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Care services minister Ivan Lewis today launched an online toolkit to help councils deliver personalised adult social care services.

The toolkit, developed by the Care Services Improvement Partnership, is designed to help councils implement the government's Putting People First agenda.

This envisages that by 2011, all English councils will have a system of personal budgets up and running for adult social care, which over time should reach all users except emergency cases.

Individual budget and In Control pilots

The toolkit is based on the experience of local authorities who have been involved in personalisation projects such as the individual budget pilots and In Control programme.

It sets out a proposed framework for transforming services, laying out a series of stages councils should go through in planning and implementing self-directed support.

It also includes a financial modelling tool to project future demands and cost, and advice on resource allocation for personal budgets, brokerage and support planning.

The material will be continuously updated as more and more local authorities get to grips with personalisation. CSIP will be holding a series of workshops with councils on personalisation around the English regions over the next few months.

User-led organisations

Lewis also announced £900,000 to fund 14 organisations led by disabled people to help the government achieve its ambition of having a user-led organisations in every community by 2010.

The chosen bodies will use the money to build up their organisations or help foster user-led organisations in areas which currently have none. This money is in addition to £750,000 already announced to fund 12 organisations.

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