PROCESS FOR PERSONALISED PLANNING AND PERSONAL BUDGETS
PILOT . HAMPSHIRE CHILDREN’S SERVICES – SOCIAL CARE.
BACKGROUND
This process explains the background to Hampshire Children’s Services
piloting of personal budgets. It also explains the principles behind
personalised planning & personal budgets and the steps taken throughout the
process. These steps lead from the first enquiries and discussions between a
family, child/young person & professionals, to the allocation of funding,
planning and review.
In the first instance, Hampshire Children’s Services Pilot for personal budgets,
will focus on a small group of 16 families testing a personal budget with a
social care plan of support.
The pilot will commence in February 2013 and continue to the Autumn, when
there will be an evaluation of lessons learned in order to inform planning for
the future.
The first group of 8 families will be followed by a second group of 8, a few
months later. it is hoped to include some families who have a child or young
person with health care needs in this second group, so that personal budgets
for health and social care needs can be tested. Discussions about personal
budgets in education are underway.
INTRODUCTION
The Government green paper, ‘Support and Aspiration’, a new approach to Special
Educational Needs and Disability’ (2011) was followed by ‘Progress & Next Steps’ in
May 2012. These documents have led to Local Authorities across the country
working to improve & re-shape services for children/young people with disabilities
and additional needs.
Hampshire is one of 7 Local Authorities in the South of the Country, known as the
SE7, who are part of the Government pathfinder programme testing this work. The
aim being to help us see how we can improve outcomes for disabled children and
their families.
As part of this work the Government intends to enshrine in legislation, the ‘offer of a
personal budget’ to eligible families with a disabled child/young person, by
September 2014.
WHAT IS A PERSONAL
BUDGET?
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A personal budget is an assessed amount of funding allocated when a child or young
person has support needs which cannot be met without individual and additional
support. A personal budget is only one part of a whole system of support,
opportunity and activity. The emphasis is on children, young people and their
families being able to take control and exercise choice about the support and
services they use.
A WHOLE APPROACH TO
SUPPORT
For example, children and young people access many activities and services in their
world, (swimming pools, cinemas, schools, their doctor & dentist); these are
examples of universal and mainstream services and are the first place to look for
opportunities for children and young people to get support and to be included
alongside children of the same age.
Sometimes there is an identified need arising from the diagnosis of a disability and a
targeted service, is required, for example the Children’s Learning Disability team or a
Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service.
Communities are groups of people who come together due to a shared interest,
geography, belief/faith or other reason. We understand that communities have many
strengths which come from the skills, knowledge, experience of the people &
services within it. We call this ‘community wealth.’
We understand that each of us and every family has ‘real wealth’ also, this means
the strengths, knowledge, skills & experience all individuals and families have. We
use these strengths to benefit ourselves and each other.
Finally there is the part relating to additional and individual support needs over and
above those which can be met within universal, targeted, community & family wealth
systems. This relates to specialist support services including the use of personal
budgets.
SHORT BREAKS IN HAMPSHIRE
We would like children, young people with disabilities and their families to be aware
of the short break schemes in their own communities. We want to enable children &
young people with disabilities to join in with safe, entertaining and interesting
activities, whilst giving their parents or carers an opportunity to have a short break
from caring.
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In Hampshire, our Short Breaks Team, have worked with community providers, to
improve the range of interesting activities for children & young people with
disabilities. We would like these activities to benefit as many children/young people
& families as possible.
Hampshire Children’s Services short breaks programme is open to ALL children &
young people who:
Have a disability & additional needs & may require support to participate fully
in leisure or recreation activities.

Are between 0-19 years old. (Currently young people aged between18-25
years are supported by adult services for social care support services)

Live in Hampshire and/or attend a school in Hampshire (excluding
Portsmouth, Southampton & Isle of Wight as they have similar schemes)

The following are community services we will offer you.

Information and advice via Parent Voice, you can contact by e mailing
[email protected]
Information and advice on short breaks, via the Short Breaks Team, Gateway
Card & Hampshire Gateway publications & website. Website
www.hampshiregateway.info
A wide variety of short breaks activities, where the extra support your child
needs is funded by the Short Breaks Team and only the usual entrance fee
that any family would pay for is required.
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
You can contact the Hampshire Children’s Services short break team, at
[email protected] or phone 01962 846399. Our short break team continue
to work with community providers of recreational short breaks, to both improve
access for children and young people with disabilities to mainstream leisure activities
and enable specialist support to be provided when needed.
There is also a fortnightly panel, that meets to ensure there is a good spread of
activities across the County, so that as many families as possible can access them
and benefit.
OTHER HAMPSHIRE SERVICES FOR CHILDREN

There is a wide range of services for children and young people in Hampshire
and at www.hantsweb Hampshire County Council provides information about
those services. See also [email protected] for information on Services
for Young Children.

