Facilitator’s hints and tips Problems in recruiting, employing, retaining and developing personal assistants and assuring their quality can be a disincentive to taking up direct payments. One way to overcome this is through the use of a personal assistant register. A register enables individual employers to search for personal assistants in a specific geographical area, skill level, experience and availability. In some places simple registers have been expanded into full employment services. You may want to ask participants whether this exists in their local area and if so what the strengths and weaknesses of it are. You may want to provide some good practice examples such as Monitoring of direct payments Slide 15 Notes The local authority must be satisfied that the direct payment is being used to meet eligible care and support needs, and should therefore have systems in place to proportionately monitor direct payment usage. The Care and Support (Direct Payments) Regulations 2014 set out that the local authority must not require information to be provided more often and in more detail than is reasonably required to satisfy themselves the direct payment is being used appropriately. Key features of systems: they must not place a disproportionate reporting burden upon the individual the reporting system should not clash with the policy intention of direct payments to encourage greater autonomy, flexibility and innovation monitoring should be proportionate to the needs to be met and the care package lowering monitoring requirements should be considered for people that have been managing direct payments without issues for a long period. The local authority must review the making of direct payments initially within six months, and thereafter every 12 months. NB: The six month initial review only applies to direct payments issued under the Act, and not to existing direct payments.
Facilitator’s hints and tips Problems in recruiting, employing, retaining and developing personal assistants and assuring their quality can be a disincentive to taking up direct payments. One way to overcome this is through the use of a personal assistant register. A register enables individual employers to search for personal assistants in a specific geographical area, skill level, experience and availability. In some places simple registers have been expanded into full employment services. You may want to ask participants whether this exists in their local area and if so what the strengths and weaknesses of it are. You may want to provide some good practice examples such as Monitoring of direct payments Slide 15 Notes The local authority must be satisfied that the direct payment is being used to meet eligible care and support needs, and should therefore have systems in place to proportionately monitor direct payment usage. The Care and Support (Direct Payments) Regulations 2014 set out that the local authority must not require information to be provided more often and in more detail than is reasonably required to satisfy themselves the direct payment is being used appropriately. Key features of systems: they must not place a disproportionate reporting burden upon the individual the reporting system should not clash with the policy intention of direct payments to encourage greater autonomy, flexibility and innovation monitoring should be proportionate to the needs to be met and the care package lowering monitoring requirements should be considered for people that have been managing direct payments without issues for a long period. The local authority must review the making of direct payments initially within six months, and thereafter every 12 months. NB: The six month initial review only applies to direct payments issued under the Act, and not to existing direct payments.
direct-payments-workbook.docx