Westminster Action Network on Disability
This an introduction to help you understand how Westminster Action Network on Disability is going to Pilot Individual Budgets in Westminster.
Individual Budget is for anyone who gets help that is paid for by social services.
An Individual Budget is when
You will need to be eligible to receive support from Social Services — a social worker or care manager can help with this.
You will need to complete a Supported Self Assessment form. This will help to identify your needs. Once this is completed you will be told how much money you can have to meet your needs.
The assessment looks at areas of your life like:
You will be asked to write a 'Support Plan'. You can do this on your own or can get help to do this. This plan will say how you intend to use the money. The plan will need to be agreed with your social worker / care manager.
You will start to follow your support plan, to get the support you want. This will be reviewed regularly.
You can think about what you want to achieve and how you want to organise your support. There are some Brokers who could help you with this.
You might want to write your support plan yourself — we have some support planning guides that can help you to think about what needs to be in your plan.
You might want some help to write the plan. Help could be provided by family, friends or some other people that you think may be good support for you.
You can also get help from the WAND Brokers with your support Plan.
When you write your support plan — think about the needs you identified within your Supported Self Assessment and the goals you want to achieve.
Most of the goals you wants to achieve will only be possible with additional support and commitment from:
However, the 'Support Plan' will help everyone work out who needs to do what in order to achieve each goal.
Your plan should identify how you are going to meet these needs and what support you need to help you. It does not need to look a certain way or have big words in it it needs to make sense to you.
You must include these 7 areas in your support Plan, which are explain in detail later.
Your social worker or care manager will have a checklist for support plans, this checklist will ask things like:
The Guide on Support Planning helps you to make sure you have thought things through.
Your Individual Budget is spent on meeting the needs in your assessment. You can be flexible and creative about how you meet your needs.
WAND will help you:
You can receive your money as a Direct Payment if you want to manage your support yourself. This will mean that you will be responsible for paying and organising this support. You won't be on your own though — you can get help with recruitment and payroll from an independent support agency.
This is when someone else manages the money for you. This can be a family member or friend. An organisation can also manage the money for you if you think that you will find this difficult — they call this 'managed accounts'.
This is when your money is paid to a group of people (this might be a group of friends or family members) who form a trust and manage the money for you. The council and the trust will set up a contract between them, and arrange to pay the money to the trust.
The council pays your money to a service provider who you have chosen to give you your support and look after your money. The service provider has to keep this money separate from all its other money and use it only to pay for the support that you need that you have written in your support plan.
The care manager acts on your behalf. He/she plans, arranges and organises the support for you, and makes sure that it is paid for. If you decide that a care manager is the best person to help you, then the council will keep this money and use it to pay for your services.
You pay an independent broker to look after the money for you.
You may want to change your support plan because you think that there might be a better way of meeting your needs. You can do this without talking to the council, so long as it is within your individual budget figure. If you are unsure you can ask for advice.
If your needs increase, then you need to revisit your Individual Budget Assessment — talk to your care manager about this. If your needs decrease you need to tell your social worker or care manager.
The outcome of the pilot will decide what financial returns you will need to do. Currently you, or the people supporting you, will need to keep records.
Your Individual Budget is not personal income — it's paid to you to meet your needs. You do not need to declare it for tax or benefit purposes.
Your Support Plan will have a budget that says how much will be spent meeting your needs. Once this has been approved by Social Services, it won't change until your next assessment.
You can find out more about Individual Budgets by contacting WAND.