Councils in England offer personal budgets to adults who are eligible for support from social services. Some councils have developed this new system more than others, so you will need to find out what your council is currently offering.

What is a personal budget?

A personal budget is a ‘virtual budget’, or amount of money allocated to meet your assessed needs. Individuals can decide to use their personal budget in different ways, these are:

• A personal budget managed by the council
• A personal budget managed by a third party
• A personal budget received as a direct payment
• A combination of these options

What is an individual budget?

Sometimes, people use individual budgets to describe personal budgets. But sometimes people use individual budgets to talk about budgets that include more than social care funding. If your council offers you an individual budget, ask them to be clear about what funding will be included in the budget.

What can you use a personal budget for?

You should be able to use personal budgets for different kinds of support. The key point is that you must spend the budget in a way that goes towards meeting your assessed needs or agreed outcomes. Generally speaking, people could have more freedom when they have a personal budget. You should be able to use the budget to buy support and / or equipment in the way that you think is most appropriate.

What shouldn’t you use a personal budget for?

You cannot use a social care personal budget to buy services which the NHS should provide. If you decide to receive your personal budget as a direct payment there are certain things you cannot use a direct payment for. See Direct payments: an introduction in this section.

Your rights

Councils will use a system to decide on the amount of your personal budget. The most common method that councils are using to decide this is a resource allocation system (RAS) questionnaire. However, any system must take account of deafblind people who require specialist support and your personal budget must be enough to meet assessed needs. See Direct payments: receiving the right amount.

In the future, the government would like all adult users of social care in England to have a personal budget, but you should have a real choice about how this works for you. For example, you should not have to receive the personal budget as a direct payment.

Case studies: four examples of different ways that personal budgets can be used:

1. A personal budget managed by the council

Rishma has been using a communicator guide service provided directly by her council. The council is offering a personal budget to all adults who use social care. Rishma goes through the process for deciding how much her budget should be, and this includes a specialist assessment. Rishma decides that she would like her personal budget to be spent on the communicator guide service provided by the council, but as a personal budget user, Rishma should have more control over when she gets support.

2. A personal budget managed by a third party

Holly wants the local centre for independent living to manage her personal budget. Her council contracts to hand over the budget to a local organisation. It is then up to Holly and the organisation to organise the day-to-day arrangements.

3. A personal budget received as a direct payment

John wants to receive his personal budget as a direct payment. This means he takes on responsibility for managing the budget, though he is entitled to support in doing this. He has to open a separate bank account to receive the direct payment.

4. Taking a personal budget as a combination of services provided by the council and a direct payment

Daniel’s council has started to offer people personal budgets. Daniel has had a specialist assessment and currently receives a service from his council. The council includes the outcome of an updated specialist assessment when deciding on the size of his personal budget.

Given the different options he has with a personal budget, he decides that the council will continue to provide the communicator guide service to meet some of his needs, but that he will also take a direct payment to pay for some support so that he has some flexibility. He employs three communicator guides on a flexible basis to support him at this time.