Alison Vine of CoolTan Arts explores the practice of personal budgets as it impacts on small voluntary sector organisations.
Author: Alison Vine
Inspired by their own poor experience of the implementation of personal budgets CoolTan Arts carried out some wider research to explore whether other small organisations like them were struggling with the new system.
The case for the use of personal budgets is strong and now it is an essential part of English social care law. However the impact of their use on innovative community organisations, particularly those offering low cost and preventive support has not been closely examined. Arguably many such services would be better funded through grants, not through personal budgets. Alternatively, if personal budgets are used then the systems in place for assessment and budget management need to be efficient and effective. Unless these systems are in place smaller organisations may not thrive.
CoolTan Arts (CTA) is a mental health charity with a twenty-five year history in creative art wellbeing services.
The publisher is CoolTan Arts in association with the Centre for Welfare Reform.
Developing a Best Practice Model: A CoolTan Arts Report on Personal Budgets © CoolTan Arts 2016.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this paper may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher except for the quotation of brief passages in reviews.
faith & creativity, mental health, social care, England, Paper
