Merton CIL recently submitted evidence to the Long term funding of adult social care inquiry by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. The inquiry is being held ahead of a planned green paper on social care. We have made similar submissions to Government inquiries before, and here at Merton CIL we felt a bit frustrated to be responding to the same questions over and over again. So this time round, we told the inquiry that they were asking the wrong questions. We said that there needed to be a better understanding of Disabled people using social care, as well as older people. We said that the inquiry should look more broadly about how to support people to live independently, rather than focusing just on social care.

Welcome to the 'Access and Inclusion Issue' of CIL Matters. We are so proud to present this newsletter which has a record number of contributions from you, our members and supporters, thank you! The theme for this edition is “Access and Inclusion” and it is jam-packed with news and views, and we could have said so much more. We’ve covered access to elections, access to information, access to justice, health, benefits and decision-making. And of course access to travel and getting out and about and using local services.