Direct Payments - Does anyone else find the administration a complete PITA?

[WetAugust]

I expect it's just me but it does my bloody head in.

I've just spent 6 hours balancing Invoices, Payments, Expenses etc for the half-yearly return and then photo-copying 16 documents as supporting evidence.

It's just total overkill for the Agency services DS receives which could be billed dircetly to the Council by the provider.

It's absolutely crazy. The paperwork we had with the council IB/ Direct Payments was inches and inches of nonsense. In Comic Sans. We gave up trying to do their system, ran everything through a simple gdocs spreadsheet and roster and then spent at least a week every quarter filling in all their pointless crap.

It took more paperwork to run DP's disability than it does to run our business. Tenfold, easily. Easily! It's not just you.

Sympathy!

We have now escaped to the NHS PHB pilot and the accountant runs the whole system (and amazingly it's been markedly streamlined since ).

That was for 3 hours double cover per week total from a single provider, btw. The people who designed that system have clearly never worked in a functional business.