I've been surprised throughout the Trailblazer process by how little policy is spoken of. My perception is that people delivering services 'on the ground' think of policy happening elsewhere; in some cases, people think that policy doesn't affect them.

This strikes me as worrying, for 4 reasons.

The first is what it means for people's motivations. I think it is vital that people delivering a public service understand the "why?" as much as the "how?". If they have a framework within which they can understand their role, the purpose of the work they do, and the expectations that are required of them, then they are more likely to positively contribute to the delivery of that service. Policy is a vital part of creating that framework, so to think that it's something that happens elsewhere is to undermine one of the foundations for the success of service delivery or reform.

Not engaging in policy discussions means potentially missing out on service transformation. Engaging with what a policy is seeking to achieve is engaging with changing at every level the way a service is approached, delivered, and ultimately what the service is there to achieve. To take one example: you can think of adult social care as meeting the day to day needs of disabled and older people. Or you can think of adult social care as the means by which people, irrespective of age or impairment, can live independent and fulfilling lives. Without an eye on the policy, the potential for transformation is compromised.

The third reason is that not engaging with policy means focusing too much on process. It is easier for people to talk about things they know and to make small improvements to the stuff they do already. By not discussing and debating the policy approach (the "why?") it becomes easy to concentrate on the comfort of the "how?".

The final reason for worrying about a lack of policy discussion is that it exacerbates the central 'versus' local tension. This seems to me to be most pertinent in the opposite way to that we'd normally expect: at the level of central government. If local public agencies don't engage in the policy discussion then there could be a tendency at the centre to disengage from the implementation of that policy. This is unhelpful in several ways, not least of which is a potential lack of feedback about whether or not the policy is right, or ways in which the centre can act to facilitate successful implementation.

The Right to Control Trailblazer learnt from one of the significant problems with the Individual Budget pilots and is looking to ensure there is a solid regulatory basis for the Trailblazers to start from. Indeed, dedicated Regulations for the Trailblazers will be in place before the Trailblazers begin delivery to the public later this year.

One significant challenge is aligning services in which some agencies have statutory obligations (such as adult social care) and others only discretionary choices (such as the Disabled Facilities Grant) - something the Regulations won't change. The concern here is that the statutory obligation trumps everything else - not just discretionary choices, but also a potentially innovative way of doing things.

It would be my argument that a Trailblazer is, by definition, the place for such innovations to be tested. To this end, any Regulations don't just have to be restrictive in the sense they limit what can be done. For me, they can also be enabling in order to give local agencies the chance to test if something works better than it does at present.

Essex is a big local authority area. There are approximately 17,500 new social care assessments each year and there are currently over 33,000 current social care users. All staff in agencies touched by the Right to Control totals around 850 FTEs. The question is thus: how can we role out the Trailblazer on the scale required?

One option is to create a multidisciplinary team that brings together social workers, occupational therapists, Disability Employment Advisers, housing officers etc. and ensure that everyone who accesses the Right to Control comes through this team.

But this approach has its problems: as the Individual Budget pilots of 2005-7 showed, creating small-scale pilots works fine but can often present an unrealistic picture of how to deliver the service and what the underlying challenges are. So the Right to Control could work at a small scale, but as soon as you look to extend it beyond that subset it becomes much harder to deliver.

The alternative is to offer the Right to Control to everyone from day one. But to do this all 850 FTEs across all agencies involved in its delivery will need to have been trained across the 6 funding streams available. The likelihood is that the majority of these FTEs will already be going through significant change in their own agency anyway, so creating this additional (perceived) burden is a significant risk. It's also probable that each member of staff won't need all of the knowledge straight away, so double training is a possibility.

For me, the answer lies in knowing the numbers. Yes, it's true there are 17,500 new social care assessments each year. But there are only 500-600 existing ILF users in Essex (and we know that number isn't going to grow). Similarly, the numbers of people accessing the other funding streams are relatively low. Thus, at the risk of creating a very complex Venn diagram, ensuring an early understanding of the overlaps of different funding streams, and thus those areas where the Right to Control will really come into its own as it brings together funding streams - the main area of complexity - is absolutely vital.

Doing this will ensure a proportionality to the approach is built in from the very start.

My initial thoughts on the Right to Control Trailblazer, posted after the launch event, can be found here. This post updates those thoughts after 5 months of significant work and progress.

First, an overview. We're seeking to achieve 3 aims with the Trailblazer.

The first is to ensure that the services and resources a disabled person accesses, and the systems and processes they have to navigate to secure those resources, are organised around the individual. This rather than the more typically found arrangements in which individuals have to fit around service providers, sometimes changing their behaviour to do so.

The second is to ensure that the services an individual accesses are personalised to their requirements, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

The third and final aim is, as far as possible, to put choice and control in the hands of the individual instead of the service/professional (the idea of "professionals on tap, not on top"). This includes cash-quantifying a service and working towards giving an individual this cash equivalent amount in lieu of the service to achieve the same results/outcomes. (Such cash payments take the form of Direct Payments in a narrow version of the work, and Personal Budgets in a more ambitious version.)

For the Right to Control we're working on a subset of services and resources that disabled people access. These go across 3 policy sectors and 6 funding streams as follows: social care (Adult Social Care funding, Independent Living Fund), employment (Access to Work, Work Choice) and housing (Disabled Facilities Grant, Supporting People). These sectors and funding streams touch 6 main types of public agency at local and central government levels: local authorities with social service responsibilities, Job Centres Plus and District / Borough Councils, with input from the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Office for Disability Issues in a coordinating, facilitative role. The role of my organisation (ecdp) is to provide service user perspectives and ensure the whole process is delivered through the principle and effect of coproduction.

As will all public service design and reform, but particularly that which goes across several different policy sectors, the process so far has been fascinating. As we've been going along I've been keeping notes across various themes of the challenges and issues we've faced. These are shared in a series of posts containing various observations and questions (not all of which have answers). They're shared in the hope they may be useful for people undertaking other projects, of which I suspect there are more as the public purse realities hit home, or for us to benefit from the knowledge and experience of others. The areas covered are below (I shall include the links after each post is published):

• Scale, and knowing your numbers
• Legislation and Regulations
• Policy 'versus' process
• Money, outcomes and money again
• Public agencies working together and the implications for staff

One area of obvious overlap with the Right to Control work is with Total Place. Unfortunately, I don't know enough of the practical lessons and implications from Total Place so far to usefully draw parallels with the Right to Control Trailblazer work. However, if anyone with that knowledge wants to get together and draw those parallels, I'd love to - please get in touch.

The usual caveat applies to this series of posts: these are personal reflections that should in no way be taken to reflect any official view.