Personal Budgets
What is a Personal Budget?
A Personal Budget is the amount of money the Council has assessed is necessary to spend in order to meet someone's eligible social care needs.
It enables someone to have more choice and control over purchasing and arranging the assistance or services they want. They are intended to give the individual the maximum degree of choice and control over how their eligible needs are met.
For each area of need under our Fair Access to Care criteria of critical or substantial needs, the Council will assess the level of someone's need and use that to estimate how much would have been spent on services.
This is what the Resource Allocation System (RAS) . The RAS uses the costs of current services as a basis. It doesn't suggest what services someone should use to meet their needs.
It gives is an estimated value which someone can use to start planning their care and support.
During the planning process, someone may find they don't need the whole value indicated or think that they need more. The final budget agreed by the Council may be higher or lower than the original estimate.
Personal Budgets are not a benefit and are only to be used in ways agreed by the Council.
What can a Personal Budget be spent on
With personal budgets, you have greater choice and control about how you live and how your care needs are met. For more information please read our policy on spending your personal budget (Word, 45KB).
Where is the money from?
Personal Budgets are replacing the old system of arranging social care services. There is no new money, so when calculating personal budgets, the Council is using money that pays for existing services for people's critical and substantial needs.
Though it may change over time, to start with Personal Budgets will include money currently used for: -
- Personal care at home,
- Care provided in a supported housing setting,
- Day care and similar services
- Meals on wheels
- Respite services
These are chargeable, longer term services.
Though the money comes from those services, someone may spend it differently. We expect that something like 30% of people will make changes to the care they buy?
Personal Budgets also exist for family carers, currently in the form of Direct Payments which Hackney Council has been operating for some time.
What money does not go into a Personal Budget?
Money that currently pays for the following things is not included in the Personal Budget at this time: -
- Advice, advocacy or support planning
- Housing related support
- "Reablement" services (which only last for a few weeks)
- Telecare
- NHS and Health services, including continuing care
- Transport services
- Access to Work
- Disabled Facilities Grant
Who can have one?
The groups we are including in Personal Budgets from November are older people and people with physical disabilities who meet the Council's criteria for providing care (the Fair Access to Care criteria of people who have substantial or critical needs). See Needs Assessment.
In the near future we will also introduce them for people with learning disabilities.
In 2011 we will begin working to develop a way of offering personal budgets to adults over the age of 18 with mental health problems.
Page updated: 8 Dec 2011
.