Glossary

Direct payments:  a ‘means tested’ payment of cash or money into a bank account, to an individual so that he or she can buy his or her own services.  ‘Direct payments’ have been around longer than ‘personal budgets’.

Indicative budget: this is the amount of budget that funders offer to an individual (either as real cash or as a notional budget which is held by services). It is offered once funders have looked at what the individual needs in the way of support. It must be enough to meet the individual’s need under Fair Access to Care legislation, and if it isn’t enough, the individual or his or her supporters will be able to appeal for a higher budget.

Individual Budget:  (also called a Personal Budget) funding that pays for an agreed support package. It can be provided in two ways: e.g. to the individual to pay out him or herself, or it can be paid to the provider of the services as a notional sum to be used to support the individual.

It comes from a variety of sources e.g. eventually it will include money from Supporting People, from the Independent Living Fund, Access to Work etc.

Personal Budget: (also called an Individual Budget) is means tested, and is the term used for the amount of money which is used to pay for an agreed support package. It can come from a variety of funding streams to make up an overall amount. It can be held by a family member, an independent third party, a service provider, a Trust, the Local Authority, or the individual him or herself. [Link to case stud of someone who didn’t want to control a budget]

Personal Health Budget: the funding for an individual provided by the National Health Service to use to pay for his or her services. So far this has been held by other people e.g. support brokers or the service involved, because the National Health Service it has not been legal for the NHS to pay money directly to patients.

Personalisation:  the idea that individuals who need health or social care will have a choice in how they are supported. They should know what is being spent on their care and be able to control how it is being spent, where they get their support and who provides it for them. It aims to encourage people who get social care to become more involved in their local community and to use community facilities.

Self directed support: This is a term used to describe the whole process of someone being supported to work out what their own needs are, offered an indicative budget based on their needs, given the opportunity to decide how that money is going to be spent and to be involved in designing a support plan, and reviewing how the support plan is working.

Self funding: When funders don’t pay for someone’s support e.g. because they don’t fit the eligibility criteria the person may decide to pay for their own service.