Social Care Personal Budgets for

Complex Needs

A Guide for Parents and Carers

August 2014 Version 2

Review Date: April 2015

Page 1 Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

Introduction This guide is written for parents and carers of children and young people with complex needs. If

you access social care or short breaks for your child’s complex needs, then it is possible that you will

be offered a social care personal budget to help you to provide the best and most appropriate

support for your child and family. This document has been written to help you understand:

what a personal budget is and what it can be used for;

how the personal budget process works and what you can expect if you are offered one;

what will be expected of you as recipients of a personal budget;

what you can do if you are unhappy with the personal budget you are offered.

If after reading this guide you still have questions about personal budgets, your social worker will be

able to help you. If you don’t yet have a social worker or personal budget for your child, but you

think they might be entitled to support, you can contact MARAT on 0161 912 5125.

Why Personal Budgets?

Since April 2013, it has been council policy to offer personal budgets wherever possible to

families requiring additional social care support for complex needs. This is because they are a

more efficient and fairer way to spend council money. They help us to make the best use of

our budget by allowing you to be more creative in the way your support works. Furthermore,

they help us to be sure that families with similar levels of need are treated in the same way.

As a result of the Children and Families Act, families will also have the right to request a

personal budget to meet the outcomes that are described in an Educational Health and Care

Plan (EHC Plan). The EHC plan replaces a statement of SEN from September 2014, and

combines Education, Health and Social Care Needs.

Local authorities are large organisations that are governed by clear rules and processes for

how money can be spent on services. While these rules are very important for helping us to

show that we are spending the money we have on the right things, they mean that when we

buy in support for complex needs we often end up spending a lot of money on just a few

things. These few services are very often okay for nearly everybody, but are hardly ever

perfectly suited for anybody. With personal budgets, money is given to families instead, who

are able to choose the support they need without the same restrictions.

For this reason, families with personal budgets often feel that the support they receive is more

suited to their needs and circumstances. They are free to make reasonable changes to their

plan if they find it is not working as expected and are able to try out more imaginative ideas,

with approval from panel.

It is recognised that there are exceptional cases, for example if a child or young person

requires full time care, and personalisation will not be appropriate for those families. Such

exceptional cases will be managed on a case by case basis outside of the personalisation

model.

Page 2 Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

What is a Personal Budget? Personal budgets are designed to help your family plan and manage care for your child’s needs in a

way that suits you and your child. Before, children were offered support from a small number of

services that were paid for directly by the council. Personal budgets work differently by offering a

family a sum of money which they can use to arrange support. Your family can spend your personal

budget on the support you think is best to help your child to achieve the goals that have been

identified with your social worker or case coordinator. A personal budget can be paid to your family

to manage directly on behalf of your child, or managed by another party such as the council itself.

How Does A Personal Budget Work? Your personal budget is designed to be flexible while following a clear process. Using this approach

we hope that you will be free to make important decisions about the support your family receives

and will be happy that the support we offer is good value, appropriate, high quality and safe. The

diagram below shows each stage of this process, while overleaf you will find descriptions of each

stage, why they are necessary and what you can expect.

Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

Page 3 Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

The Personal Budget Process Starting the personal budget process

In order to qualify for a personal budget for complex needs, your child needs to be eligible for

support under the “short breaks” criteria. This means that they must be under 18 and their daily

lives must be profoundly and substantially affected by one of the following:

A severe hearing impairment;

A severe visual impairment;

A severe learning disability;

A physical disability;

Or a chronic or life-threatening physical illness.

This would qualify your child for an assessment for support from social care, which would always be

completed by a social worker. These assessments are required by law and are known child and

family assessment. If through this process your social worker establishes that your family requires

additional support that cannot be addressed through the provision of universal or targeted services,

then your child may be offered a personal budget.

Eligibility criteria are described in more detail in the Trafford CYPS Personalisation Policy and the Short

Breaks Eligibility Criteria (click links to view.) Your social worker will be able to discuss any part of it

with you in more detail. The glossary at the back of this document explains what is meant by terms

such as “universal services” or “targeted services.”

