Glossary

A Glossary of Terms (in alphabetical order)

The following is a list of key terms used when describing personal budgets and the way families are being supported to use funding which in the past has been used by Social Services to purchase support for their child or children. It is not exhaustive, there are links to other sources of information and also to organisations who may be able to help you further into the information pack.

  • Assessment – a formal process of collecting all necessary information about the child, family, those currently supporting the child, and their situations. An assessment will then inform the next steps in meeting the support needs of the child and their family and which service is best placed to meet the support needs of the child. (See Care Plan and Eligibility.)
  • Brokerage – describes the different types of support needed by a person or a family and child in making a good plan, arranging support and managing support, and a support plan in the longer term, once it has gone live.
  • Care Plan – an official document which states how the support needs identified in the assessment are going to be met
  • Commissioning – the purchasing of services, support, opportunities on behalf of a population, group, community, institution or individual by an organisation, statutory service or individual representative.
  • Common Assessment Framework (CAF) – used in most children's services across England as the initial or first assessment following the referral or self-referral of a child and their family
  • Direct Payments – the opportunity for families and/or people to ask for the financial equivalent of the cost of the services being offered to meet their support needs as a cash payment. This is how families take control of a personal budget and receive the 'cash' to purchase the support their child needs. It is illegal to be refused direct payment unless there are specific issues which lead to concern on behalf of the local authority which mean that they are not able to offer direct payments in an individual case.
  • Early Support – an approach adopted in many children's services to the early identification of support needs and bringing all adults, both parents and professionals, together to set out how those support needs will be met.
  • Eligibility – the assessment will collect information which will enable the service to establish which part of the children's service is best suited and funded to support the child. Eligibility is like a threshold, where a certain level of need means access to a certain team or support service.
  • Individual Budget – the total amount of funding allocated by state services which together add up to the support budget to meet a child and family's support needs.
  • Lead Professional – a role in most children's services which describes the professional, representative of a voluntary service or family representative, who takes responsibility for being the single point of contact for all those involved in supporting a child and their family.
  • Key Worker – similar to the role of the lead professional: the worker attached to an individual child and their family who acts as the single point of contact and support between services and the child and family. This role is often delivered by voluntary sector organisations.
  • Mainstream and/or Universal Services – a term used by 'commissioners' (see Commissioning) to describe the services, activities and opportunities the majority of the population use and take for granted as part of every day life, such as shops, leisure centres, buses, waste disposal, road maintenance, the built environment, public toilets, parks and recreation facilities.
  • Outcomes – what a plan or set of actions must deliver. For a family making a plan with a personal budget, the 'outcomes' will be what the plan must deliver. An example of an outcome is 'to stay safe'. A good plan will show how the different ways a personal budget is being used will mean the child 'stays safe'.
  • Panel – a term used in services to describe the meeting or group of key professionals who will make a decision about the support set out in the child's care plan. The decision will either be 'yes' or 'no' and they may well ask for additional information before they can make a decision. Families are sometimes invited to attend. The term 'panel' is used a lot in services; it is part of the budget management and decision-making process.
  • Person-Centred Planning / Approaches / Thinking – an approach to planning which starts and centres on the individual and those closest to them.  It values the individual and what they give to the world around them and it explores the individual aspirations, dreams and support needs and sets out action to support the individual in getting the life that suits them and those closest to them. This approach is most commonly used when supporting people with learning difficulties and is part of a good support plan. (See Support Plan.)
  • Personal Budget (Social Care) – the total amount of funding allocated by children's social services to meet the support needs of the child. Families can choose to access this as a direct payment or to ask someone to manage it on their child's behalf.
  • Personal Health Budget – yet to be precisely defined.
  • Personal SEN Budget – yet to be precisely defined.
  • Providers – services offering support to children, young people and their families.  Most often this term describes voluntary or private services but can also be used to describe a children's service's in-house service.
  • Resource Allocation System (RAS) – a formal approach to making fair and equitable allocations of funding to the whole population of children eligible for support from a funding source.
  • Review – A meeting between key professionals, child and family to look at how support has been going, whether it is delivering the outcomes as set out in the support plan and whether any changes need to be made to improve the plan and support. Reviews can happen on different time scales, most often after three, six or 12 months. It will say in your child's support plan when the review will be.
  • Self-Directed Support – this term describes the way in which services will work, ie the steps from carrying out an assessment, to your child's plan being agreed, to longer-term support and the review.
  • Services – describing all the different organisations, people and statutory organisations
  • Seven Steps – an approach to self-directed support developed by In Control. This process simply explains the seven steps from needing help to having a review.
  • Support Broker – a role taken on by someone who will support you to plan and find the support you need and, if needed, help you manage the plan in the longer term.  Support brokers may be funded by the children's service or maybe funded through you paying them from your child's personal budget.
  • Support Planning – a child- or family-centred approach of developing a support plan which makes good use of all the resources the family and child have and sets out how the personal budget will be used to make good use of these resources and get the support the child and family need. It will include information about how money will be managed and spent, who is responsible for delivering the plan and what happens if things are not working and the plan will address any safeguarding concerns.
  • Supported Allocation Questionnaire (SAQ) or Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) – the name given to the questionnaire part of the resource allocation system; a set of questions which help allocate a fair share of funding to the child and family based on the support needs of the child. It is good practice for family members and professionals to work together in completing the questionnaire.
  • Team Around the Child (TAC) – an approach to supporting children with complex support requirements which focuses on the team of professionals involved working together to deliver child- and family-centred support.
  • Voluntary Sector – describing charities and other organisations outside of the public (state-funded) and private (for-profit) sectors.