Social care budget removed without assessment

[Cubic]

Hi, can anyone offer some advice please or signpost me where to get some?

Ds has complex needs and has had his personal budget removed at panel without an assessment. This was our only respite and his access to activities in the community.

Needs haven't changed or could be said to have got worse (older ds has gone to university so not able to help like he did/ I've developed a sciatica making taking him out harder).

Ds assessed as requiring 2:1 support in community. Due to a safeguarding incident PA's were sacked after LADO involvement. We aren't ready to try PA's again. LA said pb could be used for hotel accom so that myself or my husband could get respite.

LA haven't offered any alternatives. PB been in place for about 7 years.

Have you spoken to anyone about this yet to ask for an explanation?

Yes, the sw who attended panel advised to put a complaint in as if we didn't he would drop off sc radar and will be coming to transition to adult services in the next few years (teen). We emailed her team leader on her recommendation asking for the panel notes and a written reason as to what the logic was. We were told the panel notes would have to be requested via sar (which I've done but can take upto a month) and the letter hadn't been drafted yet. This was last week and still not recieved anything. The team leader said they weren't authorising budgets like this anymore but I thought they weren't allowed blanket policies?

My guess is that they know because of the safeguarding incident we don't want pa's for him so are trying to strip the full cost away.

We've had various appeals etc for education but not really had any sc issues. I could do with getting some proper advice. I tried contact but they didn't know.

Ps thank you for replying. Any insight would be really appreciated.

You’ve done the right thing asking for a written explanation, hopefully that will shed some light and you can request a formal review.

The only thing I can think of really is that if they know you were not going to continue to use PA’s then technically they could remove it due to failure to use budget as intended however where that is the case you should have been given a chance to explain & plan.

There are other reasons they could do this under but not really, legally, without you being in the loop. For example if you’re refusing PA’s then the panel may assume that someone else is now meeting that need, whether that is you, another family member, a friend, so the funding is no longer required but they need your consent & an assessment to do that really.

Thank you for your reply. They know we don't want pa's the sw told them at panel. The budget s for activities/ accom are separate to the PA budget and detailed as such on the last plan, would that make a difference please? We also had the activity budget prior to the pa budget. They increased the activity budget to compensate for no pa's a few months ago because of the safeguarding incident.

The sw said panel wanted us to try other shortbreak options or go back to PA's/ overnight respite.

The need is being met by using hotels for respite which was agreed.

They haven't planned anything with us or offered anything definite in replace. Just notified via phone call or the panels decision.