After graduating with an MA in philosophy and politics from the University of Edinburgh in 1987, Duffy led development of early work on individualised funding and brokerage at Southwark Consortium (now Choice Support) between 1990 and 1994.
Between 1996 and 2002 he founded and worked for Inclusion Glasgow, which provided personalised support to people with learning disabilities leaving Lennox Castle Hospital.
[7] Since leaving In Control, Duffy has criticised the UK government's approach to personalisation in social care,[8] writing that the idea had become "an excuse to cut costs".
[18] The Centre called for a new model of social care based around Local Area Co-ordination (LAC) in 2011, which Duffy said would "deliver savings, increase the numbers receiving support and reduces reliance on expensive services".
[23][24][25] The Centre for Welfare Reform's publication People, Places, Possibilities, written by Ralph Broad in 2015, has been widely discussed as a contribution to the debate about the future of social work in the UK.