Parent asks:
Can I request that I use my son’s personal budget on a specialist psychologist or some therapy intervention as an emergency? He has just started a specialist high school and is not coping at all. He needs help before things get worse and the timescales for the neurodevelopmental pathway panel and CAMHS is far too long.
Ipsea answers:
A personal budget is the notional amount of money that would be needed to cover the cost of making the special educational provision specified in an EHC plan. A direct payment an actual amount of money that you would receive so that you could commission some or all of the provision identified in the personal budget yourself. Therefore, you can only use the money from a direct payment for provision which the LA has agreed should be included in the child or young person’s EHC plan.You could request an emergency review of your EHC plan and ask that it is amended to include the type of support you have in mind. We are aware that it often takes a long time to get a plan amended, so you could suggest to the LA that the support starts straight away (if the funding is already available for it) with the finalised EHC plan to follow.
