How Your Budget is Decided V7 (Spring 2015)
CONTENTS YOUR PERSONAL BUDGET... 1 HOW WAS MY BUDGET ESTIMATED?... 1 HOW DOES THE FORMULA WORK?... 2 WHAT IF I THINK THE BUDGET IS TOO LITTLE OR TOO MUCH?... 3 2015 FACE Recording & Measurement Systems Ltd. All rights reserved. This document is for licensed FACE customers only. No part of this documentation may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior permission of FACE Recording & Measurement Systems Ltd.
YOUR PERSONAL BUDGET As a result of your assessment, we have established that you have eligible social care needs and we have provided you with an indicative/estimated personal budget. Your indicative personal budget is an estimate of what money may be made available to you to help you meet your eligible social care needs and outcomes. Your actual personal budget may be different from this and will be confirmed following the process of preparing and agreeing your Care and Support Plan. Your actual personal budget may depend on your personal situation as well as the local cost and availability of the particular type of support that you require. The indicative or estimated budget is only provided for the social care needs which your Local Authority has identified as being eligible. Even if you have some lower levels of need in other areas, support for these will not be included in your indicative budget unless your Local Authority has found them to be eligible. For example, if a Local Authority finds you eligible for support to manage your nutrition and personal hygiene, your indicative budget will only include money to help you achieve outcomes in these areas. Please note that your actual personal budget will only be confirmed once a Care and Support Plan has been agreed with you to meet your eligible needs. HOW WAS MY BUDGET ESTIMATED? Your estimated budget is based on information about your needs and circumstances. This information is recorded on the FACE V7 Overview Assessment and you should have received a copy of this. As well as having all of the information on your needs, this should also have a summary which clearly sets out your eligible outcomes from the following: Your ability to maintain a habitable home environment Your ability to manage and maintain your nutrition Your ability to managing toilet needs Your ability to maintain personal hygiene Your ability to be appropriately clothed Your ability to develop and maintain family or other personal relationships Your ability to make use of necessary facilities or services in the local community Your ability to access and engage in work, training, education or volunteering Your ability in carrying out any caring responsibilities for a child Your ability to be able to make use of your home safely These are all of the areas in which the Care Act 2014 suggests you may be eligible to receive support from 1 st April 2015. In each of these areas an answer or a set of answers has been recorded on the assessment form that reflects your situation. These answers were then put into a formula that is designed to provide an accurate estimate of the amount of money you may require to meet your eligible needs. The formula was developed by looking at the assessments and support plans of thousands of people from around the country and working out the best method of making an accurate prediction of the costs of meeting people s needs. 2012 2015 FACE Recording & Measurement Systems Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 1 of 3
HOW DOES THE FORMULA WORK? Step 1 The formula starts by giving different weightings to different answers in your assessment. For example, suppose you needed help with dressing in the morning, the formula would apply a different weighting if your need was determined as Unable to manage needs one other to undertake than it would do if your need was determined as Unable to manage needs two others to undertake. The formula then looks at whether some of your needs could be met at the same time (how the support you may receive for one task could also cover other tasks). A good example is the situation when you might need someone to help with dressing in the morning and preparing a meal in the evening. If you also need someone to drop by once or twice a day to make sure that you are safe then these checks could be done in the morning at the same time as dressing and in the evening along with helping to prepare your meal. So, in this situation you will not need any additional money in your budget to ensure you stay safe. The formula then combines all of the different areas in which you need support (e.g. managing toilet needs and maintaining family relationships) and allocates an appropriate amount of money to help you achieve your outcomes across all of these areas. Step 2 Where you have family, friends or neighbours that are providing you with some or all of the (unpaid) support that you need, your assessment should capture to what extent they are able and willing to continue providing support. The recorded levels of ongoing support they will provide in different areas are then used to adjust your indicative personal budget accordingly. Step 3 If you receive support from family, friends or neighbours, your assessment should also capture whether or not they will require regular breaks in order for them to continue in their caring role. If this is the case, extra money may then be added into your indicative personal budget to provide these breaks, depending on the amount of support they provide and the impact on their own independence. Step 4 This is your indicative personal budget with which to begin the Care and Support planning process. The diagram below illustrates the main stages of the formula: 2012 2015 FACE Recording & Measurement Systems Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 2 of 3
WHAT IF I THINK THE BUDGET IS TOO LITTLE OR TOO MUCH? We do recognise that no formula is perfect and everyone s personal situation is slightly different. It is for this reason that at this stage your indicative budget can only be an estimate. The formula does allow for local differences in the costs of care and support in different parts of the country and was developed by an independent research organisation working with a large group of Local Authorities. The formula was tested with other service users in your local area before being used routinely, and we are confident that in the majority of cases it does provide a reasonable indication of the money that may be needed. The formula continues to be regularly checked and updated to ensure that it remains accurate. If you feel that your estimated budget is not realistic too low or too high it is important to establish firstly whether you feel that your needs have been recorded correctly in your assessment and that the amount of support that will be provided by your family and/or friends is accurate. If so, it is important to remember that no final decision has yet been made about your actual budget. This decision can only be made once a Care and Support Plan has been developed and agreed with you. 2012 2015 FACE Recording & Measurement Systems Ltd. All rights reserved. Page 3 of 3