Stage 1 – Determine Allocation (Resource Allocation System)

Why we do this

In order to offer a personal budget, we first need to understand how much money is required to

support your child’s needs. To do this we use a tool called a RAS questionnaire (the RAS stands for

Resource Allocation System) which works alongside the statutory Framework for the Assessment of

Children. During the statutory Assessment of Need, support options including universal and

targeted services will be discussed with parents. If it is determined the child’s needs cannot be met

through universal or targeted services, then a Personal Budget may be recommended. If a personal

budget is recommended a RAS should be completed. A completed RAS questionnaire will allow us

to offer you a personal budget amount that is enough to support those needs. Using a resource

allocation system ensures that money is offered out fairly across all families accessing Complex

Additional Needs (CAN) Social Care support, with similar personal budget amounts being offered to

children with similar levels of need.

How we do this

If, based on the statutory Assessment of Need (Child and Family Assessment), your social worker is

satisfied that your family should be receiving support for complex needs, the next step towards

identifying a personal budget will be to complete a RAS assessment using the RAS questionnaire.

Your social worker will complete the RAS questionnaire with you and your family. Your social worker

will read out each question from the questionnaire and together you will discuss what you think the

Page 4 Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

answer will be. You will have the opportunity to say which answers you think best describe your

child’s needs. Your social worker will listen to your views, but they will have the final say as to how

the answer is recorded (as it is part of their responsibility to ensure that all families are assessed in

the same way).

The RAS assessment meeting will usually take a couple of hours to complete. After the meeting

your social worker will take away the completed RAS questionnaire for peer review and to calculate

the offer of support.

As of April 2013, it is our policy to give personal budgets wherever possible for families accessing

support for their child’s complex needs. If you have not been offered a personal budget, but think your

child is entitled to one, your social worker should be able to explain why this is the case. If you do not

have a social worker a member of the MARAT team will be able to talk this through with you.

Stage 2 - Offer of Support

Why we do this

Once the RAS assessment is completed, we need to calculate the size of the personal budget you

need. Before we do this, we undertake a process of peer review to make sure that the outcome of

the RAS assessment is correct. Peer review is important as there are many social workers

completing RAS questionnaires and we need to make sure that the outcome of all assessments are

the same, regardless of which social worker is completing them. Once we are confident that the

RAS assessment has been completed to a good standard, we can calculate a personal budget offer

using this information. The RAS offer is a sum of money intended to be used to support your child

over a year. It takes into account the RAS assessment, the age of your child and the overall level of

needs.

How we do this

In order to have reliability in the scores from RAS assessments, we use a process called peer review.

Peer review is when other social workers take a look at the assessment to see if they would have

scored it in the same way as your social worker to ensure consistency. Using peer review, we might

decide that your assessment has been scored fairly or make some adjustments if it has been under-

scored or over-scored. Once we are satisfied that the assessment has been scored correctly, we take

it to a review panel.

When the RAS score has been finalised, we use a tool called a RAS calculator to convert your

assessment score into a sum of money which we will then offer you as a personal budget. The

financial allocation generated from the RAS score is split into four age bands, which are weighted

with an increased financial allocation at the older range. Following completion of the budget

calculation your social worker will seek approval of the Personal Budget allocation at a Pre-Panel

meeting. Upon approval, we will then send you a letter containing your offer of support. Your

social worker will discuss this offer with you and help to get you on your next steps.

Page 5 Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

Depending on how long it takes to moderate your assessment and calculate your offer of support, it

may take a few weeks for your offer letter to arrive. We shall always try to complete this part of the

process as quickly as possible and will let you know if there is anything that is causing this to be

delayed for any reason.

If for any reason you are unhappy with your offer of support once you receive your letter, you should

discuss this as soon as possible with your social worker or case coordinator.

Stage 3 - Support Planning

Why we do this

Once a personal budget offer has been agreed, we need to plan how the money will be spent on

support. A support plan will help you to choose what help you need and when you need it and will

help us to understand that the money is being spent in the best and most appropriate way possible.

Support planning for personal budgets will be “person centred”, that is to say that the first things

that will be considered are the needs of the child and family, and support plans will be built up

around this.

How we do this

Support planning is usually carried out with the assistance of a broker or a lead professional (usually

your social worker or a lead case coordinator.) Generally, if your child has a RAS assessment score

of more than 150 an independent broker will be allocated to help write your support plan with you.

The job of the broker is to get to know you and your family in order to help write a plan that meets

your child’s needs in the way that best suits your family. They will be able to help and guide you in

putting the support plan together, working out the costs and figuring out practical details to create

a plan, meeting outcomes identified in your child’s assessment. You can find our broker’s principles

in appendix 2, which sets out what you can expect when working with them.

