Programme Budgeting Revisited: Special Reference to People with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

The recent reorganization of community care in the UK removed many of the perverse incentives identified in the previous system. However, the organization of care for many people is still divided across several agencies in the public and independent sectors. As purchasing and providing agencies in both the National Health Service and local authority personal social services attempt to coordinate policy objectives and the means to achieve them, the total resources available and their allocation across different care groups and among people in the same care groups form a consistent focus of attention. The principles and practice of programme budgeting provide important lessons for planning and monitoring expenditure. This paper rehearses such principles in the specialized area of policies for people with learning disabilities and draws on the experience of mapping expenditure on relevant services in a survey over 10 local authorities in England.