Direct Payments

The aim of a direct payment is to give more flexibility to how services are provided to people who are assessed as eligible for social services support. Providing money in lieu of social care services gives people greater choice and control over their lives and enables them to make their own decisions about how their care is delivered.

Direct payments are payments made to individuals by Social Services departments to enable them to buy services they have been assessed as needing. They can be given to disabled people aged 16 or over, to people with parental responsibility for disabled children, and to carers aged 16 or over in respect of carer services.

Some people find that services provided by the council aren’t flexible enough to meet their needs, or that they lack continuity. You may find, for example, that they can’t always be provided at times that suit you.

With Direct Payments, you decide how and when your support is delivered and by whom. Direct Payments offer flexibility and choice to individuals by allowing them to make their own decisions about their lives. People of all ages can buy care for themselves that better suits their individual needs.

You can use Direct Payments to employ people who report straight to you. Or you can use the money to contract an agency where the agency will be accountable to you and not the local council. You can also use a mixture of these two care providers.

Most people who have been assessed as needing a social care service can get direct payments. This includes people with:

• physical or sensory impairment
• learning difficulties
• mental health problems
• a long-term illness or who need help because of the effects of growing older.

You can also receive Direct Payments if you are a:

• carer who has been assessed as needing support in your own right
• parent of a disabled child – for services that support you in bringing up your
  child.

You can ask for Direct Payments if you wish to be in control of the services you need, and you are able to arrange and manage those services, either by yourself or with help. You do not have to be able to do everything yourself. As long as you stay in charge of what happens you can have as much help as you need to manage direct payments.

You can use direct payments to arrange support tailored to meet your individual needs. You can decide what sort of help you need, how you want the help to be provided and the times when you want to have help.

Direct payments are not extra money to spend as you wish. The money must be used to meet the needs for which Social Services have agreed you should have help. You can do this by:

• employing your own support staff
• buying services from private care agencies
• paying for daytime opportunities.

Direct payments can also be used for one-off or intermittent services, such as buying short periods of respite care.

You do not have to take full control straight away. You can continue to have some services arranged by Social Services whilst you arrange only part of your support package. In this way, you only have to do what you feel confident about, giving you time to develop the skills needed to completely manage your services.

No, not necessarily. There are many avenues of support for people who have direct payments. You can use family and friends to help you manage your money and even act as your representative if you need support being an employer. Disability Focus offers a number of services that can assist you with all aspects of Direct Payments. It is important to remember that if you accept Direct Payments, you can change your mind at any time.

This will very much depend upon a number of factors, and we will be able to guide you through these.  If you do decide to employ your personal assistant, then in addition to ensuring that you have complied with all the necessary legal requirements we will be able to provide you with payroll services so that you do not need to worry about ensuring you have made the correct payments and deductions in respect of your personal assistant’s salary.

It will depend upon the service you elect to take up. We offer two service levels.

Our Payroll only service will calculate the payments and deductions that will need to be made each month.  We will then provide you with all of the payroll information along with your personal assistant’s payslip but will leave you to make the actual payments.

Alternatively, we provide a fully managed service where we will not only produce all of the payroll information, but we will also arrange for the payments to be paid out of your Direct Payment funds.  We will also monitor your expenditure against your Direct Payment Budget ensuring that you do not overspend.

If your personal assistant has informed you that they are self-employed then once we have received confirmation of this we can receive their weekly or monthly invoices and arrange for those invoices to be paid from your Direct Payment funds.  Again, we will monitor your expenditure against your Direct Payment Budget ensuring that you do not overspend.

Again, we can receive the agencies invoices on your behalf and then arrange for the invoices to be paid from your Direct Payment funds.