If your child has a RAS score between 100 - 150 points, your family’s social worker, local authority

broker or case coordinator will normally be responsible for writing your care support plan. As with a

broker, they will speak to you about your situation and wishes and will help to prepare a plan that

reflects this. Once your care plan has been written, you will be asked to sign to say that you are

happy with it.

If your child’s RAS score is below 100 points then it is unlikely that a personal budget and care plan

will be awarded, instead you will be directed to universal services.

Once the plan has been written, you will be asked to sign to say that you are happy with it.

Stage 4 - Approval of Plan

Why we do this

We need to quality assure finished plans to make sure they are spending the money well and

appropriately. There are few things that you cannot spend your personal budget on; however, we

Page 6 Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

have to make sure that the money is being spent well on the right types of support. In Appendix 1

you will find a traffic light system of things likely or not likely to be approved, this will help to guide

you when working with your broker on the support plan. We must also be satisfied that the care

support plan is balanced and that the support you have identified is appropriate to meet your child’s

needs.

How we do this

Before you start accessing the support your family has identified in your child’s plan, it will need to

be approved and signed off by Panel. This is a simple process. If your child’s plan is straight

forward and requests are in line with the advice of the traffic light document (Appendix 1) then,

once signed off by you and the pre-panel, this is the final approved plan and you will receive notice

of this in writing. If your child’s plan is deemed an exceptional case or contains support that may

need to be discussed, then once agreed and signed off by you, your social worker will take it to the

CAN Panel who will check it equitably meets the needs of your child. If approved, you will receive

notice of this in writing. If the plan is not approved, this will be because the panel has asked that

changes are made to the plan before it is signed off. If this is the case your broker or lead

professional will be in touch to explain what needs to be changed and why. If you are happy to

make the changes, your plan will be rewritten and sent to panel again for approval.

Stage 5 – Implementation

Why we do this

Once the plan has been agreed, all that remains is to put in place the support that has been planned

as part of your child’s personal budget. At this stage, there are some practical things that need to

be considered; for example, how much money needs to be spent at what point, how and by whom?

These things might have been considered much earlier in the planning process, but final decisions

may need to be made and implemented in order to activate your personal budget.

How we do this

After your child’s plan has been signed off, everything is in place to allow you to receive the support

identified in your plan. There may be some administrative work to confirm the support and to

finalise the details of how and when money will be paid for support. Your personal budget is most

likely to be paid into a pre-payment card (similar to a credit card that we load money on to for you

to spend) although in some circumstances the personal budget might be managed using a bank

account that is kept only for this money; or an organisation (such as Trafford Council itself) may

manage an account on your behalf.

At this stage, the things that need to be done in order to implement your child’s personal budget

may be very specific to the support that has been designed around your family, but don’t worry:

your broker or case coordinator will still be available if you have any questions about what to do

next.

When your plan is in place it is important that you keep copies of any receipts and have a clear record

of how any money has been spent. The council will occasionally want to check that your child’s

Page 7 Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

personal budget is being spent in the right way and will ask to look at your records to do this. The

council will request that funds are returned if they are not spent in accordance with the agreed plan.

Stage 6 – Review

Why we do this

Once your child’s plan is in place, we need to occasionally check in to make sure that your plan stays

relevant and continues to offer support that meets the needs of your child and family. It is

important that we keep checking in with you so we can iron out any issues that may come up or

work out how we can make changes if things do not work in the way we expect them to.

How we do this

Your broker will be in touch with you within 3 months of you starting to receive the support

identified in your plan. This initial review should not take too long and may take place over the

phone or face to face. During this review, your broker will ask about the support your child has

started receiving and will help you and your family decide on changes that could be made if you feel

like things are not working the way they should be working. If you decide that changes to the

support plan are required, the broker will be able to help you make those changes. If the changes

identified account for more than 30% of your personal budget offer then it is likely that the plan will

have to be approved again by a panel process, but in many cases this will not be required, simply

needing authorisation from the Social Care Manager. At this stage, your broker may also wish to ask

you about what you think of the brokerage support your family has received. If your care plan was

not written with the help of a broker, your social worker or case coordinator will conduct the initial

review and assist with any changes needed.

