What is a personal budget?

Your personal budget is designed to help you purchase and manage the support you need in a way which meets your agreed outcomes. If eligible, you'll be allocated a personal budget to help you increase your confidence, regain or develop skills for independent living, manage specific daily living needs and ensure you are, wherever possible, able to work towards a future with an improved quality of life, where you won't have to rely on us for support. We know a lot of people receive the majority of their support freely from family, friends, neighbours, community groups and other organisations, and this is an important part of living an ordinary life. Wherever possible, we want to ensure access to these natural forms of support are available, and this will be a key part of organising the support you require through the process of creating a support plan.

Managing your personal budget

If, following an assessment of your needs, you're deemed to be eligible for our support, you may be offered a personal budget to meet some or all of those needs. If this is the case, you'll be invited to create a support plan, which will design and detail how your needs are going to be met and state what the costs will be, if any. Where costs have been identified during this process, together they will form your indicative personal budget. The personal budget enables you to have as much choice, control and involvement in your support, or that of a relative, as you feel comfortable with.

The different ways of managing your budget

Self-directed support is about people who are eligible for a personal budget having as much control, choice and involvement in their support, or that of a relative, as they feel comfortable with. Currently in Shropshire there are three main ways you can choose to manage your personal budget. You can of course choose more than one option as long as the total amount across all of your chosen options is within your allocated personal budget. These options are as follows...