AHDC: Individual budgets

Aiming High for Disabled Children (AHDC) included a commitment to pilot an individual budgets (IBs) programme to explore ways in which IBs could provide a more joined-up package of support to families with disabled children.

In April 2008 the Department commissioned SQW Consulting to undertake a scoping study prior to the piloting of IBs. The primary purpose of the study was to inform the development of the IB pilot programme. Individual budgets (IBs) for families with disabled children: A scoping study, the case study report and the literature review report were published in October 2008 and identified a range of factors for a successful IB programme.

Pilot sites

In March 2009 a small number of LAs, along with their primary care trust (PCT) partners, were invited to apply to pilot AHDC IBs for families with disabled children.

Each pilot site will feed into the national pilot programme, which has been set up to establish if an IB:

• enables disabled children and their families to have more choice and control over the delivery of their support package
• improves outcomes for some, or all, disabled children and their families.

The pilots will also:

• establish whether or not the IB pilots result in some, or all, disabled children and their families reporting increased levels of satisfaction with the experience of gaining service provision through an IB
• identify any unintended consequences and critical barriers experienced by the pilot LAs and PCTs to the successful implementation of IBs, and record successful approaches to addressing those barriers
• assess the relative importance of the ten factors making up the common delivery model to the successful implementation of IBs
• provide a comparison of the costs to the LAs and PCT of implementing IBs for disabled children and the costs of providing services through current arrangements.

The following sites have been selected:

Pilot project scope

Each site will offer IBs to a target number of families with disabled children. While offering IBs to the full range of eligible children and families, each site will also have identified a beneficiary group upon which they wish to focus. The groups are:

• children coming out of early support: In this group, families will use their IB to continue to build on the tailored support of joint planning and control of the services already experienced while on the Early Support programme.
• young people in transition: In this group pilot sites will explore how an IB can be used to support personal development plans for more independent living.
• newcomers to the social care system: The scoping study suggested newcomers to the social care system tended not to have any pre-conceived ideas of service provision, which allowed them to think more innovatively about what provision might be needed. Pilot sites will explore how an IB package is used by this group and how it compares to existing service users.

The IB pilots will run from April 2009 until March 2011, with a possible extension to March 2012, subject to available funding. Piloting LAs will receive between £200,000 and £280,000 in grant funding over the two years to deliver the pilots.

This pilot programme is relatively small scale and we acknowledge the speed and expertise that is currently developing in and outside of the pilot sites. It is our intention to maximise the opportunity to share learning from the pilot sites and learn from the non-pilot sites. We are currently exploring options for how this can best be achieved.

Good practice and feedback from the pilot sites will be published in quarterly updates on this page shortly.

For further information on the pilots and IBs under Aiming High, access the full AHDC pilot specification and application pack from this page, which provides details on

• the purpose of the IB pilots
• the framework for the pilots
• the selection process
• the policy context for IBs
• the legal basis for the pilots.

Evaluation and support to the pilots    

The SQW Consulting consortia has been appointed to evaluate and support the pilots, and produce a scoping study for the IB programme. The team includes

• Ipsos MORI
• iMPOWER
• Helen Sanderson Associates (HSA).

iMPOWER and HSA will provide dedicated support to pilot areas. SQW and Ipsos MORI have been commissioned to evaluate the pilots and ensure robust lessons are learned to inform future policy. The Department has published the following individual budgets:

• Evaluation and challenge/support quarterly reports for February 2010 and November 2009
• Individual department budgets: Evaluation and challenge/support evaluation briefing note

These provide background information about the evaluation component of the research.

Direct payments guidance published

The Department of Health published, Guidance on direct payments for community care, services for carers and children's services: England 2009 and A guide to receiving direct payments from your local council: A route to independent living. More information on direct payments is available on the Department of Health website.