Personal budgets
We want you to be in control of the support you need. If you are assessed as eligible for care and support or need continuing support as a customer of our Reablement Service, we will offer you a personal budget.
What is a personal budget?
A personal budget is a sum of money that we pay upfront to meet your care and support needs.
How do I use my personal budget?
There are a number of ways for you to receive your personal budget:
Direct payments
Direct payments offer greater choice and flexibility in the way you arrange the support you want and you can include things we do not organise and directly pay for.
Choosing direct payments allows you to receive your personal budget as a cash payment, which you can use to buy services that help you to achieve the agreed outcomes in your support plan.
A personal managed budget
You may decide that you prefer not to receive your personal budget as money and instead you want us to make arrangements for you.
If you choose to do this, we will use the money to pay for your support. Your support will be limited to the organisations that we contract with and the services we provide.
If we agree with you that residential care is the best way to meet your support needs, we will arrange this as a managed budget for legal reasons.
A combination budget
This is a mixture of direct payment and a managed budget.
You may decide that you want a direct payment for some of your support but you want your social care practitioner to arrange some things for you – we call this a combination budget.
Individual service funds
An individual service fund is where you choose a provider who will receive your personal budget (some or all of it, depending on what we agree) on your behalf and provide you with a service(s).
The provider can only use your budget for your support and must account to you. This gives you some flexibility and control as you agree with the provider the exact detail of your support.
We are currently developing this offer in Warwickshire and more guidance will be available in the future.
When do personal budgets stop?
Your personal budget could be at risk if you break the rules and spend the money on something illegal or something outside of the agreed outcomes. We will work with you to stay within the rules and talk through ways to maximise the choices available to you.
You will only continue to receive a personal budget if you are eligible for social care support. If your circumstances change and you are no longer eligible, we will help you to close down your personal budget.