A Personalised Budget is an amount of funding for an eligible person with a disability, so that the individual can make their own arrangements to meet specified support needs as opposed to having their needs met directly for them by a service provider contracted by the State. Personalised Budgets can help to give people with disabilities greater choice and control over the services and supports they receive.
The Personalised Budget pilot is tasked with testing the brokerage model, direct payments model and a co-managed with a service provider model. The pilot also seeks to determine the costs associated with each model, including new or additional costs associated with administering Personalised Budgets, the impact of changes in the delivery of services on providers, and aggregate impact on the delivery of the system of Disability Services. The independent evaluation of the pilot will be available circa six months after the pilot ends.
Regarding the number of expressions of interest that were received and the number of persons to date who have gained access to become part of a personalised budgets pilot, as this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the Deputy directly with the most up to date figures available, as soon as possible.
