What is a Personal Budget?

A Personal Budget is a sum of money that is available to let you live an independent and fulfilling life. It is made up of money from the Council and some money of your own. You must be entitled to a service from the Council to have a personal budget. If you have a Personal Budget you will know following your assessment how much money you will have available to plan your support.

A Personal Budget lets you plan your own support with as much or as little help as you need. You are the best person to know your needs and how you would like them to be met. Family, friends or someone from our adult social care team can help you with your Personal Budget. You can keep the services you already have if you want or you can choose new ones to meet your needs.

How will Personal Budgets work? - There are seven steps:

1. Working out the budget

This is done by a Resource Allocation System or “RAS”. A questionnaire that helps to work out what your needs are and gives you an idea of how much money you could have, you will have help with this.

2. Making your support plan

A Support Plan is about you and what is important to you. It shows how you want to use your budget, what support you need and how you will stay safe and well. You can make your plan yourself or with your family, a friend or someone from adult social care. The plan will look at your outcomes (what you want to achieve).

3. Getting your plan agreed

Your Support Plan has to be agreed by adult social care before your Personal Budget can be used. We will check that your plan will meet your needs now and in the future.

4. Organising your money

You can manage the money yourself, this would be paid to you through a Direct Payment, or you could ask us to manage your budget and pay for the support you have chosen. Or you could have a combination of both.

We can also offer an Individual Service Fund.

5. Organising your support

You may want to organise all your support yourself or you may want us to do this for you.

6. Living your life

This is when you put your plan into action.

7. Review

To ensure you are OK, the Council has to regularly check how your plan is working.

What if I don’t think you have given me enough money?

You need to tell us if you think we have not given you enough money. We will then talk with you to understand why you need more money. It may be that if you did things differently you would have enough money. Or, it may be that you really can’t meet your needs with the money you have been allocated and we need to look at your situation differently.

No, you can choose to use your Person

al Budget either as:-

• Direct Payment - cash payment into a dedicated bank account
• Direct Provision - you can continue to use services provided through the local authority.

What is a support plan?

This is the plan that you produce. It tells people about you, your support needs and what is important to you. It will show:-

• What you will spend the money on
• How you will stay healthy, safe and well and promote your independence
• How you will organise the support you need and what help you might need to do this
• How you are planning to live your life now and in the future. Your support plan should also include what you want to happen should something go wrong e.g. who will support you if the usual person is ill or does not turn up).

Your support plan can be part of or based on your Person Centred Plan if you have one. Once the support plan has been agreed with you your money will be paid into your chosen bank account if you have chosen to have a direct payment/trust. Or, if you have chosen for adult social care to make arrangements on your behalf, they will be able to do so as soon as your support plan has been agreed with you.

Is there a support plan form that I have to fill in?

No, the support plan belongs to you and you can make it any way you want. You may want to write it, use pictures or photographs or you may want to do a DVD or video. It is up to you but it must cover all of the areas mentioned above.