Financial help for getting a Personal Assistant

When we assess you as needing financial help for care and support, we give you an amount of money to pay for it. This is called your ‘Personal Budget’. You may have to put some of your own money towards your Personal Budget as well. This depends on your income and savings. We work out your ‘assessed contribution’ by doing a financial assessment.

Once you have your Personal Budget, we can arrange your care and support. If you want to arrange the care and support yourself, we give our part of the Personal Budget directly to you in a new bank account. This payment is called a Direct Payment (DP). You then add your part of the budget to this account as well. More information on Direct Payments.

You can use your Direct Payment to:

• pay an agency to provide care and support
• or hire a Personal Assistant directly, rather than through an agency

You can be your Personal Assistant’s employer or hire a self-employed Personal Assistant.