To ask what a Personal Budget is - EHCP

[Drafting]

Shamelessly posting here for traffic.

I have my son's draft EHCP from Hampshire County Council. I'll be honest it isn't what I expected but I didn't know what I did expect.

They have asked if I'm applying for a personal budget. I have no idea what this is. Reading about I'm still not entirely sure.

My understanding is I can use it to employ individuals to assist my son at his educational setting? Is that correct? Has anyone successfully done this?

I've heard of personal budget in relation to school transport, so you take him to his provision and receive money towards the cost of travel. Also could mean Direct Payments to employ someone to help provide care following an assessment of need by social care.

It means you take full responsibility for the provision in the plan and therefore the funding too. If it details in class support with an extra adult the school wouldn't provide it, you would.

It is very rare for a school to allow a parent to employ someone to work there with a pupil. Normally the school receives this element of funding directly and they would then employ someone.

The school have to agree to this though and it's very rare.

Thanks for replying. I have a call with one of his sen workers today who works for the council so I'll get clarification. I would just love it if his current salt, who comes to my home, could go to his school. They have their own if he gets into the specialist provision but he has such a lovely bond with her I think it would be beneficial.

I did read about transport. I will have a read again. I just thought it was quite badly explained or I'm just an idiot. I even read adjacent council's websites and I'm still not much clearer.

@Misscloudycat wow! That is something I'm not equipped to do. I'm absolutely shocked by the whole system. It's really got to me. I'm not unintelligent and I'm finding it emotionally draining too. I feel for any parent going through this.

Transport is seperate to the ehcp, i have Personal transport budget and it’s not included in ehcp. The personal budget in the ehcp is if you were going to be given the money to fund certain things seperately rather than being funded through the school or directly by the la, so it could be ot for example. Our la hate personal budgets as they don’t trust parents so it’s very rare to have unless someone has had it awarded at tribunal

Our LEA never give a personal budget-they don’t even want to discuss it, to be honest! I was under the impression that if it is a located for something, the amount would be deducted out of the allocation given to the school so it’s not an ‘extra’.

I know someone who got a personal budget to pay for her sons horse riding with the RDA. Some people have an educated other than at school package and use the personal budget to pay for that.

Are your DDs S&L hours written into her EHCP? If they are and the school can’t find a therapist to cover the hours they may employ yours.
Ask an organisation to look at your EHCP to make sure it’s well written as many are pretty much meaningless.

A personal budget is when the school or LA cannot reasonably provide an aspect of the provision that is outlined in section F and therefore the parents are awarded a budget to commission this privately.

Awarded extremely rarely. You wanting a specific SALT wouldn’t qualify as the provision can be delivered by those already employed either by the school, NHS, or NHS commissioned provider.

Some personal budget is allocated to you if there is provision in the EHCP which the setting the child goes to cannot provide. It is down to you to source it yourself. For example, if the EHCP says the child needs hydrotherapy as part of their provision and the school doesn't have a pool, you would be allocated a personal budget to source the hydrotherapy yourself.

Funding for transport comes out of a different pot and is nothing to do with the personal budget.

We've had PA'S for therapists. You can ask for the at draft or at AR. It doesn't mean you will get them especially if the LA already commission services that can provide what you want the budget to do. If say for example your LA do not commission art/ music/ sensory occ/ a certain type of speech therapy and you have evidence that they accept or you've won at tribunal you could have a budget to get those. There are also different types of personal budget; where the LA handle the money and sort the contract but you still have a say in who the contract is with and where you handle everything and a mix and match.

From experience if you can choose the company/ person you want to employ but get the LA to handle everything else thus puts you in a better position as you can still JR if the provision isn't made.

Also I've heard of a family getting a PB to employ 1:1's that work across school and home. The yp had physical complex needs and so school was hit and miss, parents worked and some schooling could be done at home so if the yp needed to leave the setting the 1:1 could take them and stay eith them until normal end of school day. I think this may be partially continuing care budget too.

Just to note we have transport in section f, school bus that picks up but because there is an element of education/training documented by ep we could have it there.

As others have said it basically means you take over providing what is stated in the EHCP. My advice (SENCO and AHT in a special school) is to have a chat with the SENCO and see what their plans are. School budgets are at breaking point and, in my experience, a lot of them are having to allocate a '1-1' who is then used as a class TA. This isn't the school's fault, it's the government's but, you do need to know the reality.

For specific salt/ot our nhs (la commissioned services) couldn't provide what was detailed as required to meet educational needs, specified and quantified in f. They didn't have capacity or qualifications so we had a budget for those.

It's incredibly unlikely you will get this.
Schools don't want to have someone employed by someone else working there.
Also, and this is wrong and shouldn't happen so you should complain, some schools use EHCP money towards regular staffing budget. Say employing a 1 to 1 TA but giving that TA additional duties unrelated to the child. Meaning said child doesn't get the support they are entitled to.

The whole process is really shit, so please don't feel unintelligent or anything. If you're not already in some knowledgeable Facebook groups, I'd look at joining some. Educational Equality and EHCP Parent Support Group are two that offer general advice, you may be able to find one specifically for your local area too. Get advice on the draft whilst you have time. Any non specific wording will need to be tightened up.

