Nottinghamshire’s Education, Health and Care Plan

Personal Budget Policy

For Children and Young People aged 0 - 25 with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

in partnership with
/ / / 15/12/2014

Page | 1

Personal Budget Policy

1.Context

This is the first version of Nottinghamshire’s Personal Budget Policy and has been produced in collaboration with parents and professionals. It will develop further as our Education, Health and Care Plan pathway evolves.

The Children and Families Act 2014 requires local authorities to offer families Personal Budgets. This policy is intended to provide familiesand professionals with clarity about the resources that are required to meet their child’s needsand the opportunity to have more control over how that support is provided.Families in receipt of an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan may request the option of a Personal Budget, but are not compelled to do so.

Personalisation is a key feature of the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) reforms, and is about putting children, young people and their families at the centre of the EHC process. It means starting with the person as an individual with strengths, preferences and aspirations, identifying their needs and making choices about how and when they are supported to live their lives.

There are a number of ways in which personalisation is being developed. These include:

  • engaging disabled children, young people and their families in developing support rather than being passive recipients of services
  • personalising the support that families receive by working in partnership with services across education, health and social care
  • implementing funding mechanisms through the use ofPersonal Budgets including direct payments
  • providing support to help families to develop a Personalised Support Plan that describes how they will use their budget to meet agreed outcomes.

In addition to this Policy, a leaflet for parents and young people has been developed. This and further information about Personal Budgets, is available via Nottinghamshire’s SEND Local Offer -

The SEND Local Offer is a resource which is intended to bring together information about the range of services and provision that are available to families of children and young people with special educational needs/disabilities. It should always be explored before a request for an EHC Plan is made. Many of these services will continue to be available to support the child, young person and the family where the criteria for an EHC Plan are met.

2.Scope of this policy

This Policy covers the approach taken by Nottinghamshire County Council and Health for Personal Budgets where a child or young person has an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan.

The Personal Budget can include funding from education, health and social care. However, the scope of that budget will vary depending on individual need and eligibility criteria.

Please see Section 5 for further details about the eligibility criteria.

3.What is a Personal Budget?

A Personal Budget is the total amount of funding allocated by a service (education, health, and/or social care) to meet the assessed support needs of a child. This will be established during the EHC planning process and will be clearly communicated to families.

A Personal Budget is used to purchase the services and support required by a child/young person with SEND to meet their specific needs and to help them live a more independent life.

Historically, where a child/young person with SENDrequired assessment by the local authority, thiswas used to determine which services the family could access to meet their child’s needs. The process lacked transparency and relied on professionals making decisions for families about which services they felt would best meet the child’s needs.

In contrast aPersonal Budget provides a family with more choice and control over the services and support that will meet their child’s individual needs. Once specific support is identified, the family will receive help to determine the full range of resources that are available. Families can choose to take some elements as a Direct Payment. (See Section 10 for further details).

4.Principles and Commitments

Nottinghamshire County Council and Health are committed to a Personal Budget offer which:

  • is open, fair and transparent
  • provides greater choice and control for young people and families
  • focuses on the outcomes identified in the EHC Plan
  • ensures that young people and families are offered help and support to manage their budget and personalised support plan
  • in the longer term, will consider a planning approach leading to a single pooled budget compiled from one or more funding streams

Professionals working with children and young people will adhere to these principles in order to ensure that the purpose of the policy is fulfilled.

5.Eligibility criteria

In order to access a Personal Budget a child or young person must have an EHC Plan that has been issued by Nottinghamshire County Council. Eligibility criteria for Personal Budgets individual services across education, health and social care may differ and are set out below:

Personal Budgets and Education

Many children with SEND attend school and colleges where they are supported through the resources that are ordinarily available within the setting, without requiring additional support.

Personal Budgets for education are only available through an EHC Plan. The option of a Personal Budget for education will be considered as part of the EHC planning process. Where the child has an EHC Plan the information about the additional support required will be detailed in that plan. In some instances the additional funding could provide a budget to the family so that they could organise this support themselves. For example they might use a budget to make their own home-to-school transport arrangements, rather than using the service arranged by the Local Authority.

It is also possible for a school or college to agree to release some funding to contribute towards a Personal Budget, where it is clear that this will help meet the needs of the child and achieve the desired outcomes. Where, for example, an EHC Plan records that a young person should access work experience, the school could agree to release some of the funding into the budget, to enable the family to employ a direct payment worker to support this.

