The answers
Q1. What is an Individual
Budget?
A. Individual Budgets are intended to:
- allocate resources transparently, giving individuals a clear
cash or notional sum for them to use on their care or support
package
- streamline the assessment process across agencies, meaning less
time spent giving information
- bring together a variety of streams of support and/or funding,
from more than one agency
- give individuals the ability to use the budget in a way that
best suits their own particular requirements
- allow support from a broker or advocate, family or friends, as
the individual desires
- be delivered within local authorities' existing resource
envelope
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Q2. When are they being
introduced?
A. The government has made a commitment to piloting the
individual budget approach to see if it really can deliver benefits
for the people who use services and also to see what effect it
might have on costs. The first of the pilots in West Sussex
began in December 2005 and the other pilot sites are working with
the Care Services Improvement Partnership (CSIP) to start operating
in the first half of 2006.
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Q3. What income streams are going to be
included?
A. The pilots will cover:
- council-provided social care services for adults
- Supporting People funding
- Independent Living Fund
- Integrated Community Equipment Services
- Access to Work
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Q4. Who will be able to benefit from the
Individual Budget pilots?
A. The pilots will cover a range of people with different
support needs. This includes older people, people with
physical disabilities or sensory impairment, people with learning
disabilities and people with mental health needs. One or two
pilots will also look at young people and people with long term
neurological conditions.
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Q5. Are Individual Budgets just the same as
Direct Payments?
A. Individual Budgets certainly build on some of the successful
features of Direct Payments and have the same principles of choice
and control. There are, however, some key differences. Individual
Budgets would include a number of income streams rather than simply
social care services in order to give the individual a more
joined-up package of support. Individual Budgets would also
give the individual choice over how they receive their allocation -
it does not have to be a cash allocation. Most importantly,
individual budgets put people in the centre of the planning
process, and recognise that they are the person best placed to
understand their own needs and how to meet them.
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Q6. Can the implementation of Individual
Benefits improve the care system without putting in additional
investment?
A. Individual Budgets are intended to be delivered within local
authorities' existing financial envelope. Evidence from the
In Control pilots suggests that a person-centred planning approach
can deliver improved outcomes for individuals for the same - or
sometimes less - resources. The individual budget pilots will
look at this on a larger scale. The question of whether the
individual budget approach can be delivered within existing
resources will be one of the major elements in to be tested in the
pilots.
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Q7. Are children's services included in the
pilots?
A. At this stage the pilots will be looking at adult services
only and are rooted in adult social care provision. However,
it is of course a good opportunity to look at any cross-over for
young people and disabled children and transfer any learning -
particularly as we intend at least one pilot to look at young
people undergoing transition. We are therefore working with
our colleagues in the Department for Education and Skills to ensure
that we can work together to share lessons learned in the
pilots.
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Q8. How long will the pilot process
last?
A. The first pilot, which will take place in West Sussex County
Council, began in December 2005. The remaining pilots will
come on stream throughout 2006. We anticipate that each pilot
will last for around 18 months to two years. This means that we
should have some clear evidence emerging from the pilots from late
2008, which will allow the government to make decisions about any
future roll out of the individual budget approach.
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Q9. Who are the pilot sites?
A. There are 13 pilot sites:
- Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council
- Bath and North East Somerset Council
- Coventry City Council
- Essex County Council
- Gateshead Council
- Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council
- Leicester City Council
- Lincolnshire County Council
- London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Council
- Manchester City Council
- Norfolk County Council
- Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council
- West Sussex County Council
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Q10. When will a decision be made about
rolling out the pilots?
A. This decision will be made as soon as we have clear evidence
from the research teams who are evaluating the pilots. This
will be a few years down the line.
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Q11. How do Individual Budgets link up with
the health and social care White Paper?
A. Individual Budgets are an integral part of the adult social
care green paper Independence, Well-being and Choice and were
responded to positively during the consultation period. They
are therefore clearly an important part of the new White Paper
which continues the Green Paper's focus on person-centred services
which put individuals in control of their support.
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Q12. What is the evaluation process for the
pilots?
A. Three research units are working collaboratively to develop
that the research and evaluation strategy for this project.
They are the Personal Social Services Research Unit, the Social
Care Workforce Research Unit and the Social Policy Research
Unit. Between them they bring together a wealth of experience
in working on social care issues and in relation to older people
and disabled people. They are being involved from the outset
in the development of the pilots.
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