Your support budget
What is a support budget?
Your support budget is the amount of money your council decides is the right amount to pay for the support you need.
How do I find out what my budget is?
Once you have had an assessment, you should find out your “indicative budget”. This is the rough amount of money you will have to pay for your support.
Knowing your indicative budget will help you when you make your support plan.
Find out more about making your support plan here: Your Support Plan
When you have made your support plan based on your indicative budget, this will be agreed and signed off.
Your indicative budget will be tweaked up or down depending on the costs in your support plan. Then you will know what your agreed support budget is.
What can I use my support budget for?
It is important that you and your social worker are clear on what you are going to use your budget to purchase, and agree that this will meet your outcomes (the things that are important to you).
You should be able to be flexible in how you use your support budget. You do not need to use a budget to purchase a certain number of hours of support. You can purchase the support that means most to you.
Find out more here: Understanding a support budget
Who decides how my budget should be used?
You can choose how much direct control and responsibility you want to have for managing your budget.
- You can decide how to use your budget, and handle the money yourself (with help if from someone else if you need it)
- You can decide how to use your budget, but get someone else to handle the money for you
- You can let your council decide how best to use your budget.
The amount of budget you get may be different depending on which of these options you choose.
This is because it costs different amounts of money to arrange support in different ways.
Find out more in this section: Your options for controlling your support
What should I know about my budget?
It is a good idea to ask your social worker these questions to understand more about your budget:
- How long will the money be available to you?
- What can the budget be spent on?
- Does the council have rules about what you cannot spend your budget on?
- Will you manage your budget yourself, or is someone else going to manage it?
- If you are managing it yourself, how often they will give you the money? Is it weekly, monthly or every three months?
- What are your responsibilities around managing your budget?
- What guidance and support can they give you about managing the money?
Your council should also tell you about other organisations who can help you understand and manage your budget.
Will I have to pay some of my own money towards my support budget?
Depending on where you live, you might need to put some of your own money towards your support budget. Children and unpaid carers should not have to do this.
Find out more about paying towards your support here: Paying towards your social care support (care charging)
Next steps
Find out more about support budgets and where to get help, here: Understanding a support budget
Some people will have no problems finding out their budget and getting support to understand it.
But we know that some common issues come up for people.
Here is what do to if any of these things happen to you.
I was not told what my budget is
You have a right to know what level of budget is available to you.
It is a good idea to contact an Independent Support Organisation who can help you work with your social worker and make sure you get the information you need.
Find your local Independent Support Organisation using the Find Help search.
I do not agree with the amount of budget I have been given
If you do not agree with the budget you have been given, speak to your social worker.
Again, it is a good idea to contact an Independent Support Organisation who can help you work with your social worker to understand your budget and make a case for a larger budget.
Find your local Independent Support Organisation using the Find Help search.
My council says I cannot spend my budget the way I want to
It is important that what you want to spend your budget on relates to meeting your outcomes. It helps if you can explain what difference that purchase will make to your life.
You can use the information in this Handbook to help explain that you should be able to use your budget flexibly.
You can find more information about the rules councils should follow around budgets in the What should happen section below.
You could also contact an Independent Support Organisation or Advocacy Service who can help you speak with your social worker about using your budget in a more flexible way.
Find your local Independent Support Organisation using the Find Help search.
Find your local Advocacy Service here.
I have been told I have to pay towards my support budget, but I do not feel I can afford this
There are things you can do to check you are getting all the money you are entitled to.
And there are things you can to do try to reduce the amount of money you have to pay.
There are organisations who can help you if you feel you are paying too much towards your support.
Find out more here: Paying towards your social care support (care charging)
The SDS Standards give guidance to local councils to tell them what they should do when it comes to arranging social care support (Self-directed Support).
The Standards are no laws, but all councils have signed up to them. Councils should work to these Standards.
When it comes to information about your support budget, here is what the Standards say:
- All decisions that affect your choices, support, and personal budget should be recorded and shared with you.
- Different people with similar circumstances may need different budgets depending on their own strengths, and the support they already have in their lives from their family and community.
- You should be told the likely level of budget you will have, regardless of how much control and responsibility you want to have for managing that budget.
- You should be involved in the development of your budget and have maximum flexibility to use this in the way that you choose to achieve your outcomes (the things that are important to you).
- The way your council decides how much money each person gets in their budget should be fair and transparent.
- You and the people who help you can be as involved as you want to be, and get as much help as you need, when your budget is being agreed and reviewed.
- You have the right to choose not be involved in discussions about your budget.
- The amount of your budget should be the amount your council thinks is fair and will be enough to cover the costs of the support you need to meet your outcomes (the things that are important to you).
- You should have clear information about what you can and cannot spend your budget on.
- You should be involved in decisions about what you can and cannot spend your budget on.
- How you spend your budget should be fair, proportionate, legal, equitable, auditable and necessary to meeting personal outcomes.
- You should be able to be flexible and creative in how you spend your budget.
- Your budget can be spent in any way that is legal and that is related to meeting your agreed personal outcomes (the things that are important to you).
- You can pool your budget with another person – this means you can use some of both your support budgets together to help the money go further.
- Councils should make an effort to keep administration processes simple and clear.
- If there are any administration problems when it comes to your budget, your council should sort these out as soon as possible and in an understanding way.
- You can be flexible about how you spend your budget. You don’t have to spend the same amount every week or month. Your social worker might want to agree a limit for a maximum amount you can spend at any one time.
- Your budget will be reviewed as part of the process of reviewing your support. This will make sure you are using it to meet your outcomes and to find out if your budget needs to go up or down.
You can find all the SDS Standards here.
The law about social care support is called the Social Care (Self Directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013.
It says:
- Your council has to, by law, tell you how much your support budget would be for each of the Self-directed Support Options. These are the Options that let you decide how much control and responsibility you want to have for managing your budget. The budget you get may be different depending on which option you choose.
You can access the full text of the law here.
The SDS Statutory Guidance is legal guidance written for local councils to tell them how social care support (Self-directed Support) should work.
When it comes to support budgets, the Statutory Guidance says:
- Your council should make sure you have enough money to achieve what has been agreed in your support plan.
- You should be involved in decisions about your budget.
- You should have maximum flexibility to use your budget in the way that achieves what is most important to you.
- When you get a budget, you should work with your local council to agree how the money will be used.
- You and your council should use the money in the best way possible.
You can read the full Statutory Guidance here.