Ministers at last week's Aiming High for Disabled Children conference were unable to confirm how much money primary care trusts (PCTs) would have to spend on disabled children's services.
Delegates at the event pressed Children's Secretary Ed Balls, schools minister Lord Andrew Adonis, health minister Ivan Lewis along with officials from the Department of Health and Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) for a definitive figure.
Graham Durham, assistant director of inclusion at the London Borough of Barnet, said: "Where is the money in the PCT for this programme? We have got ringfenced money for short-term breaks and we can't spend it on anything else."
Another delegate said while it is clear how much money there is from the DCSF, there is not the same clarity from the Department of Health.
Balls said the child health strategy, due out this autumn, will provide some answers. "We need to make sure there is clarity," he said. "We want to be clear about how much money is going into local areas."
Ivan Lewis added this year is the first time the needs of disabled children have been identified as a priority in the NHS operating framework, although PCTs have not yet received their funding allocations for the second and third year of the 2008 to 2011 comprehensive spending review period.
But Conservative councillor Toni Coombs, the lead member for children's services at Dorset County Council, said one of the problems services face is that the Department of Health money is not ringfenced. "Identifying budgets is one of the difficulties we have had in moving forward with commissioning. We need to ensure the money goes where it needs to," she said.
Zoe Lawrence, head of ill and disabled children at the Department of Health, said: "The department doesn't ringfence money. PCTs decide how the money best meets their needs. It's for local PCTs to decide how that money is spent."
Lewis said the best way to achieve change locally is to set a clear national framework underpinning local autonomy.
