Benefit Groups and Resource Groups for Adults with Intellectual Disabilities in Residential Accommodation Adelina Comas-Herrera and Martin Knapp Personal Social Services Research Unit, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK Jennifer Beecham Personal Social Services Research Unit, University of Kent at Canterbury, Canterbury, Kent, UK Claude Pendaries Invicta Community Care NHS Trust, Kingshall, West Malling, Kent, UK Richard Carthew NHS Information Authority, Highcroft, Winchester, UK Paper accepted 16 February 2001 Service commissioning is now a more formalized activity, and both purchasers and providers employ a variety of tools to inform their decision-making. The present paper examines whether ‘benefit groups’ and ‘resource groups’ can be developed so as to assist these decision-making processes by using a survey of the characteristics of 2093 adults with intellectual disabilities (IDs) in residential accommodation (mainly National Health Service trusts), and a supplementary collection of data on service utilization and costs (for a subsample of 930 clients). The clients were classified, according to their needs into benefit groups (BGs), and the services which they used were classified in terms of coherence as likely packages of care and similar consumption of resources as resource groups (RGs). It proved possible to construct nine BGs and 96 possible RGs which had both intuitive meaning and explanatory power. Statistical analysis showed that the resulting BGs and RGs are meaningful ways of classifying ID and challenging behaviour needs and costs. Introduction The formalization of decision-making about service delivery and funding in health and social care in the UK has taken a particular direction since the implementation of the 1990 National Health Service and Community Care Act. Purchasing and provision have been separated (to varying degrees and with varying success), and commissioning has become one of the key activities in British care systems. The main players in the ‘quasi-markets’ which now structure care systems are looking for approaches, frame- works or tools to assist their decision-making. In particular, whilst a majority are appropriately committed to individualized decisions, in full cognizance of individual users’ needs and preferences, they also seek approaches which – when applied in the Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities 2001, 14, 120–140 120 # 2001 BILD Publications