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Essex County Council is one of 13 local authorities in the country piloting the idea of Individual Budgets for the Government to establish whether it can work nationwide.
The pilot has been running since April and will not conclude until December 2007. During this time we will be testing Individual Budgets with around 100 people selected at random. The project is being evaluated by independent researchers and a “control group” has also been selected to ensure the evaluation is fair.
The project will be working with the following groups:
The basic idea of an Individual budget is to make things less complicated. The aim is to put the individual at the centre of the process and to give them the power to decide the nature of their own support. It enables them to have the choice and flexibility to use their budget in the way that suits them best. Our leaflet ‘An Introduction to Individual Budgets’ gives more details
An Introduction to Individual Budgets
To find out more about Individual Budgets visit:
www.individualbudgets.csip.org.uk
www.in-control.org.uk
The following site has some useful information about Support Planning and provides a step-by-step guide to help people develop their own support plans.
There is also additional information about the Individual Budget process and examples of real support plans that have been developed by people in the Individual Budget pilot sites.
The following ‘anonymised’ support plans have been developed by people taking part in the pilot project in Essex and give information about how individuals are choosing to spend their Individual Budgets.
We have already started to work with voluntary and provider organisations and in 2006 we held three stakeholder events around the county in Chelmsford, Colchester and Harlow to tell these organisations about Individual Budgets.
Delegates from a variety of organisations were able to watch presentations given by people involved with the project including an Individual Budget recipient who was able to explain the benefits of taking part in the project. All the days were interesting and were well received by the organisations attending. During the day workshops were held to discuss the opportunities that may become available to such organisations from people using Individual Budgets.
It is our intention to continue to progress this work with voluntary and provider organisations in 2007.