After the initial review by your broker, there will be a regular review carried out by your social worker

(if you have one) or case coordinator. These reviews would normally take place at 6 months and 12

months but can also take place at any time if your social worker/case coordinator thinks one is

required. So if you feel your child’s plan needs reviewing; speak to your allocated worker to ask for one.

Future Developments

With regards to Education Health and Care (EHC) plans, as mentioned previously, as personal health

budgets are piloted the process going forward will be more integrated with the next step being

personal budgets around education. Subsequently as the implementation of EHC plans progresses

this policy will be reviewed and updated in six months’ time to reflect the live changes.

If your child has education and health needs as well as social care needs, there is a process by which

a personal budget could be offered alongside the social care budget. The government are in the

process of changing the way that local authorities assess and plan for children with special

education needs (SEN) and disability. Instead of having a statement of SEN, there will be a new

Page 8 Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

document called an Education Health and Care (EHC) Plan. If your child is eligible for one of these,

then there will also be the right to request a personal budget for meeting education and health

needs as well as social care needs. This legislation comes into force in September 2014, but Trafford

have already begun implementing these changes. At the moment, the areas where we can offer a

personal budget are:

• From the School Budget for SEN (must be agreed with the school);

• From additional funding for education from Trafford, sometimes referred to as high

needs block funding;

• CAN Social Care – Short Breaks funding;

• In the near future there will the option of a personal budget to meet continuing health

care needs.

Page 9 Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

Frequently Asked Questions Will all children with disabilities get a personal budget?

It is council policy to offer a personal budget where possible for people accessing social care

support for their child’s complex needs. Most families in this position will be offered a RAS

assessment, and if the score is more than 100 points, this will usually mean that they will be offered

a personal budget. Very occasionally, the social work team may decide it is inappropriate to offer a

personal budget. If this is the case for you, the social work team will be able to explain the reasons

why.

My child is about to move from a pre-existing package of support to a personal

budget, how will this affect the services my family already access?

You will still be able to access the same services using your personal budget if you wish to and there

is money available in your personal budget offer to do so. If you feel the services you access are

already working well you will be able to ask your broker (or lead professional) to help prepare a care

support plan based on these services. Sometimes, services (such as holiday clubs) are available to

families at a rate subsidised by the council. With personal budgets the money is given directly to

you rather than the provider, so the costs of accessing these services may look more expensive on

your support plan. Your broker will know more about which services are like this and will be able to

help you to decide whether you still want them as part of your support. It is possible that your

personal budget offer will not be big enough to cover the cost of your pre-existing package of

support. If this is the case, you will be told and your social worker/case coordinator will be able to

explain why and will be able to help you to identify what you should do next.

Can I opt out?

Personal budgets replace the previous model of support and therefore aren’t intended to be

optional. Personal Budgets are designed to be flexible, however, so it is important that you speak to

your social worker or broker if you have any worries or concerns. If you do not think that a Personal

Budget is right for your child you do legally have the right to opt out. If you do decide to opt out we

will still use your child’s RAS score to allocate funding and services will be commissioned by the local

authority to meet your child’s needs.

What if my personal budget does not meet the needs of my child and family?

If you are accessing support using your personal budget that you decide is not working as expected,

you will be able to change it. We have designed this process to be as flexible as possible while still

making sure we are able to understand how and why your child is being supported in the way they

are. If the changes you want to make account for less than 30% of your personal budget offer it

should be quick and straightforward to amend your care support plan. If the changes you want to

make are bigger, then your support plan may have to be rewritten and sent to Panel again. Your

broker, social worker or senior case coordinator will be in touch with you within three months of

your family accessing your personal budget, so this is a good time to mention if you feel your plan

isn’t working as well as it should be. If this has already happened, contact your social worker to ask

for advice.

Page 10 Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

If you feel that the money you are offered isn’t enough to meet the needs of your child, or you feel

that your circumstances mean you need more support, you can speak to your social worker or lead

professional to discuss whether it would be possible to deal with your case as exceptional.

What happens to unspent money?

The purpose of a personal budget is to provide money that is spent on supporting your child with

their needs. For this reason, clear plans must be made to spend the money offered. If, for any

reason, money is not spent according to the support plan, the council reserves the right to, and will

reclaim this money from you.

What if the support needs of my child and family change?

