SCIE Report 40: Keeping personal budgets personal: learning from the experiences of older people, people with mental health problems and their carers

Managing the personal budget

Decisions about how to manage the personal budget can have a powerful knock–on effect in terms of the ways in which people can exercise choice and control

Introduction

This section begins by considering the options personal budget holders were offered and what they chose. However, it is important to note that in reality information and discussions about deployment options do and should feed into the whole personal budget process. In particular, how a person wishes to hold their personal budget may shape their support plan or may emerge as part of the process of developing the support plan. The section also describes the support personal budget holders received to manage their personal budget on an ongoing basis and looks at monitoring and review arrangements.

In this section

• Support planning
• External organisations
• Carers
• Setting up services
• Using personal budgets
• Making the most of a personal budget
• Case studies