A Personal Budget is an amount of money identified by the LA to deliver provision set out in an EHCP, where the parent or young person is involved in securing that provision.
Personal Budgets (PB) should “reflect the holistic nature of an EHCP” and can include funding for special educational, health and social care provision.
They should be focused to secure the provision agreed in the EHC Plan and should be designed to secure the outcomes specified in the EHC Plan.
A request for a PB can only apply to some provision detailed in the EHCP – it cannot, for example, be for additional therapy that the parent would like to be made but is not required by the EHCP.
It is not automatic that a PB will be agreed as there has to be an agreement from the placement attended which would otherwise be making the provision.
Where a direct payment is proposed for special educational provision, local authorities must secure the agreement of the early years setting, school or college, if any of the provision is to be delivered on that institution’s premises.
Where agreement cannot be reached with the early years setting, school or college, the local authority must not go ahead with the direct payment.
The SEND Code of Practice explains that PBs can be for any part of the provision outlined in an EHCP.
“Young people and parents of children who have EHC plans have the right to request a Personal Budget, which may contain elements of education, social care and health funding.”
Partners must set out their arrangements for agreeing Personal Budgets in their joint commissioning arrangements. They should develop and agree a formal approach to making fair and equitable allocations of funding and should set out a local policy for Personal Budgets that includes:
- a description of the services across education, health and social care that currently lend themselves to the use of Personal Budgets.
- the mechanisms of control for funding available to parents and young people including: direct payments – where individuals receive the cash to contract, purchase and manage services themselves.
- an arrangement – whereby the local authority, school or college holds the funds and commissions the support specified in the EHC Plan (these are sometimes called notional budgets).
- third party arrangements – where funds (direct payments) are paid to and managed by an individual or organisation on behalf of the child’s parent or the young person.
- a combination of the above.
- clear and simple statements of eligibility criteria and the decision-making processes that underpin them.