SEN Personal Budgets
A SEN Personal Budget is an amount of money Worcestershire County Council has identified to meet some of the needs in your child’s EHC plan.
You are entitled to request a SEN Personal Budget if your child has an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan or has been assessed as needing one. As part of the person-centred approach to developing an EHC Plan, we (the local authority) will discuss with you what provision is made and help you decide whether you want to take up a SEN Personal Budget.
A SEN Personal Budget is an amount of money Worcestershire County Council has identified to meet some of the needs in your child’s EHC plan, if you want to be involved in choosing and arranging part of the provision to meet your child’s needs. It can include funds from the local authority for education and social care. A SEN Personal Budget can only be used for services that will help to meet agreed outcomes in the EHC plan.
There are four ways you can use a SEN personal budget:
- direct payments – this is where you receive money yourself to buy and manage services
- an arrangement where your local authority or education provider holds the money and commissions the services included in the EHC plan as directed by you (sometimes called a notional budget)
- third-party arrangements – where the money is paid to and managed by an organisation on your behalf
- a combination of the three ways above
Useful contacts and information
Department for Education
- GOV.UK - Special educational needs and disability – a guide for parents and carers
- GOV.UK - Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years