If the needs of the child, or in some cases the circumstances of the family, change, the social work

team will need to consider how this might affect your personal budget, particularly whether this

change is likely to lead in a change of support in the long or short-term. For short-term situations,

your social worker will consider if it is best to treat your case as exceptional and investigate how

your support plan and personal budget offer might be adjusted to help with this. If the needs of

your child change long-term, then another assessment may be required.

Who manages the money?

In most cases, you will be expected to manage the personal budget money yourself. This will likely

be through a prepayment card. A prepayment card is similar to a credit card, but we add money to

it every month for you to spend on your support plans. We may, in some circumstances pay into a

special bank account. In both cases we will need to audit how you are spending your money and

you will need to keep receipts and be able to produce them when we ask you for them.

Sometimes you or your social worker may feel that is better for somebody else to manage the

money on your behalf. If this happens, you will have the opportunity to discuss how this will work

before the final decision is made. Even if you don’t manage the money directly, your package of

support will still be considered to be a personal budget.

Are personal budgets different from direct payments?

Under the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act 1996, a direct payment refers to a sum of money

given over to a service user for employing personal assistance only. A personal budget is much

broader than a traditional direct payment as they can be spent on almost anything that will help

support your child’s needs.

The term “direct payment” is still used, but it may be used now to refer to how we pay you the

money for your personal budget. If you have previously received a direct payment to employ a

personal assistant, receiving a personal budget might feel very familiar. The main difference is the

flexibility a personal budget will give to your family.

What will happen when my child becomes too old to receive support from children

and young people’s services?

When your child turns 18 they will no longer be eligible to receive support from children’s services

and will instead be assessed for support from adult services. You will know clearly by this time what

Page 11 Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

support your child will be entitled to. You will hear from your child’s school or social worker when

the time is ready to start planning for transition to adult services; this will begin when your child is in

Year 9.

What records should people keep?

You will be expected to keep clear records of how the money is actually spent to help with audit. It

is therefore important to ask for and keep receipts wherever possible. It is also a good idea to keep

a diary of when, where and why you spend any personal budget money to help jog your memory if

we have any questions for you. It is expected that the moneys spent will closely reflect that agreed

in the Care Support Plan.

What can we spend my child’s personal budget on?

Personal budgets are intended to allow for creativity and flexibility in planning your child’s support.

We actively encourage families to try to be imaginative when devising their care support plan and so

it is difficult to come up with a definitive list of the things a personal budget can be spent on,

however we have included a traffic light system in Appendix 1 which will show you things likely or

not likely to be accepted. There are a few things that a personal budget cannot be spent on;

anything illegal will not be allowed under any circumstances, nor will anything unnecessarily risky or

dangerous. We will not allow a personal budget to be used to pay normal household bills and

expenditure, or replace standard household items such as TVs or washing machines. Finally, we will

not allow a personal budget to be spent on items that are part of a parent’s responsibility to

provide. Apart from this, anything that will demonstrably help to meet a care support need would

be considered by panel. If you have any further questions about how a personal budget can be

used, speak to your broker, social worker, or case coordinator.

Are there any other ways my child’s personal budget can be spent?

One option that might be suitable for your child and family is to pool part of your personal budget.

With pooled budgets, a number of families can join together to pay for a service that would be too

expensive or too impractical to deliver on a one-to-one basis. Pooling part of your budget may

mean that you can access a service that is better suited to your child and family and cheaper than it

might be otherwise.

Scope are running a project in Trafford that looks at how pooling personal budgets could work. If

you are interested in finding out more about pooled budgets, visit the Made to Measure project

website: www.scope.org.uk/services/made-to-measure-families-plymouth-and-trafford

How can I be sure that my child is safe from harm?

Under the old model of support, where there were only a few providers of services that the council

had to keep track of, we were able to monitor them and their practices to ensure that they were

offered high quality, safe services. With the increased choice of options available through personal

budgets it is no longer possible to scrutinise everybody to the same extent. Trafford’s Family

Information Service (trafford.childrensservicedirectory.org.uk) keeps an up-to-date list of providers

offering services in the area. We still monitor some of these providers, so if you see that a service is

Page 12 Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

“approved” or “commissioned” by Trafford CYPS you will know that we have examined it and are

satisfied with its quality and safety and all PAs must have a DBS certificate.

