Personal Budgets

A personal budget for SEN is money identified to pay for support specified in an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan.

There are four ways you can use a personal budget:

1. Sometimes the local authority, school or college will look after the personal budget for you. This is called an arrangement or a notional budget.
2. Sometimes you can receive money directly to manage all or part of the personal budget yourself. This is called a direct payment.
3. Sometimes you can opt to have someone else to manage the personal budget for you. This is called a third party arrangement.
4. Sometimes you can have a mixture of some or all of these arrangements.

Parents of a child with an EHC plan, or a young person with an EHC plan, can request a personal budget either during the drafting of an EHC plan or once the plan has been issued and is under review.

Personal budgets can be used only to fund the support set out in an EHC plan.

Local authorities must provide information on personal budgets as part of the Local Offer.

Sometimes the local authority or the health authority may not agree to a personal budget. If the local authority refuses a personal budget for special educational provision it must tell you why. You cannot appeal to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal over this refusal.

For more detailed information, please see:

Our personal budgets factsheet

IPSEA advice about personal budgets

Information about personal budgets from Hampshire, click here.