The jury seems to be out on the TCES strategy at the moment. The majority of conversations I have travelling round the centres is that its lack of clarity or focus after all this time is just fuelling uncertainty. Part of the confusion seems still to be about exactly what it is meant to achieve and what the role of a DLC/ILC is within that. At a recent DoH briefing on the south east coast, DLCs weren’t mentioned at all, much to the frustration of centres that had gone along.
Ivan Lewis, the Care Services minister was adamant that change was coming, saying in his half hour presentation at last years Assist UK national conference “The question is not ‘if’, but ‘when’. These changes are coming.” He then urged us not to ‘stand on the platform’ as the train comes in, but to get on board. Unfortunately the train analogy was all too accurate, with all its uncertainty and unreliability. We are still waiting for something that looks like a recognisable timetable. Let’s not be surprised at a few cancellations.
Scotland has been distinctly ‘cold’ and the Welsh are increasingly clear that this is not a model they wish to see replicated in the principality. This is at present a uniquely English experiment. The retail sector itself seems ambivalent, the returns from operating the pilots have been disappointing and the increasing footfall has doubtless been impacted on by the increasing ‘credit crunch’. The pilots ended with some confusion and recrimination around the enthusiasm and dedication of some participating centres.
While the MORI evaluation of the TCES pilots for the DoH (Published in May) shows a high level of user satisfaction (around 90% very or fairly satisfied), it may not be that participating centres or retailers feel the same. Despite 90% of users thinking choice and the right to top up was highly important, only 7% did top up, and only 19% bought additional items. (It is worth noting that the study was only among 102 service users, 96% of whom were white British, raising some questions about the degree of cross cultural accessibility even in areas of high non-white British populations such as Manchester and Oldham).
Readers of the electronic newsletter Thiis (Bulletin 335) will have read communication from a retailer withdrawing from trading not just because he “...couldn’t afford to be in this business any more”, but in part due to the lack of regulation, and the fact that anyone could set up. This itself has long been a concern of the critics, and even supporters of TCES – where is the regulation that would stop profiteering at the expense of vulnerable people, and support ethical provision of needed goods and services?
Whatever these outcomes, change is still definitely coming, though not necessarily in the form of the TCES. The unspoken word remains ‘privatisation’, however stealthy it might appear. The emerging market, a desire of the government to relinquish responsibly for the sector, and an increasingly empowered consumer group will continue to present challenges for member centres and services, and many are using this window to review both their models and their practice, some embracing the imaginative potential of new relationships with retailers and the commercial sector (see articles in the winter/spring and summer issues of the newsletter or online at www.assist-uk.org).
One way or the other, aspects, risks and the potential of retailing are here to stay, though the potential derailing of the ‘retail model’ as currently piloted may be one of the casualties on the way.
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Whither The Retail Model - Newsletter Autumn 08
Posted - 29 Jan 2009 : 14:29:42
