'Pooling' personal budgets

[Luke Cardwell]

Hi all

I work for a disability charity called Choices and Rights in Hull, East Yorkshire (see choicesandrights.org.uk for more information). I am involved in heading up the pooling budgets project which involves disabiled people sharing their personal budgets/direct payments they have been assessed as needing by our local authority's social services team. By doing so, they look at a range of benefits such as flexibility, promotion of independent living, creation of peer support/networking, reduction of isolation, achieving affordability (in certain circumstances) and acting as a solution to a practical problem. For instance we have responded to a user led group who wanted to share the costs for travelling, setting up/running a social group, a social enterprise, collectively employ personal assistants, bulk buy equipment, share the cost of living together and lots of other brilliant examples of where pooling has worked well.

I wondered whether this project was of interest to you, as it is always helpful to know what is happening on a national front to establish best practice guidance and swap ideas.

Kind regards,

Luke

Luke Cardwell
Choices and Rights Disability Coalition

[Luke Cardwell]

Hi Kim

Thanks for your reply. If you could contact me via [e-mail] we can discuss your project further.

Kind regards,

Luke

[Lucie Stephens]

Hi Luke,

This work sounds really interesting. I've just completed some work for HACT (the housing charity) to review work they supported in six areas where people were exploring pooling personal budgets. There were a range of practical ideas that arose, from setting up a county wide website to enable people to find others with similar interests in order to buy stuff together, through to working with commissioners to buy sleep-in overnight support. The report is due to be published in the new year and I will blog about it here. While doing this work there seems to have been a growing interest in the pooling approach. Is it OK if I point people in your direction when they ask me for other examples?

Harry Cheesman is currently conducting some research in this area for Which. You might want to contact him directly ([e-mail]) to share your work.

Cheers,

Lucie

[Luke Cardwell]

Hi Lucie

Brilliant, if you can send me a copy of the HACT report you make reference to once it is drafted and published to [e-mail]

 

Of course, please do signpost others interested in exploring the concept or involved with setting up similar projects onwards. It is always useful to establish best practice guidance. 

Harry has already contacted me separately about the research he is conducting around personal budgets, but thanks all the same.

 

Kind regards,

 

Luke

Choices and Rights Disability Coalition