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Personal budgets
Please note: the information on this page applies only to people living in England
A personal budget is the amount of money a person’s local council will pay for their support.
The 2014 Care Act says that people should have choice and control over how they are supported. One way this can happen is through a personal budget.
The size of a personal budget is decided after a social worker has done a Care Act assessment to find out about a person’s support needs. After the assessment, the person should be told what their indicative budget is. They can then decide how they would like their personal budget to be managed.
Ways to take a personal budget
The Care Act says that there are three ways a person can take a personal budget:
1. Direct Payment
This is a cash payment, usually paid into a special bank account or onto a pre-loaded debit card. People can use this money to arrange and pay for their own support.
2. Commissioned service (sometimes called a notional budget)
This is where the council arranges a person’s support for them, by contracting with a local provider service.
3. Third party managed account (also called an Individual Service Fund)
This is where the council agrees to pay a person’s personal budget to a trusted organisation who will look after that budget on their behalf. That organisation will work with people to choose and plan how they want to be supported and what they want to use their budget for, as long as it is being used to meet the support needs in the person’s Care Act assessment.
Find out more about Individual Service Funds.
How Affinity Trust can help
Affinity Trust can work with all of these personal budget options. We aim to enable people with a personal budget to receive the support they choose. We will work with people to help identify exactly what type of support they need, when, and how.
We recognise individuals’ right to choice: to choose who is in their support team, to choose what they would like to do with their time, to choose where they would like to live; and how their budget is spent. They might also want flexibility with their support. We can work with them to help them achieve this.
If something is not working, Affinity Trust is dedicated to working with an individual’s personal budget to make the changes that will make them happy.
If you would like to find out more about how Affinity Trust can help people with their personal budget, please contact us using the details below.