If a service is not CYPS approved or commissioned, then it is especially important that you are

satisfied with its quality and safety before you start accessing it. Your broker or lead professional

will be able to discuss with you what to look for if you are unsure yourself. It is possible that you

may wish to access a service that your broker or lead professional is unsure about in terms of safety.

If this is the case your care support plan will not be signed off until we are confident that the activity

of service is able to deliver a standard of safety for your child.

Page 13 Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

Glossary Care Support Plan

A care support plan, or sometimes just “support plan,” is the document that goes along with your

child’s personal budget. It will provide a pen picture of your child, their needs, their likes and

dislikes, and it will outline how a personal budget will be spent over the year to meet the needs

identified.

RAS (Resource Allocation System)

The Resource Allocation System is a tool that helps us to work out how much money would be

required to provide services and support to an individual child or young person. In Trafford this

takes the form of a questionnaire (the RAS questionnaire.) The completed questionnaire is then

used as the basis to calculate a personal budget offer.

Lead Professional / Case Coordinator

Your child may be accessing support from a number of services for various reasons. A lead

professional or case coordinator is an identified person with responsibility for coordinating and

overseeing all these different activities. In the case of personal budgets, your lead professional will

often be your social worker if you have one allocated.

Support Broker

A support broker is somebody who helps you to plan your support and write out your child’s care

support plan. These could be from an independent organisation, or your case coordinator / lead

professional might assume the role of support broker.

Panel

A panel is a group of professionals who have been given responsibility for reviewing information

and authorising actions. At various times throughout your family’s personal budget journey a panel

will be required to sign something off before the next activity can start. This is to ensure that each

case is dealt with fairly and properly scrutinised.

Universal Services

Universal services are services that are open to anybody who wishes to access them.

Targeted Services

Targeted services are services designed to support specific people or needs. You may need to have

a professional referral or demonstrate that your child is eligible in order to access these services.

Page 14 Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

Family holidays, day trips, hotels

Sensory or play equipment

Equipment that could be provided

by another universal, targeted or

voluntary service (e.g. wheelchair,

holiday, computers etc)

Childcare/nursery

Block of overnight residential

where there is no assessed need

Multiple family passes

Transport or fuel cost for parents

PA provided by sibling / family

members

Professional association

PA support to siblings

School trips

Private therapeutic support (eg:

private speech and language,

private physiotherapy).

Alternative therapeutic

interventions (eg: ABA, Son-Rise,

RDI, Floortime, TEACCH etc)

Appendix 1

PA support at the standard rate

Family Support Worker

provided by LA

Targeted holiday clubs

Play schemes

Fees for local groups such as

cubs, scouts, army cadets/youth

club

Fees for sport activity

Home from Home or Day to

Day

Child and carer activity pass

Payment for account

management MAPS/ DBS /

insurance

Fuel cost for PA

PA support paid at higher than

the standard rate

Equipment for a professionally

assessed need

Family pass for an activity if

more economical than child

pass or multiples

Block booking of overnight

residential provision in

accordance with an assessed

need

What is likely to be accepted in

my

care support plan?

Page 15 Personal Budgets: a guide for parents

Appendix 2

MacIntyre Brokerage Roles and Responsibilities

As a broker I will do these things:

Support families to plan the best way to spend money they are given

Identify outcomes that families want to achieve, find out the costs for options,

provisionally book services as needed, and submit plan to LA for approval.

Complete this process in a maximum of 6 weeks. (From first contact with a family to

submission of plan to LA).

Review the plan within 3 months of you receiving a personal budget.

This list shows the types of activities I will do to get the job done – this will vary according

to the needs of each family:

Listen to people’s stories and take their emotions and experiences seriously.

Support families to help everyone be as involved in the decision making process as

they possibly can be.

Be a source of information and examples of how budgets have been used creatively

in other areas.

Explain and demonstrate the uses of Person Centred Thinking Tools

Research different options in the local area that families can decide to choose

Seek out and support people to apply to other funding streams to supplement the

money they can get from the Local Authority.

Liaise with colleagues from Trafford and MacIntyre in thinking creatively about

solutions for individual families.

Liaise with social workers and professionals in families’ lives with matters connected

to the personal budgets/ support planning.

It is not my role to:

Make decisions about the amount of money people receive or agree to the plan.

Work on a case for more than 18 hours (including meetings, research, phone calls

etc.) unless agreed by the Local Authority

Be the provider of any of the direct support identified in the plan.