INDIVIDUAL BUDGETS

The personalisation of services is an integral part of the government’s policy of developing outcomes based commissioning.  A range of approaches have been developed

Individual Budget pilots

In March 2009 a small number of LAs along with their PCT partners were invited to apply to pilot AHDC Individual Budgets (IB) for families with disabled children. The pilot sites have now been selected. Each site will offer IBs to a target number of families with disabled children. While offering IBs to the full range of eligible children and families, each site will also have identified a beneficiary group upon whom they wish to focus.

The IB pilots will run from April 2009 until March 2011, with a possible extension to March 2012, subject to available funding. Piloting LAs will receive between £200,000 and £280,000 in grant funding over the two years to deliver the pilots.

Each pilot site will feed into the national pilot programme, which has been set up to establish if an IB:

  • enables disabled children and their families to have more choice and control over the delivery of their support package

  • improves outcomes for some, or all, disabled children and their families.

     

More information on Individual Budgets and the pilot sites is available on the Every Child Matters website

Direct payments

The Community Care (Direct Payments) Act 1996 established the right for people aged 18-65 assessed as requiring community care to receive direct payments in the form of cash payments in lieu of services provided directly by the local authorities.

Direct payments were designed to allow disabled people or in the case of children, their parents/carers to arrange their own services, choose the type of support they want and decide how it is to be delivered.

Take-up by children and families of direct payments has been increasing but there is a reluctance on the part of some families to take on responsibility associated with managing and holding their own budget or of becoming an employer.

Alternative approaches to personalization are being piloted.

Budget holding lead professional pilots

The Budget Holding Lead Professional (BHLP) pilots ran from June 2006 until the end of March 2008 and were delivered in 16 DCSF funded Local Authorities and in one additional self-funded local authority. The pilots were targeted at children with additional needs i.e. a children or young person unlikely to achieve one or more of the five Every Child Matters (ECM) outcomes without additional help.

Documents

Introducing Individual_Budgets (DCSF 2007)

Individual Budgets for Families with Disabled Children – Scoping Study (DCSF 2008)

Moving Forward – Using the Learning from Individual Budget Pilots (Department of Health)

Websites/ Links

Community Care Expert Guide to Direct payments/ individual budgets

Page reviewed July 2009