Personal Budgets

The parents of a child with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and a young person with an EHCP have the right to ask the local authority that maintains their EHCP, in partnership with local health service commissioners, for a Personal Budget to enable those parents or the young person to secure and pay for the provision specified in their EHCP.

In order to support this right, every local authority has a legal duty to provide parents and young people with information about:

(a)          the provision for which a personal budget may be available;

(b)          the organisations that provide advice and assistance in connection with personal budgets; and

(c)          the conditions that must be met before direct payments may be made via a personal budget.

The Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Code of Practice (2015) confirms this duty by adding that the information provided by local authorities:

“… should include a policy on Personal Budgets that sets out a description of the services across education, health and social care that currently lend themselves to the use of Personal Budgets, how that funding will be made available, and clear and simple statements of eligibility criteria and the decision-making processes.”

In compliance with the law, Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council’s (the Local Authority) SEND Personal Budget Policy explains the approach that is taken by the Local Authority and Dudley’s Integrated Care Board (ICB) when making decisions about Personal Budgets in relation to children and young people with an EHCP, including the funding necessary to secure the provision identified in Sections F, G and H of an EHCP.