Using Supporting People funding in individual budgets Available to Purchase

Following the Communities and Local Government (CLG) pilot exercise, all sites remain committed to the concept of individual budgets. There are many positive stories of how individual budgets (IBs) have made a real difference to people's lives, enabling true person‐centred support and informed choices about integrated packages of care and support. There were also impressive examples of creative joint working at site level, where sites adopted pragmatic solutions and worked round obstacles wherever possible. Based on experiences to date, all the pilot sites feel that IBs have a key role to play, but that they should not be considered as the only option for personalising housing‐ related support services and increasing choice. Commissioned Supporting People (SP) services can be responsive and person‐centred, as well as providing consistent coverage over large geographical areas, and some authorities consider that commissioned SP services can work alongside IBs and promoted this model as a viable alternative. More work is needed to understand better how IBs can work together with commissioned services to deliver a seamless service.