If your council has agreed to fund some of your care, you can take that money as a direct payment and buy the care yourself instead of accepting whichever agency the council has a contract with. It is a legal right, not a favour.
What you get
The council works out what your eligible needs cost to meet. That figure is your personal budget. A direct payment is that budget paid to you, usually into a separate account or a prepaid card, for you to spend on meeting those needs.
You have to get a needs assessment first. Everything here follows from it.
Why people take them
Choice of agency is the main one. Council block contracts go to whoever won the tender, and the visit times you get are the ones left over. With a direct payment you pick the agency, and you can pick one with better continuity or a specialism you actually need.
Timing is the other. Families often want an hour in the morning and a long visit on a Thursday rather than four identical calls a day. A direct payment buys the shape of care the person wants.
Why people hand them back
Because the money often does not stretch as far as it needs to.
Councils set the personal budget from what they pay their contracted providers. Those rates are lower than the rates the same providers charge a private customer, and the Homecare Association publishes a minimum price that most council rates sit below. So the budget can buy fewer hours on the open market than it buys inside the council’s own contract.
What each council pays per hour →
Ask the council directly: at the rate in this budget, which agencies locally will actually take it? If the honest answer is none, the budget is the problem and you should say so in writing before you accept it.
Employing someone yourself
You can use a direct payment to employ a personal assistant rather than buy from an agency. Many people do, and it usually gives the best continuity of all.
Understand what you are taking on. You become an employer: contracts, payroll, tax, pension, insurance, holiday pay, cover when they are ill, and the responsibility if it goes wrong. Most councils fund a payroll service to handle the administration, so ask.
One thing that catches people out: a personal assistant you employ directly is not regulated by the CQC. Regulation follows the agency, not the individual, so the checks are yours to do.
What you cannot spend it on
It has to meet the needs in your care and support plan. You will be asked to account for it, usually with bank statements and invoices every few months.
Councils can generally refuse payments to a close family member living in the same household, though they can agree to it where there is a good reason. Ask rather than assume.
Topping it up
You can add your own money to a direct payment to buy more hours or a more expensive agency. Get the arrangement in writing, including what happens if you can no longer afford the top-up, because that is where these fall apart.