The plan of the Flemish government to phase out the basic support budget (BOB) for people with a disability, collides with a negative and downright damning advice from the Flemish WVG Council (Welfare, Public Health, Family), the advisory council for Flemish welfare policy. The council calls the proposal “unacceptable”. She even fears it will lengthen waiting lists.
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The Flemish government wants to transform the various existing care budgets (for people with severe care needs, for elderly people with a care need and for people with a disability) into a unified care budget.
But in the run-up to that unified health care budget, Flemish Minister of Welfare Wouter Beke wants to have the existing basic support budget (BOB) for people with a disability largely extinguished. That PDO is a fixed, lump sum of 300 euros that persons with disabilities can freely use for their support.
The Flemish WVG Council has now issued a negative advice on the proposal. The council is very critical, both with regard to the procedure and the content. For example, the Council finds it “incomprehensible” that the government is already starting to restrict budgets before there is a “valid alternative”. “Such a policy, in which the abolition comes before the reform, is disapproved by the council,” the advice states.
Substantive objections
The substantive objections are not tender either. By allocating fewer basic support budgets, the waiting lists in the sector will “only grow”. “For the council it is unacceptable that without a PDO or a worthy alternative the (basic) support needs of many persons with disabilities remain unmet,” it says.
According to the council, the plans with the BOB also put “the entire architecture of the PVF (person-following financing, ed.) Under pressure”. In the new financing for persons with a disability, this PDO is the first step. Removing that first stage will only increase the pressure on the second stage, that of the person-tracking budget for people who need more support, while that pressure is already “immense”. Finally, the council is also concerned about the “complete lack of a budgetary framework”.
The council concludes that the plans must once again be drawn to the drawing board and that there must first be clarity about the unified health care budget.
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