The culture of choice: consumerism in the welfare state

Increasing the consumer's voice and choice in the housing, care and support sector is not a simple task for a voluntary sector new to the market ethos, pressures and complexity recently introduced. How will the initiatives promoting choice, such as Direct Payments, work with the need to manage the market and constrain costs? There is much work still do do on service user involvement and outcomes, as well as on commissioning and procurement, in order to achieve the improvements we all seek.