Managing your Personal Budget
You can choose to receive the Personal Budget in a number of
ways:
- As a Direct Payment
- As a Fully Supported Personal Budget
- A Combined Personal Budget
Direct Payments offer you the most choice and control over the
care and support that you need as money allocated for your support
is paid directly into your Direct Payment bank account. There
is lots of support available for those people who choose to take
the Direct Payment option, for further information on services
available visit the Penderels
Trust website. In situations where you feel you cannot manage
the money yourself, it may still be possible to have a Direct
Payment. Further information on Direct Payments can be found on our
Direct
Payments webpages.
However, if you do not want to take a Direct Payment you can
still have your money and services managed through the Council
through a fully supported personal budget.
The Personal Budgets Options table explains more about the
advantages and disadvantages of the different choices.
Personal Budget Options Table
| Use of Personal budget |
What does it mean? |
What's good about it? |
What's not so good about it? |
|
Direct payments
|
Your Personal Budget is paid directly into a Bank Account and
you manage the money yourself.
|
You are in
charge of your money and have more choices about how and where you
spend it to meet your outcomes (as agreed in your Personal Support
Plan). |
You will need to
keep records of how you spend the money and if you employ your own
staff you will also have responsibilities of being an
employer. |
|
Facilitated Direct Payments |
A trusted friend
or family member opens a bank account for your Personal Budget and
supports you to manage the money. |
You get help to
manage your money and retain a lot of control over where you can
spend your money. |
You don’t get
quite as much choice and control yourself and may have to pay a fee
to have someone else manage the money for you. |
| Suitable
Persons |
In cases where
the person eligible for services lacks the capacity to make their
own decisions, it may still be possible to have a Personal Budget
with Direct Payments. |
You, as the
suitable person, get to make choices about how and where you spend
the money to meet the outcomes as identified in the Budget Holder's
Personal Support Plan. |
|
| Fully
Supported Services |
The Council
purchases services on your behalf and these are paid from your
Personal Budget. This could include setting up an
Individual Service Fund with a provider who will
deliver their service flexibly (i.e. service may differ each week
according to your needs). |
Worcestershire
County Council makes all the arrangements with the provider for you
through our Brokerage service. However, if an Individual
Service Fund has been set up, you will agree the flexible
services with the provider yourself. |
You have less
choice and control because we can only purchase support from
providers who are contracted through the council. |
| Combined
Personal Budget |
You could have a
mixture of Fully Supported Services and Direct (or Facilitated
Direct) Payments. |
You can have
parts of the Personal Budget managed for you and you can control
the parts you want to. |
It can be confusing remembering who is paying for what.
|
This page was last reviewed 22 February 2012 at 12:31.
The page is next due for review 20 August 2013.