If you have education, health or care needs, you may be able to arrange a personal budget. This means you can choose how the money is spent.
How is the money paid?
There are three ways you can manage your budget:
- direct payments – money in your account for you to buy and manage services yourself
- the council or the school can hold the money for you, but you decide how to spend it
- third-party – you choose someone else to manage the money for you.
You can use your budget to pay for support with:
- social care
- education
- health
How much money will I get?
How much money you get will depend on your health or social care assessment or your education, health and care (EHC) plan.
What can I spend the budget on?
You can only use each budget for the type of support that has been agreed. For example, you can’t use a social care personal budget to pay for education support.
If you have an EHC plan, your support will meet the goals of your plan.
How do I get a personal budget?
Most personal budgets are for social care needs. Ask your social worker if a personal budget is right for you. If you don’t have a social worker, you will need a social care assessment first. You can view the assessments on the links below, please choose the age range that applies to you.
- ages 0 to 17: children’s social care assessment
- ages 18 and above: adult social care assessment
A parent or a young person with an EHC plan can also ask for a personal budget for education or health. Young people can ask for their own personal budget after the school year in which they turn 16.
Parents and young people can ask their EHC plan coordinator or health worker during the EHC needs assessment or when the EHC plan is being reviewed.
There are some cases when a personal budget wouldn’t be appropriate. If this applies to you, we’ll tell you why.
This video was created by the Young People’s Engagement Group (YPEG).