What I mean by non specific wording is helpful to think about in terms of a job contract. Would you take a job that offered...

"Opportunities for" a lunch break
(No, you'd want it specified that you have a 30 minute lunch break once a day)

"Access to" necessary equipment
(No, you'd want to know that all equipment/uniform etc. for your role was provided)

"An appropriate" salary
(No, you'd want to know what that salary and how often you'll receive it)

I had to go through a whole mediation process just to get the words "such as" removed from my sons EHCP. I am buying a lottery ticket today. I could win a prize "such as" a million pounds. I could also win a tenner.

Any ambiguity or room for interpretation needs to be amended. You can't just make stuff up, but you should be able to reference back to things in the professionals reports.

If its not specifically written in the plan, the LA are under no obligation to fund it and the school is under no obligation to provide it, so it needs to be as watertight as possible.

I'd also brace yourself that you may have a fight on your hands for a specialist school place sadly, but I have my fingers firmly crossed for you 🤞

I'm just going through this at the minute. My LA has offered a personal budget as they agree with me that the school are no longer complying sufficiently

Apparently you can request it at the yearly review. Im going to get a specialist tutor to go in to help with DC A- levels in their free periods.

It's really hard to understand if this is a mainstream issue or a specialist school issue. I will be going to tribunal if my son doesn't get the specialist provision. The local mainstreams here are great schools but I genuinely worry about them keeping my son safe. It's frustrating I've looked at 5 schools so far. I have another 3 to look at and so far none meet his needs like the specialist provision.

I'm very fortunate that an Assistant Head Teacher has agreed to look over his EHCP and help me with it. I'm having to take a days leave to sort this out. I understand the tight turnaround but 15 days from draft to completion is a short amount of time for a 60 page document. The whole system is ridiculous. I broke down at a school setting yesterday as I honestly believe they would fail to even keep him safe. Not necessarily their fault. The school environment and site is inadequate for kids with severe learning difficulties and autism, which my son has.

I will try and speak to his sen caseworker at the LA and contact SENDIAS too. I don't know if his EHCP is a good one or not. I've never seen one before and much of it is my input.

The personal budget may not actually cover the full amount of a 1-1 in school. My sons school has to massively top it up.

"I have my son's draft EHCP from Hampshire County Council. I'll be honest it isn't what I expected but I didn't know what I did expect"

Go through the plan, make sure every need from reports is detailed in section B as a need and not as a ability eg 15 year old "can read some small sentences" is a need and not an ability even if that us great for that child.

Every need in Section B must have provision in Section F that is detailed, specified and quantified. Inc when the support will take place, training and qualifications, equipment, where the support will be, how many children in groups etc

Wording such as "will benefit from", "upto", "support" isn't good enough requires/needs/ must have.

Where reports suggest assessments eg school report details sensory needs an assessment of those needs is resonable and should be commissioned.

Wording should not allow provision to change without a review.

Ipsea and sossen have great websites and support. Sossen sell a booklet for about £6 which is well worth it (I'd get the tribunal one rather than general ehcp or both if you can).

You may need to appeal to get a legally enforceable ehcp and be prepared to get inde reports. You may get legal aid to do this if you're entitled.

@StopLickingTheDog thank you! That's exactly what the AHTeacher was saying to me and why she has offered to go through it. I am shocked at how appalling the system is. My son deserves an education just like every other child.

I will print today and go through like a contact. Thankfully I used to write contracts (albeit not well ha!) so I understand what you are saying.

We have a personal budget for DS. It was the LA who suggested to us. DS should have a placement at a specialist school as mainstream can’t meet need but there were no places available in the local offer area or around it. We use it for Nudge Education, (15 hours a week), he is registered at a mainstream (this is because Nudge isn’t registered with an examination board and he’s in year 11) but there is no pressure on him to go, (max 2 half days a week) the school agreed to meet need alongside Nudge Education being responsible but the bulk of the learning, and the LA provide transportation separately.

"Personal budget" is relevant to both mainstream and specialist settings. The EHCP will name specialist or mainstream provision. If it says mainstream, then that's when you put on your hard hat and fight to change that to specialist, if that's what you feel he needs.

The system is beyond broken. The rise in children with ASD and communication difficulties is exponential and there aren't enough special schools to cope. Mainstreams aren't adapting quickly enough, as they don't have the budget to do so.

I typed out a whole load of ranting on this post, then deleted. Suffice to say, government will let this shambles continue and those who are educated and/or financially richer will continue to be successful in gaining the right school place for their child and those who aren't, won't.

We're in Hampshire. Feel free to PM me. I have two caseworkers (they divide the work up according to area and I have children in two different areas for education). The caseworkers are quite reasonable once you get to speak with them. DD1 went to special school so I could probably help a bit. The wording is very different when it's a special school EHCP. It tends to say things like 'provision spread across the whole school day within the curriculum' because special schools don't chunk SALT provision, for instance. It's weaved throughout the day in all the activities they do.

DD2 is probably going to get a PB for cooking ingredients because she has an EOTAS package.

Unless you really want one, I wouldn't entertain a personal budget. It was something the government brought in to give the impression that parents are more in control, but in reality it shifts responsibility from the LA to the parents for provision.