Real Choice, Real Control, Real Independence?

by Catherine Bewley

Mark Brookes started in October as project worker with our new Individual Budgets project. Mark and I are working to make sure people with learning difficulties are fully included in individual budgets across the country.

What is an individual budget?

An individual budget is a pot of money someone can use to pay for support to live their life. Into the pot goes all the money you are eligible for from:

• Local authority social care

• Independent Living Fund

• Access to Work

• Supporting People

• Disabled facilities grant

• Integrated community equipment services.  

Individual budgets are very like direct payments in many ways. In fact, your direct payment can be part of your pot of money. But individual budgets have some extra advantages. For example:

• You only have one assessment for all the funding sources listed above.

• Individual budgets use self-assessment. You develop a support plan that looks at your whole life, with your family and community, and what you need to live your life (rather than choosing from a list of things social services will pay for).

• You get support to do this planning from a broker or an independent person.

• You know how much money is in your pot for the year.

• There are no restrictions on how you spend the money to live your life. You can buy support from a local authority, from an independent provider, directly from your own workers, or your family and friends.

• Social Services’ role is to release the money and do very ‘light-touch’ monitoring of it.

• You can ask anyone to manage your money and the details of your support. This could be a broker, an independent organisation, social services, your family or independent living trust, or yourself.

This sounds great! Are there any problems?

• There are teething problems with individual budgets and these are being evaluated by the pilot programme at the moment.

• There are huge challenges for local authorities and independent providers. There are practical challenges, like changing how money works within the whole system. Are organisations up for this?

• There would be big changes to staff, whether care managers, local authority workers or independent care workers. Are staff up for this?

• There are big challenges for independent support organisations about being really inclusive and really able to support everyone in a very personal, individual way. Are independent agencies up for this?

Perhaps the biggest worry is whether this potentially radical change really happens or whether it gets watered down. Will it become a high quality option only available for those with people who can help fight their corner? Will it lead to real change in how services, supporters, society and disabled people themselves think about what ‘support’ means?

VIA will be watching how things develop

Our project is developing information, advice, and action to try to make sure people with learning difficulties are really included and real change does happen. Watch this space!

To find out more call Mark Brookes on 020 7729 5436 or email mark.brookes@viauk.org. If you have ideas, questions or contacts about any of this, please get in touch.

© 2008 Values Into Action