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Individual Budgets and Self Directed Support Homepage

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'Individual Budgets' were first proposed in the Adult Social Care Green Paper , 'Independence, Well Being and Choice' last spring and were also a key element in the Health and Social Care White Paper , 'Our Health, Our Care Our Say; A New Direction for Community Service', published by the DH on 30th January, 2006.

What are 'Individual Budgets'?

They are designed to help people take control of their own social care budgets, manage their own support and choose the services that suit them best using the money from different areas more flexibly. The person is at the centre of the planning process as they are best placed to understand their own needs.

How do they work?

They combine funding streams overseen by the DH, Department for Work and Pensions and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. This means that people who use them will not have to keep repeating the same information to different agencies, as it will all be kept on one file.
The budgets will bring together support to help people stay in their own homes and remain independent.

How will it work in Barnsley?

The pilot will be working with at least 130 people who have been assessed as being eligible to receive a social care service. These will be people from across all adult services, young people in transition and family carers.

Barnsleys’ pilot will be independently evaluated by the Social Policy Research Unit, based at York University, who initially carried out a 5 year research project and found that feedback given said that people felt this type of assessment and process seemed to work better for them.

Personal stories

A number of people that now have an Individual budget have recorded short films explaining how this has changed the way that they receive care. To view these videos please select: