Introduction
This Personal Budget’s policy applies to any child or young person who has an Education Health and Care Plan or where a Personal Budget has been requested and agreed by the relevant funding body. The purpose of this document is to outline the Personal Budget policy in Essex in relation to the following guidance and policy:
• Special Educational Needs (Personal Budgets) Regulations 2014
• National Framework for Children and Young People’s Continuing Care (2010)
• National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded Nursing Care November 2012 (Revised)
• NHS England’s Guidance on the “right to have” a Personal Health Budget in Adult NHS Continuing Healthcare and Children and Young People’s Continuing Care
• Statutory Guidance and Code of Practice for Special Educational Needs and Disability 0-25 years, 2014
• Children and Families Act 2014
• Essex Personal Health Budgets for Continuing Healthcare: Policy & Practice Guidance (2014)
• Care Act 2014
A child or young person may be able to receive a personal budget if one of the following applies:
• There is identified provision within the child or young person’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan
• The child or young person has an EHC Plan and they request a personal budget
• The child or young person is eligible for Children and Young People’s Continuing Care / Adult Continuing Healthcare (CYPCC/ACHC)
• The child or young person has a long-term physical and mental health need and is supported to receive a Personal Health Budget by their respective Clinical Commissioning Group. Clinical Commissioning Groups will have determined who may be entitled to receive a Personal Health Budget.
• Following a Single Assessment from Children’s Social Care, a provision of a personal budget is appropriate to meet assessed needs in a Child in Need plan
• The child/young person is in receipt of SEN Education Transport
The Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), in addition to Children in Need (CIN), and children /young people with health plans (relating to a long term physical/mental health need) offer a choice of a personal budget for some aspects of the provision, outlined in the relevant plan, if parents or the young person request it. The request can be made either: as an EHCP/CIN/health plan is being developed, reviewed or re-assessed. Personal Budgets are not created from any new money available to services but with funding coming from releasing the value of a child or young person's provision from the services they might otherwise be expected to receive; however some services may not initially be organised in ways which make this possible without affecting the rest of the service.
Each agency may have a separate process for the assessment and identification of a personal budget. Wherever possible such process will be undertaken jointly to develop an EHC plan that delivers on the identified outcomes and within the SEND EHC plan timeframe. Where identified provision is agreed to be delivered, as part of a personal budget, the child/young person will not be able to receive the equivalent provision from core/universal or specialist services.