Jul 18 2011

Lambeth Cabinet to decide on Discretionary Freedom Pass

Following the recent public consultation programme on Lambeth's policy on issuing discretionary Freedom Passes to people with mental health problems, Lambeth's Cabinet will decide its new policy at its meeting on Monday 25th July (6pm, Room 8, Lambeth Town Hall).

This is a public meeting. You can find the agenda and papers for the Cabinet meeting on the Council's website. You can also ring Democratic Services for further information – 020 7926 2170

The report and additional papers can be found by scrolling down the agenda page for the Cabinet meeting to item 13.

Cabinet will be considering the following recommendations:

(1) To maintain the Council’s discretion to provide Freedom Passes to service users with severe mental health needs whose travel is essential to ensuring delivery of their therapeutic plan; and to instruct officers to develop eligibility criteria that ensure a consistent application so that passes are allocated on a fair basis.
(2) To recommend that consultation takes place on new eligibility criteria over a 3 month period (September – November 2011)
(3) To recommend that this new criteria be in place by January 2012 and thereafter all current holders and new applicants to be assessed against this.
(4) To allow current 768 Discretionary Freedom Pass users to continue using their passes for travel until such time that an eligibility criteria is in place.
(5) To note and take account of the outcomes of the consultation exercise set out in Appendix 1 and of the equality impact assessment set out in Appendix 3.