Tailored and Seamless: Individualised Budgets and the Dual Forces of Personalisation and Collaboration

This article reviews the design and delivery features of individualised budgets for disabled and older adults to understand the mechanisms for disaggregation and collaboration in the way support is organised and delivered. Individualised funding is often assumed to be a fragmenting force, breaking down mass provision into personalised and tailored support and stimulating diverse provider markets. However, disability campaigners and policy makers are keen that it also be an integrative force, to stimulate collaboration such that a person receives a ‘seamless’ service. The article brings out these tensions within the individualisation of funding and support for older and disabled people in the United Kingdom and Australia, and considers whether there is scope for reconciling these dual forces.