. Personal Budgets are already in use in social care and are being piloted by the NHS.
This feedback will help determine if personal budgets are a viable option. There is no single model of how a personal budget would work. TfL and its Partners would need to determine whether to provide cash for service users, or a “virtual budget” held by others. Other elements to be determined are whether there would be restrictions on providers a service user can use.
Below are the questions being asked by Transport Committee, as well as some questions from myself about how people use door-to-door transport. If you would like to give feedback please reply to the following address: kezia.coleman@pocklington-trust.org or alternatively we can arrange a convenient time for a phone call on 07772 874633
Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Please feel free to pass this email on to any other interested contacts.
- What door-to-door transport do you use and how frequently?
- How is your door-to-door transport funded and at what personal expense to yourself?
- What benefit does door-to-door transport have on your life?
- The Transport committee would like answers to the following questions:
- What would be the main advantages and disadvantages of introducing personal travel budgets in door-to-door services?
- How would introducing personal budgets affect the financial efficiency of door-to-door services?
- How would introducing personal budgets affect the quality of service received by service users?
- What are the challenges of personal budgets for more vulnerable service users, such as those with a cognitive impairment?
- What lessons can be learned about personal budgets from their use in other sectors, particularly social care?
- To what extent would implementing personal budgets rely on greater integration of service provision than currently exists?