Hampshire Children’s Services also works with a wide range of organisations
in the Voluntary sector. See [email protected] for information on important
voluntary services in our community.
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WHY A PERSONAL BUDGET?
Hampshire County Council has spent a long time talking to children, their families
and professionals in Hampshire and have created a Children and Young People’s
plan. This strategic plan identifies five key outcomes that we wish to ensure for
children and young people living in Hampshire. They are:




Reducing the incidence and impact of poverty on the achievement and life
chances of children and young people.
Securing children and young people’s social, emotional and mental health,
promoting healthy lifestyles and reducing inequalities.
Providing opportunities to learn, within and beyond the school day, that raise
children and young people’s aspirations, encourage excellence and enable
them to enjoy and achieve beyond their expectations.
Ensuring that children and young people are safe and feel safe.
Promoting vocational, leisure and recreational activities that provide
opportunities for children and young people to experience success and make
a positive contribution.
Some children in Hampshire might need support to help them meet these outcomes
and their families might need some support to continue caring for their child and
supporting them to reach their goals.
Not every child will be eligible for a Personal Budget. Social workers will always look
first to family & community resources, as this promotes inclusion and participation,
something young people in Hampshire have told us they value.
If a disabled child, requires specialist and additional services to meet their needs,
has a significant disability and needs one to one support from an adult, they will
usually be entitled to a service from one of the four disabled children’s teams in
Hampshire. The eligibility criteria for these teams can be found at
[email protected]
If a child has significant needs below one to one support from an adult, they may still
receive funding if this is required to pay for additional support, to ensure they are
able to achieve the priorities set out in Hampshire’s Children and Young People’s
Plan.
How much funding a family receives, depends on the needs that are agreed in the
child’s assessment. In Hampshire the child/young person’s social worker will be the
person who completes the assessment with the young person & their family.
Based on the outcome of the assessment and the level of need indicated,
Hampshire County Council will make an offer of funding based on five bands.
They are:4

Universal Support:- No specialist support is required. The child’s needs are
established and good outcomes can be met through universal services.
Parent/carers & family have good networks and do not feel they need any
additional support.

1st level of support – Most of the child’s needs are being met by universal
services. There may be a small level of additional support required, to enable
the child to access these services. Parent/carers and siblings feel they may
benefit from low level support from time to time.

2nd level of support – Universal services cannot meet all identified needs and
so a mixture of services is required in order to reach outcomes. There may
be the need for some 1-1 support for the child from an adult, at times and in
particular circumstances. Parent/carers and siblings feel they would benefit
from some additional support, along with universal & targeted services.

3rd level Support – The child has significant support needs and will require
substantial funding in order to meet their outcomes. There will be the frequent
need for 1-1 support. Parents/carers and siblings would benefit from regular
additional support.

4th level Support – There are significant and high care needs and multiagency discussions and planning are required, along with substantial to
exceptional support from social care. Parents/carers and siblings regular and
high levels of support across agencies to enable them to meet their outcomes.
T
THE PATHWAY FOR PERSONAL BUDGETS IN HAMPSHIRE
Universal and targeted
services explored
If specialist services are
required
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Assessment
Resource Allocation
Support Planning
Getting the plan agreed
Going Live
Audit
Review
Approve next year’s
budget
ASSESSMENT
A social worker will work with the child/young person and their family to carry out an
assessment. This assessment will look in detail at:

Eligibility for funding.
Who the child is, their skills, talents and interests.
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

