Progressive localism for an ethics of care: Local Area Co-ordination with people with learning disabilities

In the UK devolution to new' nations and localities is generating differences in the tone and substance of social care. In Scotland there is an apparent rejection of the personalisation' model dominant in England and other neoliberal welfare states; in its place, there is an emphasis on locally based co-produced care provision, involving local organisations, practitioners and individuals. The paper argues that this is an outcome of the open and deliberative nature of policy-making, and the further devolution of social care provision to local authorities in Scotland. Local scale networks and spaces of provision are generating a progressive localism', contesting the association between the local scale and financial austerity, drawing on a relational understanding of place. Non-commodified and locally-based provision expands the discourse of care from caring for' individuals to caring about' people and places, in what is termed an ethics of care'. The paper uses the example of people with learning disabilities to examine a more broadly conceived caring' within local communities, offering possibilities for inclusion and belonging. The paper draws on interviews with key policy makers and place-based care practitioners, known as Local Area Co-ordinators'.