Families will not be able to access a budget to pay for something that the school or college already provides. This may mean that the support available through a Personal Budget will change if their child moves from a mainstream school to a special school, as the special school will be providing a higher level of support.

Where the support or service is to be used in a school, the Head Teacher of the school must agree with what is proposed. A Personal Budget cannot be used to fund the cost of a placement in a school or Post-16 institution.

Personal Budgets and Health

Many children with SEND do not require additional support from health. They may access health and dental care as and when needed and receive support in emergencies.

However for some children and young people with complex, long-term and/or life limiting conditions, additional health support will be required. This could include children who are unable to breathe without support, who have severe epilepsy, or who have significant health needs which requires somebody to be with them to keep them as healthy as they can be.

Children in these circumstances are described as having “continuing care needs” and may have had a “continuing care assessment”. This assessment helps determine which additional services may be needed. Where such services and additional needs are in place these should be included within the EHC Plan and the family should know how much money is available from health to meet the needs identified. This will not include services which are available to all families, such as access to a doctor, to a hospital or emergency services e.g. out of hours support).

Children who have a service provided because they have a continuing care need have the right to have this provided as a Personal Budget from October 2014. Some families may prefer for the service to be provided to their child, whilst others might wish to manage the money themselves and take responsibility for the provision of support.

Personal Budgets and Social Care

The Pathway to Provision document ( describes social care services that are available and how they may be accessed.

Social care services may be taken as a Personal Budget where a child or young person receives support at levels 2, 3 or 4 of the Pathway to Provision. This could include flexible or targeted short breaks. These services may be taken as a direct payment (see Section 10).

It is not always necessary to have an EHC Plan to access a social care Personal Budget. However, when an EHC assessment is agreed, the existing social care support accessed through a Personal Budget will be included in the final EHC Plan.

Page | 1

6.Preparing a Personal Budget

A summary of what is involved in preparing a Personal Budget across each stage of the EHC Plan pathway is detailed below:

Page | 1

7.How will a Personal Budget be funded?

There are three main sources of funding for a Personal Budget, which are:

  • Education - this funding will be drawn from the County Council’s Education High Needs Block.
  • Social care – this funding is drawn from Nottinghamshire County Council’s Social Care budget and will provide support to the child/young person to achieve the outcomes in the EHC plan.
  • Health–this funding will be drawn from the Continuing Healthcare budget and will offer individual resources to fund children with complex health needs, in accordance with the criteria set out in the Children’s NHS Framework for Continuing Healthcare. This will change from April 2015 and will extend to children with long term conditions.

The joint funding approach will require trust and confidence between agencies so that the provision described in the EHC Plan is resourced equitably and transparently across education, health and social care, according to the child/young person’s needs.

8.How is the funding for a Personal Budget determined?

A joint Resource Allocation System is currently being developedbut is not yet in place. In the interim funding will be allocated in line with the existing thresholds across Education, Health and Social Care. (See Section 5).

9.Mechanisms for delivery of a Personal Budget

There are four ways in which the child’s parent and/or the young person manage their Personal Budget. These are as follows:

i)an organised arrangement, sometimes called a notional budget – where Nottinghamshire County Council, school, college or health services hold the funds and commissions the support specified in the EHC plan.

ii)third party arrangements through nominees, known as a managed budget – where funds are paid to and managed by a charity or another organisation on behalf of the child’s parent or the young person. The third party assumes responsibility for all the financial arrangements.

iii)Direct payments - where individuals receive the funds to contract, purchase and manage services themselves. This brings more flexibility but also more responsibility. Education, health and social care have different criteria for those services that may be delivered through a direct payment. Please see Nottinghamshire County Council’s Direct Payments Handbook for more details.

iv)Mixed Package - a combination of the above.

10.What are Direct Payments?

A Direct Payment is one way of taking control of a Personal Budget for the child, young person and family. Direct payments are made directly to the child’s parent, the young person allowing them to arrange provision themselves. They may also choose to allow a third party to manage the direct payment on their behalf (as an option iii) above). In all instances the direct payment arrangement will be underpinned by a signed written agreement.

Whatever the individual then purchases with their direct payment is bought as a private purchaser, although the money is still public money and remains so for the purpose of recovery when the support package ends. It will cover aspects of the EHC Plan that can be offered as a Personal Budget. It will not cover the cost of funding a school place or post-16 institution.

