Personal Budgets

What are Personal Budgets?

Putting People First is a national policy programme that is helping to change the way social care is organised. It means that if you need support you will have far greater choice and control over the way this is arranged.

Personal Budgets working for you…

Putting People First is based on the principle that you are the best person to know what type of support meets your needs. The money is given to you so that you can choose and arrange the support yourself. The money that is given for your support needs is called a Personal Budget.

Receiving your Personal Budget

To receive an Personal budget you need to have been assessed as eligible to receive community care services under the Government’s Fair Access to Care Services.

You will then be asked to complete a simple self-assessment questionnaire about the areas of your life in which you feel you need support. You can do this yourself, with the help of family or friends, a care manager or an advocate.

When you have completed the questionnaire, your answers will be fed into something called a Resource Allocation System. This will identify the amount of money which will be available to meet your needs.

How do you know what support you want?

The next step will be for you to think about the type of support that you want and make a plan for this by showing: -

• How you will stay healthy, safe and well and increase your independence.
• How you will organise the support you need and the help you will need to do that.
• What you will spend the money on.
• How you plan to live your life now and in the future: the goals and outcomes you want to achieve.

You can have help to do this and can choose who you would like to help you.

This could be a Support Broker, Care Manager, your Family, Friends or an Advocate.

How much support do you need?

You will also need to think about how much natural support can be provided by families and friends and will be given help to obtain money from other sources such as the Independent Living Fund and benefits such as Disability Living Allowance.

How much do you have to pay?

You will need to know how much you will have to pay towards your support, if anything. This is called your ‘contribution’. To find out if you have to pay towards your support, you will need to have a charging assessment undertaken by your local council’s finance  team(FAB).

Once the support plan and your contribution have been agreed, your money will be paid into a nominated bank account. You can start to organise your support and the people who will provide it.

With a Personal Budget you can choose to have services provided by Adult  Health and Social Care Services in addition to employing people directly.

How can you help us?

You will be asked to keep records and provide evidence to  show how you are spending your Persoanl budget . Your Care Manager or Social Worker should review your support plan with you once a year.

If you have support needs, or you care for someone with support needs, and would like to find out more about Personal Budgets you can contact your local Adult Health and Social Care Department to ask for an assessment.

How to Make A Support Plan

You will need a support plan to decide how to spend your individual budget. You will be able to do this when you know how much money you have been allocated.You can complete your own support plan with whatever help you need. You can create your plan in your own way in words or pictures. There are support brokers available if you need advice or assistance to do this.

The plan needs to show the following:

• What is important to you and what you want to change.
• How you will be supported and manage health and safety.
• How you will be supported to meet your eligible support needs.
• How your support will be managed, i.e. whether you will manage your support yourself or want it managed by an agent, trust, or care manager.
• Who will be making decisions if needed
• How are you going to put the plan into action

Self Directed Support Jargon Buster 

SCIL publish a number of advice sheets to provide Employers of Personal Assistants with information that they may find useful.

You can download the advice sheets from here.