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The support they need
Building up a picture of the child’s life.
Begin to identify the community links that could work well for the child/young
person and family.
As part of this assessment, something called a RAS – Resource Allocation System is
used to support the assessment and helps Hampshire Children’s Services
understand how much funding it will allocate.
The conclusion of the assessment and RAS, will be taken to a Hampshire County
Council Panel, by the family’s social worker. An amount of funding will then be
offered to the child, young person & family that relates to the level of need identified.
The amount of funding offered is the council’s view after assessing the child and
family, of how much funding should be provided to meet the child’s needs and is a
fair share of the money available to spend on social care for children with disabilities.
 If a family are unhappy with the amount of funding offered, they will be given
the opportunity to discuss this with their social worker & the decision maker.
Together they will look at the assessment and identified needs again to try
and decide what the right level of funding needs to be. The assessment may
be taken back to panel for further review. If at the end of this process the
family are still unhappy with the decision, they will be supported to use the
complaints process.
The funding for Personal budgets is not an additional resource, but is a new way of
allocating Hampshire Children’s Services money fairly. The Council’s legal duties
have not changed. The key responsibility is to meet eligible children’s assessed
needs and provide the support they need.
SUPPORT PLANNING
Once the family have been offered their funding amount, they can start to work out
how the money could be used. The support plan offers the chance to think about
what a really good life for the child/young person and their family would look like now
and in the future and explains how to use the budget to make some of this happen.
The support plan tests that the allocated budget can meet the child young person’s
needs.
There is support available for children, young people & their families to help create
their support plan. This may come from:
A support worker from an independent agency

The child’s social worker.

Someone else who knows the family well.
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However the plan is created there are simple questions to ask to make sure the right
things are being considered. These questions should provide important information
about the child/young person.
GOOD INFORMATION ABOUT THE CHILD & FAMILY

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What are the child’s gifts, skills, strengths?
What are the child’s hobbies and interests?
What relationships and community resources does the child have which can
support alongside the budget?
What strengths and resources do the family have that can support alongside
the budget?
WHAT IS WORKING WELL AND NOT WORKING WELL?
This gives families the chance to work out what’s going well in life that needs to
continue and what isn’t going so well and needs to change. They can then prioritise
what the focus of the plan will be, to improve things.
WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE AND BE ACHIEVED IN THE
NEXT YEAR?

This is a really clear statement of what the plan hopes to achieve. It should
reflect the main outcomes the child, young person & family want to reach.
WHAT ARE THE CHILD/YOUNG PERSON’S SUPPORT NEEDS AND HOW
WILL THEY BE MET?

This is the detail of how the child & family will be supported, by whom and
when.
THE SUPPORT PLAN
Hampshire County Council need to see that the budget they have allocated to the
child will support them well. The support plan lays out what is going to happen to
make sure the child/young person will meet the objectives within the plan. The plan
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also needs to show how the family as a whole is being supported to achieve their
agreed outcomes.
HOW DOES THE PLAN HELP CHILDREN, YOUNG PEOPLE AND FAMILIES BE
MORE IN CONTROL OF THEIR SUPPORT?
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
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How was the child/young person involved in the planning?
How can we help the child/young person be in control of the plan?
How have we used the child/young person’s preferred communication system
to enable them to be involved in their planning and review?
GETTING THE PLAN AGREED
Once the support plan is complete families should:
Check with the person who supports them with their planning, whether that is
going to be social worker or an independent person, that the plan meets need
& desired outcomes.

Check the costs of your plan are within the allocated funding limit.

If the plan is going to cost more than the allocated funding limit, the child or
young person’s social worker will go through the plan with the family & may
need to take it back to panel.

If the child, young person & family, social worker & ‘planner’ are happy with
the plan and it is within the funding allocation, the team manager will agree it,
as long as it meets assessed needs and outcomes.
 If a family are unhappy with any changes that may be proposed or
think the funding is not enough to meet their child’s needs then an
opportunity will be made for them to talk this over with your social
worker and the decision maker.
GETTING STARTED/GOING LIVE
Personal budgets have been designed to put children and their families in more
control of their support. Being in control of this doesn’t mean that young people &
their family have to take control of the money, if they don’t want to.
There are options for how the money is managed.
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

The budget can be taken as a direct payment, the family will set up a
separate bank account and manage the funds.
Children’s Services can manage the money and arrange the support in the
support plan.
USING THE BUDGET – CHOICES IN BUYING
SUPPORT
Remember that there are lots of kinds of support that can be part of the plan.
A family or young person can choose staff through employing personal assistants
with a personal budget. This is particularly relevant where a young person requires
one to one support and consistent assistance, to meet their outcomes. Also when a
young person wants to trial having a personal budget to help with the transition to
adult services.
If it helps to reach the objectives and outcomes of the plan, a wide range of activities
can be used. social worker’s will always look at short breaks first to see how they
may compliment the specialist support required in the personal budget. This is
called holistic planning and often creates a really strong plan.
Support can also include transport to activities, accommodation, day trips.
It should not include, universal short breaks, equipment and therapies as provided by
Hampshire’s core equipment service and core therapy services.
REVIEW
Three months after the plan ‘goes live’ there will be the chance to look at how things
have gone. The review will be organised by the child or young person’s social
worker and should include the people who helped create the plan. The review
should be held in a way that makes it comfortable and easy for children to get
involved. The review will be based around how the support plan is working and how
it is helping the child/young person and family reach their objectives and outcomes.
The review meeting will look at these questions, in relation to seeing how identified
outcomes are being met.