There are certain limitations around the use of direct payments, these:

  • prohibit the use of direct payments to:

purchase alcohol or tobacco or anything illegal or unlawful

repay debt

gamble

employ close relatives who live in the same household (except in exceptional circumstances)

  • specify that families in receipt of a Personal Budget cannot buy a service directly from the council or health services.

For further information on Direct Payments please see Nottinghamshire County Council’s Direct Payments Handbook:

11.What couldbe taken as a Direct Payment?

12.Whatis notavailable as a Direct Payment?

Direct payments will not be appropriate for all aspects of Education, Health or Care. The following table identifies those areas which are currently exempt.

Education / Health / Care
Funding for the cost of Placements in schools or post -16 institutions /
  • Primary medical services provided by GPs
  • Vaccination or immunisation, including population-wide immunisation programmes
  • Screening
  • National child measurement programme
  • NHS Health Checks
  • Urgent or emergency treatment services, such as unplanned in-patient admissions to hospital or accident and emergency
  • Surgical procedures
  • Specialist nursing care
  • Domiciliary care
  • Specialist Paediatrics Services
  • Specialist Medical Equipment
  • Prescription or dental charges
/ Looked After Children (LAC) Placements
To purchase services directly from the Local Authority (although a mixed package can be arranged, i.e. some services arranged and some Direct Payment)
To purchase long-term residential care, including nursing care.
As a payment to carers to purchase personal care for someone living at the same address (except in exceptional circumstances).

Personal Budgets are not available to Children and Young People with EHC plans who are in custody.

13.The capacity to understand and consent to managing a Direct Payment

Once a young person reaches 16, direct payments can be made to them in their own right. In order for agreement to be given for this to happen, the young person must have the mental capacity to ‘consent’ to direct payments. This does not mean that they have to manage direct payments without help. They may still need some assistance for example from parents, carers or a local support service. There is no need for the young person to understand how direct payments work in detail. However, they must at least have the ability to make choices about how their care needs are met.

If a 16 or 17 year old lacks the metal capacity to consent to direct payments their parents can receive them instead. In instances where the parent also lacks the mental capacity, then the account could be managed by a third party nominee of the sort described in paragraph 9 iii) above.

Under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 a person lacks capacity if they are unable to make a decision because of an impairment of, or a disturbance in the functioning of, the mind or brain. Broadly speaking, ‘mental capacity’ means the ability to make a decision in question at the time it needs to be made. Where there is reasonable belief that a person is unable to understandthe actual implications of taking a direct payment or lacks the capacity to manage the monies paid to them, Nottinghamshire County Council will need to assess the individual’s capacity to consent in line with the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

The provisions of the Mental Capacity Act apply to 16 – 17 year olds. The children’s social worker and transition worker will undertake a mental capacity assessment, where it is appropriate to do so.

Adult Social Care has a robust system for considering the Mental Capacity of young people who havereached the age of18. (Further guidance is available at

14.Safeguarding and Managing Risk

There is a delicate balance between empowerment and safeguarding; providing choice whilst at the same time managing risk.During the planning process, Nottinghamshire County Council staff and/or healthprofessionalswill have a detailed discussion with the person who wants to assume responsibility for managing Direct Payments. There are some statutory bars which prevent some people from administering a Direct Payment account. Further information is available in the Department of Health publication “Guidance on direct payments: For community care, services for carers and children’s services” (England 2009)-

The EHCPlanning process will consider proportionate means of eliminating, reducing or managing the risks, and this should be informed by an on-going discussion about the significant potential risks and their consequences, at the time that the plan is formulated and during subsequent reviews.

Where a parent/carer has identified a potential person to work with their child, Nottinghamshire County Council will follow best practice in relation to safeguarding, vetting and barring. This will includeconfirming the person’s identity; their qualifications and professional registration(if appropriate), taking up references and requestingDisclosure Barring Scheme (DBS) checks on other individuals.

15.Monitoring and reviewing Personal Budgets

There is a statutory requirement to review Education Health and Care plans at least annually or where there is a significant change in needs.In addition Nottinghamshire County Council’s Adult and Children’s Services Direct Payment Schemes have monitoring systems in place for financial audit purposes which ensure that the direct payment is used to meet the identified outcomes. This will contribute to the overall review of the EHC Plan and/or any other statutory reviews that may be required across education, health and social care.