The Need for Self‐Determination and Imagination: Personal Budgeting and the Management of Disability Services in F inland

The author addresses “personal budgeting” as a disability service reform issue. To address this, a pilot project was undertaken in two F innish municipal districts, in which personal budgeting was introduced as part of a 4‐year experiment. According to previous research, the power relations of persons with disabilities and disability service professionals are expected to change because of the process of personal budgeting. This article discusses the social positions that are occupied by the professionals and service users in the pilot project. These positions were analyzed within the context of expected change in disability service culture. Research data consisted of interviews and recorded discussions collected among the service users and professionals involved in the pilot. The positions constituted were analyzed by discourse analytical method to find out if the power relations changed because of a shift in the locus of decision making. The study showed there is a need for a change in attitudes to enable people with disabilities to live with the full rights attributed to the population as a whole. The data implied that current service cultures do not enable the situation to change and that the personnel in disability services are themselves in crucial positions for changing the culture, often simply by changing their working methods.