Community capital and the role of the state: an empowering approach to personalisation

Personalisation was a key element in reform to the Adult Social Care system in England, exploring long-term funding options in response to demographic change where people are increasingly living longer with complex conditions and needs (Department of Health, 2007). Self-directed support is central to this reform to enable recipients of social care to choose and commission their own services. Reform was not expected to require structural reorganisation but local authority leadership was anticipated to promote genuine partnerships between social care providers, users and their carers as well as the wider community. However, there is potential for a shift in power to service users which goes beyond collaboration, especially where there is scope to build long-term relationships around long-term needs. This study is based on one local authority partner’s innovative development of local communities’ social capital around personal budgets for vulnerable adults, which set out to grasp the potential that personalisation offered in enabling different ways of service delivery that were nearer to what service users and their carers wanted. Although now being addressed, there has been less research into the impact of personalisation on the crucial role of carers than on any other group, which is fundamental to the personalisation agenda reaching its real objectives. The study considers the role played by the local authority in this agenda in the light of claims that reforms are increasingly shrinking the role of the state. Taking an asset-based approach to informal care via social networks, this local authority partner was able to empower a community-run organisation in one of its most deprived and diverse wards by brokering support for vulnerable residents and embracing a neighbourhood perspective to examine collective as well as individual solutions. Conclusions reflect on the importance of the role of the state in achieving community capital.