Personal Budgets

Please note: the information on this page applies only to people living in England

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A personal budget is the amount of money a person’s local council will pay for their support. The 2014 Care Act says that people should have choice and control over how they are supported. One way this can happen is through a personal budget.

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The size of a personal budget is decided after a social worker has done a Care Act assessment to find out about a person’s support needs. After the assessment, the person should be told what their indicative budget is. They can then decide how they would like their personal budget to be managed.

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Ways to take a personal budget

The Care Act says that there are three ways a person can take a personal budget:

• Direct Payment

This is a cash payment, usually paid into a special bank account or onto a pre-loaded debit card. People can use this money to arrange and pay for their own support.

• Commissioned service (sometimes called a notional budget)

This is where the council arranges a person’s support for them, by contracting with a local provider service.

• A third-party managed account (also called an Individual Service Fund)

This is where the council agrees to pay a person’s personal budget to a trusted organisation that will look after that budget on their behalf. That organisation will work with people to choose and plan how they want to be supported and what they want to use their budget for, as long as it is being used to meet the support needs in the person’s Care Act assessment.