The Independent Living Fund


The Independent Living Fund (ILF) provided funding for people with disabilities to live independently. The government closed it at the end of June 2015, transferring responsibility and (less) funding to local authorities in England and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. 


A Court of Appeal ruling had quashed the original closure decision saying that there was insufficient evidence that the “very grave impact” on some of those affected had been brought to the attention of the minister for disabled people. Before its closure, the ILF provided £320 million to around 18,000 disabled people in the UK, an average of £300 per week to help fund essential care services. The government transferred just £262 million to local authorities and the funding is not ring-fenced. 


General union Unite said that it had no confidence that councils, already suffering from swingeing funding cuts, could provide the same standard of care and feared the move would create a postcode lottery — the Scottish government set up a Scottish ILF. 


PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka called the move “devastating news for the thousands of disabled people who rely on the Independent Living Fund to help them live the kind of lives most of us take for granted.”