Self directed support with personal budgets

Voluntary and community organisations are playing a major part in the development of the council’s new self directed support with personal budgets. 

This enables people who need support to have greater choice and control over the support they receive. For example, someone can use their personal budget to pay for a carer to take them out to a football match or bingo night rather than go to a day centre.

Self directed support can enable people to access support from a wider range of sources of support, including community resources. This means the voluntary, community and charity sector (also called the third sector) could have an increasing role in meeting individuals’ social care needs.

The council is working closely with the third sector organisations in the development and implementation of self directed support with personal budgets:

• A service user and carer consortium is enabling service users and carers to contribute to the development work. 
• We are working closely with service providers (including third sector organisations) to develop new ways of commissioning services.
• We are keeping third sector organisations informed and involved in the development work through our newsletter which is distributed through Action for Health and Cumbria LINk. 

Since the council started offering personal budgets in November 2009, third sector organisations have been helping to communicate the benefits of self directed support to their service users.

This partnership working is also helping to maintain and sustain the excellent work of third sector organisations as a major provider of services in Cumbria, particularly in the field of adult social care.

For more information on personal budgets see our self directed support website:www.cumbria.gov.uk/adultsocialcare/sds