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What has been tried?
What has been learned?
What is working well?
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What is still difficult or concerning?
What needs to change?
What are the new goals and outcomes?
What needs to happen next?
This first review after three months will help families get a really good start and
problem solve any difficulties early on. After this first review there will be a review
every six months.
In between reviews children, young people & their families can always speak to a
social worker if there are problems or there are any issues that need to be talked
over or if advice is needed. Families should always talk to a social worker if after the
plan has been agreed there are big changes for them and the plan needs to be
reviewed and taken back to panel.
As a child, young person grows up their plan should reflect their changing needs.
Annual assessment reviews with the social worker should highlight new needs and
outcomes and plans should be created to reflect this. Assessment changes will
need to be taken back to panel to ensure the right levels of funding have been
agreed, to meet needs and desired outcomes.
AUDIT
Hampshire County Council needs to check how the money has been spent from
people’s personal budgets. They want to make this as easy as possible for families.
How much families need to be involved in the audit depends on how they choose to
take their budget.
If a young person or family chooses their social worker to organise support, the
social worker will do the majority of the audit, the family will however have to keep
receipts for things they buy with money from the personal budget.
If the budget is taken as a direct payment, the young person or family will have to
keep invoices and receipts for everything that is spent from the personal budget. It is
important to keep bank statements so that incomings and outgoings can be easily
checked, by Hampshire Children’s Services.
This draft of the Personal Budgets process within Hampshire County Council, draws
from the work of Martin Donkin @ Newcastle City Council. 2012 and the SE7
Framework for Choice and Control.
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GLOSSARY:
Green Paper: A preliminary report of government proposals published to stimulate
discussion.
Support and Aspiration: A new Approach to Special Educational Needs and
Disability, 2011. The Green paper that presents the Governments ideas about
changing services for children with Special Educational Needs and Disability.
Next Steps: The follow on report from the Government in 2012, about changing
services for children with Special Educational Needs and Disability. To prepare for
the draft legislation that was presented to Parliament September 2012.
EHC Plan: A single education, health and care plan. That will replace the
‘Statement of Educational Needs and Section 139a Moving on plan’, for eligible
children and young people with Special Educational Needs.
Keyworker: A person who will work to support the whole family to link to the
services they need.
Pathfinder:
Local Authorities across the Country working together to test and trial
the ideas in the Green Paper.
Personal Budget:- An assessed amount of agreed funding, allocated to a child,
young person, family, when additional support is required to meet their needs.
Outcomes: Outcomes are the results that support achieves, i.e. the result of the
changes aimed for in the plan.
Review: The opportunity to look at how the plan and the allocation of funding is
working. The opportunity the see if outcomes are being met and whether new
outcomes should be set.
Universal Services: Services that can be accessed by everyone in the community,
i.e. doctors, dentists, hospitals, cinemas, schools.
Targeted Services: Services targeted at a specific group of people or need, i.e.
young carers groups, young parents groups, parenting support classes.
Specialist Services: Services that are over and above those that can be met within
universal and targeted. They give additional support based on very specific and high
level needs. Personal budgets for social care in children’s services will focus on this
group, within the disabled children’s teams.
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Audit: The process of evaluating how the allocation of funding for the personal
budget is being managed and spent. This is part of the financial management
process of Hampshire County Council’s public service funds.
Support Plan: A support plan is the name for the plan that shows how a child,
young person, family’s personal budget will be spent. The plan should be child,
young person & family centred and explain how it will enable them to make positive
changes to their lives.
Support planner: A person who specifically helps the child/young person and
family create their plan of actions and outcomes, in order to meet assessed need.
(Could be keyworker, social worker, another family or community member).
SE7:
Seven Local Authorities in the South of the UK, who are piloting and
testing out, different parts of the Green Paper and who come together to share
learning. They are Surrey, Hampshire, Medway, East Sussex, West Sussex,
Brighton & Hove and Kent.
SEND:
Special Educational Needs and Disability.
Children & FamilySocial Worker: A professional who works to improve the welfare
of a child, young person and family. Through assessment and planning, interaction
& relationship building and analysis of need and risk.
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