What are Personal Budgets?

Personal Budgets are a new way of providing social care which gives people more choice and control over their own lives.

We want everyone living in Wigan to have flexibility in meeting their eligible social care needs and focus on what helps them to achieve their goals or outcomes in life. Personal Budgets allow individuals to self directed their support and are designed to give you more choice and control over your life. It's a way of personalising your social care needs that lets you:

• Control the money you get for support
• Choose how to spend the money for your support
• Choose things about your life, for example, who you want to get support from

Personal Budgets means that, following a social care assessment to find out about your eligible needs, you will be advised of the amount of money Wigan Council will make available to you to spend on meeting your care needs and improve your quality of life.  This money can either be paid as a Direct Payment to you so that you can arrange your own care and support or we can arrange your care for you.  You may prefer a combination of the two.

     Find out more about the Direct Payments Scheme

Remember:

You can only have a Personal Budget, or Direct Payment, if you have been assessed by us as eligible to receive support to help you to live independently. An assessment is simply a discussion with you that will help us understand what help and support you might need.

     Find out more about an assessment

The assessment will determine the maximum amount of money you may get as your Personal Budget. Once the amount is agreed you can start planning how to spend it. If you want, we can help you to do this by using our experience to agree a Support Plan which meets your social care needs and then organise how you will receive the money. It can be paid directly to you, to someone else if you aren't happy dealing with the money yourself, or we can manage it for you and you can ask your social worker to arrange your services on your behalf.

Finally, you spend the money in ways that you feel best meets your needs. You are in control as long as you spend the money in accordance with your Support Plan. We'll check with you from time to time to make sure everything is going OK and that you are living your life in a way that suits you.

     Age UK Wigan Borough Direct Payment Service

Who will arrange my Personal Budget for me?

A Social Worker will talk to you during the assessment and inform you of the amount of your Personal Budget.  Your social worker can also assist you to prepare your Support Plan to enable you to have your say in how you want to receive your support.  If you would like more information they will be able to give it to you at this stage.