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Direct payments

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Direct Payments – Giving you choice and control

Direct payments are a different way of purchasing support services needed, for your child or yourself. Once your child’s needs have been assessed and identified, you will be given the money that it would normally cost the local authority to provide services to meet those needs.

Please note that direct payments can only be accessed following an assessment of need undertaken by your social worker or Children’s Disability Service.

Support can mean different things such as support from a place or team of people, support with personal things like bathing, dressing etc, or support to get out and about.

Direct payments are a good way of being the boss of your own life. You are in charge and you chose what services you use, when you use them and who you get from.

When you purchase the services of a personal assistant or carer, you become an employer. This means that you have the responsibilities associated with being an employer such as paying wages and any national insurance contributions due for your employee. You are also responsible for managing your employee. You may have to advertise for your personal assistant, write out a job description and draw up and agree a contract of employment with them.

Some aspects of becoming an employer can seem quite daunting to most people, but the local authority provide a Direct Payments Advisor to help you to understand and run your direct payment. They help to sort out some of the hard things with you and make the process as simple and easy as possible.

North East Lincolnshire Council also provide you with the option of using a separately funded payroll service to take the difficulty out of managing payroll and national insurance.

  • Parents of disabled children (ages 0-17 years)
  • Carers with parental responsibility of a disabled child
  • Young people or adults (aged 16 or over)

  • To purchase services which are run by the local authority
  • To purchase services provided by the NHS
  • To purchase services from a close family member who resides at the same address as you, other than in exceptional circumstances

Firstly you would need to contact your social worker and they will carry out an assessment with you and your child to find out what support you need. If you don’t have a social worker you would need to contact Children’s Disability Service. The social worker would then consider how your needs can be best met and this may be through the direct payments scheme.

Once your assessment has been completed, your case will be taken to the Disability Panel for approval. The panel is made up of a group of senior staff from different services including Local Authority, Health and Education. They meet to ensure that children and families receive services based on the needs identified in their Child in Need Plan and that this is done in a fair and open way.

Once approval has been given for the identified need to be met through direct payments, the Direct Payments Advisor will contact you to begin setting you up ready for receiving Direct Payments. At this point the process can take in excess of 6 weeks to complete. This is because all personal assistants/care workers for families and children in receipt of direct payment in North East Lincolnshire Council must have a satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service check in place. This is North East Lincolnshire Council policy and is there to ensure that your child is properly safeguarded.

The Direct Payments Advisor will help you to get everything completed and in place ready for your payments to begin as quickly as possible.

“I was worried about having direct payments because I had heard that it is complicated. However I have found the whole thing very straight forward and have been well supported throughout. I will be recommending it to others.”

“I am so excited about direct payments. It’s really flexible and it’s changing my life already.”

Speak to your social worker, or alternatively contact Children’s Disability Service. You may also find it helpful to visit the Department of Health website using the link under Useful Websites.

You can also contact the Direct Payments Advisor directly using the contact details on the bottom of this page.

Contact details

Direct Payments, Civic Offices, Knoll Street, Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire, DN35 8LN

Email: [email protected]

Telephone: 01472 326292 option 3, option 1

Opening times: Monday to Friday 8:30am to 4:30pm, except bank holidays

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