Local authorities are best placed to understand and plan for the needs of their population. That is why, under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care market to meet the diverse needs of all local people. This includes encouraging a wide range of service provision to ensure that people have a choice of appropriate services which offer quality and value for money.

Where individuals are in receipt of local authority funded support, they may choose to receive their personal budget as a direct payment, which can be used to employ carers, or other staff, directly.

Care providers entering and exiting is a normal part of a functioning market, and local authorities should have appropriate contingency plans in place, depending on the services being provided. Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities also have a temporary duty to ensure continuity of care in the event of business failure. This means that people continue to receive the care and support they need if their adult social care provider is no longer able to carry on delivering services.

Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities should allow those drawing on care to receive their personal budget as a direct payment, where they are satisfied this would be suitable to meet their eligible care needs, and where they have capacity under the conditions of the 2005 Mental Capacity Act to make this request, and manage the direct payment either themselves, with aide from an authorised person, or through an authorised person acting on their behalf.

Additionally, under the Down Syndrome Act 2022, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is required to give guidance to the relevant authorities in health and social care on what they should be doing to meet the needs of people with Down syndrome. Officials are taking forward, as a priority, development of Down Syndrome Act guidance. We expect to publish the draft guidance for public consultation in the new year.

There have been no specific discussions on this matter.

It is a matter for local authorities to determine how best to meet the eligible care and support needs of care users in their areas and ensure that those needing care and support, or their nominated representatives, are given timely information about direct payments to facilitate choice.

This information is not collected in the format requested. However, in the local authority area of Newcastle upon Tyne, 430 adults aged 18 to 64 years old received social care through direct payments in 2020/21.

The Government does not issue personal budgets directly. Local authorities are responsible for doing so for children and young people who have special educational needs and disabilities with Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans. The latest data is that there were 2,025 personal budgets in place for EHC plans issued and reviewed during 2015. This relates to all children and young people aged 0-25; we do not hold the information for under-18s only.

Direct payments are an option within personal budgets for these children and young people. We do not hold information on the number of direct payments, but in the 2016-17 financial year, £4,726,000 was spent from local authority High Needs Budgets on these direct payments.

Personal health budgets are also available to people who need to receive healthcare funded by the National Health Service, where the benefits of having the budget for healthcare outweigh any additional costs associated with having one.

For children and young people under 18, local authorities are also under a duty to offer direct payments for services which the local authority may provide to children with disabilities, or their families, under the section 17 of the Children Act 1989.

The Department is monitoring the implementation of the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) reforms and securing a wide range of feedback. This feedback is collected through statutory data collection; regular surveys of local authorities, parents and carers; regular inputs for the Special Educational Consortium (which represents more than 30 organisations); and reports from contractors such as the Council for Disabled Children, which provides Independent Support services in all local authority areas, and Contact a Family, which runs a national helpline for parents of children with SEND.

The Department provides support to local areas in a range of ways, such as voluntary and community sector experts and a team of specialist SEND Advisers.

Local authorities must include information about Personal Budgets in their Local Offers, including information on how to request one. Parents and young people have the right to request a Personal Budget for elements of an Educational Health and Care (EHC) plan; local authorities are under a duty to prepare a budget when requested. Our termly surveys collect responses on the number of EHC plans which carry a Personal Budget.

Since April 2013, the Government has provided nearly £1.5 million in funding to a number of projects with voluntary sector organisations to develop materials to support local areas to introduce Personal Budgets. We regularly promote these projects in our communications to families and to organisations in the sector. For example, KIDS produced guidance in 2015, through the Making it Personal 2 project. The Department is currently funding KIDS to build on this project, to develop further guidance and training resources, including some specifically aimed at young people with SEND, in a range of accessible formats. The SEND Gateway, which is run by the National Association for Special Educational Needs, also offers practical resources on Personal Budgets to assist both users and professionals.

Through our regional support networks, we have funded a number of workshops aimed at local authorities, parents and others about Personal Budgets and we will continue to offer support for of this kind.

Following publication of the Children and Families Act 2014, the Government set out the statutory duties to which local authorities and those working with children and young people must adhere, in the SEND Code of Practice: 0-25 years[1]. The Code of Practice includes clear information on the processes of EHC plan assessment and production. The Department’s team of specialist SEND Advisers are working with local areas to improve the quality of EHC plans, and are currently leading workshops on this across England.

The SEND Code of Practice includes clear requirements that all local authorities must meet when developing, publishing and reviewing their Local Offer. All local areas have Local Offers in place, but we recognise that the quality varies. This is another area we are monitoring through our termly surveys, our voluntary and community sector experts and specialist SEND Advisers. We have provided regular advice to local areas about how to improve the quality of Local Offers. We are confident that local authorities are working with their partner bodies and with families and young people to continue to improve their Local Offers to ensure they respond to local needs.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/398815/SEND_Code_of_Practice_January_2015.pdf