One of the early achievements of the BCODP Independent Living Committee / NCIL was in persuading the government to bring in legislation to make direct payments for social care lawful.
Before this law, local authorities with social services departments were using ad-hoc arrangements to make payments via third parties and trust funds to be passed on to disabled people who employed their own personal assistants to pay their wages.
This research was guided by a steering group consisting of Peter Beresford, Jane Campbell, John Evans, and Frances Hasler.
[4] In 2006 this work was included in a wider book on independent living by Colin Barnes and Geof Mercer, CDS staff members, with Hannah Morgan, the principal researcher.
[8] By October 2010 NCIL was informing its members that it was unlikely to be able to continue as a sustainable organisation, which had started with an exploratory meeting on 9 September 2009, and later reinforced with a new Conservative government in the UK in May 2010 committed to a policy of austerity which impacted especially hard on disabled people of working age.