Adult Services

Hampshire County Council's Commission of Inquiry into Personalisation


Putting People First - Shaping your future, choosing your care

Commission of Inquiry into the future services for adults in need of support and care

Clock Tower

The government has made a pledge to transform the way adult social care is delivered in the future to make it a more personalised service. This means shifting from the practice of commissioning blocks of activity and then slotting people into them and instead moving towards empowering people to shape their own lives and the care they receive. The government is also consulting on the future funding of adult social care.


Hampshire County Council has been taking a leading role in both these areas and is the only local authority in the country to have launched a Commission of Inquiry into the funding and future shape of adult care services. Drawing on the work of the Commissioners, Hampshire County Council will be submitting evidence to the government consultation at the end of November 2008 which will inform the Green Paper planned for the Spring of 2009


One of the biggest 'listening events'

Our Commission of Inquiry it has been one of the biggest listening events ever held by the county. The Commission has met five times since April 2008 in the vibrant new community setting of the Discovery Centre in the heart of Winchester. The Commissioners have taken evidence from individuals, carers and other experts in the field who clearly told them what has not been working well for them and what they want for the future. In the course of the inquiry Hampshire has gathered together what is possibly the largest local authority repository of information and evidence about how the current system is working. Hampshire now has a clear direction for a model for adult social care that it wants to be a national benchmark.  

The Commissioners

Hampshire’s Commissioners include national figures - academics, politicians, broadcasters, journalists and members of prominent care organisations. The testimony they have heard has been powerful.

What the Commissioners have learned

The Commission Chairman and leader of Hampshire County Council, Ken Thornber, said the emerging evidence was compelling. “There is little doubt that we are going to have to change the social contract between the state and the individual and strike a better balance between the respective rights and responsibilities of each. It is about finding a system that is fair for everyone in meeting the costs of care both from the individual and from local and central government resources and balancing the responsibility to pay for care against many people’s desire to leave an inheritance.”

Powerful Testimony

“The vast majority of people told us what they needed was some help and advice to navigate their way through the complex health and social care systems. But more often than not they didn’t get it. Instead they were passed from pillar to post and they rapidly lost heart.”

“Our Commissioners learned that if people had been able to access that help and support at an earlier stage, their health and wellbeing might not have deteriorated so rapidly and people would have been able to cope longer in their own homes without the  need for residential or nursing care paid for by themselves or by the authorities when what they really wanted was to remain at home.”

“We know that when people are in control of their lives they feel happier, more confident and they are able to make good decisions about their care. Our Commissioners recognise that there needs to be a step change in our culture and attitudes so that we respond better to people in need of care and support.”

Getting our message across

Hampshire County Council took the opportunity of the September round of party political conferences to talk to MPs, national journalists and other opinion formers. Hampshire also had a presence on the County Councils Network stand at the recent Local Government Association conference and set out its stall in October at both Age Concern Hampshire’s annual conference and at the National Association of Directors of Children’s and Adults’ Social Services conference in Liverpool. In this way Hampshire County Council hopes its Commission of Inquiry will indeed inform and influence legislation on the future direction and funding of adult social care. The Commissioners will publish their report on 27 November 2008.

Personalisation is no newfound idea and indeed Hampshire County Council was one of the early pioneers of the forerunner of ‘direct payments’. David Brindle, one of our Commissioners and editor of Guardian Society talks to Hampshire resident, John Evans, whose determination to make independent living a reality in the 80s has made him an internationally recognised advocate for disability rights.