Further to minute 54 (23 July 2009), the Director of Adult Social Services reported upon progress of the application of the social care reform grant, to support the Council in the transformation of adult social services to meet the personalisation agenda. He commented that personal budgets were just one way of approaching the bigger personalisation agenda and he reported upon progress in relation to Wirral’s personal budget pilot (Phase 1), which was due to reach completion at the end of October 2009.

He proposed that phase 2 of Wirral’s personal budget pilot would commence in November 2009 and that it would be tested on a minimum of 10% of people receiving community based services, in order to give a more realistic and statistically valid assessment of the impact of the resource allocation system on the budget and test if processes and systems were workable on a wider cohort of individuals. The intention for phase 3 would be to roll out the new system and processes from August 2010. The Director commented that the numbers of people on personal budgets across the country varied dramatically and he reported that the national performance indicator (NI 130) for measuring the success of self directed support and take up of direct payments, personal budgets or individuals budgets was also included within Wirral’s Local Area Agreement.

The Cabinet Member for Social Care and Inclusion stressed the importance of ensuring that vulnerable people were not adversely affected by the implementation of personal budgets and self directed support and she highlighted the importance of a seminar that had been arranged for all elected members on 29 October 2009, to provide information on personalisation, in particular, details of self directed support, personal budgets and their impact on future demand for support services.

Resolved –

(1)  That the contents of the report and the current progress of the personal budgets pilot be noted.

(2)  That the proposal set out in paragraph 4.12 of the report now submitted, that Phase 2 of Wirral’s personal budget pilot is tested on a minimum 10% of people receiving community based services, be endorsed.

(3)  That all members be asked to attend the personalisation seminar on 29 October 2009 for further information.