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Enabling Information: A report on improving access and raising standards in information services for disabled people and their carers in Scotland.
The Working Group believes that a significant improvement in information services would be achieved if, after the reorganisation of local government, every new authority was required to develop an information and advice strategy which would take account of all the existing providers and develop and enhance provision. Local authorities should consider information provision as a service in its own right. (33)
Under existing legislation local authorities have a statutory duty to provide information about council services and other relevant services to disabled people. The reorganisation of local government will have the effect of bringing all council services under one roof. This fact, combined with the increasing recognition that the key to the success of community care lies in the greatest possible cooperation between service providers, makes it appropriate that the responsibility for ensuring that information and advice strategy is given a high priority should lie with the chief executives of the new authorities.
Although the responsibility for coordinating a strategic framework should lie with