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General information about the Functional Analysis of Care Environments (FACE) and Resource Allocation System (RAS) process, used by Devon County Council.

Personal budgets

We are increasing the choice and control people have for any support they require to meet their eligible social care needs, by the introduction of estimated budgets. You may find it helpful to also read Factsheet 7 Personal Budgets, which explains more about how you can manage your social care money.

An estimated Budget may be available to you if, following an assessment of your needs and financial position; you are eligible for support and assistance from us. We can discuss this with you at the time, or you can read the Factsheet FS1 Assessment and Fair Access to Care

The idea of an estimated budget is to make you aware of the value of your care and support and for you to make personal choices about support you want. We will work with you to have as much choice and control over how your care and support is provided as you want.

What we do when estimating your budget

First of all a social care assessment will be completed with you, to find out whether you are eligible for support from us. There are two approaches to make sure the assessments are proportionate to need; straightforward needs have a more straightforward approach in the hope we don’t delay support being available to you.

If your needs are straightforward; we will discuss with you what type and how much support you need to keep safe and well. We will then be able to tell you how much this will cost. (For straightforward needs we calculate your estimated budget by multiplying the number of hours of support you need by the hourly rate agreed with care and support providers in your area, this amount will be your estimated budget) work is being planned to be able to calculate an estimated budget in the same manner as we do for people with more complex needs (see below).

If your needs are complex, we will directly use the information from an overview assessment to inform the ‘Resource Allocation System’ (RAS) to calculate your ‘estimated budget’. The RAS looks at how specific areas of need and support are scored within the overview assessment and uses this information for a series of behind the scenes mathematical calculations. These calculations have subtle differences depending on if you are an older person; have a physical or learning disability. This then produces the estimated budget. The RAS is based on the needs identified, the support required to meet these needs, any informal support available from family or friends and the average cost of supporting equivalent needs in Devon. The specific questions used for the RAS will be made known to you. This approach is not currently available for adults of working age who have mental health needs.

The overview assessment form considers:

• Physical health
• Involvement in the community
• Relationships with Family and Friends
• Safety
• Involvement in work, education and training
• Mobility
• Support needs for Personal care
• Day to day activities
• Support currently available from family, friends and/or other local people or services.

Using your estimated budget

The information from the assessment and your estimated budget will be used to develop an affordable support plan with you. It is important that you say how you would like support provided as you should have as much choice and control as you are able or wish.

You are able to purchase support yourselves through a direct payment or adult social care can do this on your behalf or a mixture of both.

Once we agree your support plan with you, the amount it costs will be your personal budget

Your personal budget may be more or less than your estimated budget, and this will depend upon your personal circumstances and the local availability of the support that you need. We may also ask you to contribute towards the cost of your support, based on an assessment of your financial circumstances. Personal budgets can go up or down depending on peoples needs and circumstances.

   

Technical additional information

Assessment and financial modelling deployed to calculate estimated budgets, differences for client groups of people.

Functional Analysis of Care Environments (FACE)

Devon uses the FACE overview assessment to inform financial modelling that has been developed by FACE.

Clearly identified questions are used within the assessment to give important detail, primarily focused on:

• The needs the person has.
• The number of people, type or frequency of support needed
• The availability of informal support
• The interrelationship between the above.

Devon has provided FACE with the standardised costs as detailed below to aid their matching of the assessment to the actual cost of support in Devon.

FACE  have produced three financial models, one each for:

• Older people
• People with a physical disability
• People with a learning disability.

These distinctions are currently used to ensure the FACE RAS estimated budget is as accurate as possible. Differences within the model centre on:

• Subtle variation with how each group may require support; people may not need help with personal care, but require high levels of support for other reasons
• Market variation for specialist providers in conjunction with above point
• Any current differences with standardised costs.

Standardised costs

a) users of learning disability services

Care hourly rate – homecare, enabling, p.a. time (standardised)

14.00

b) users of services for older people

Day-care hourly cost (standardised), exclusive of transport costs	22.00
Daytime homecare hourly cost (standardised)	14.00
Night home care (waking) hourly cost (standardised)	14.00
Night home care (sleep in) hourly cost (standardised)	7.00
Total nursing accommodation (N1 banding)	416.30
Total nursing accommodation cost (N2 banding)	427.30
Total residential accommodation cost (R2 banding)	309.00
Total residential accommodation cost (R3 banding)	330.00
Total residential accommodation cost (R4 banding)	391.00

The following different costs applied from 01/11/2010 to 21/11/2011:

Day-care hourly cost (standardised), exclusive of transport costs

19.76

c) Users of services for people with physical disabilities

Day-care hourly cost (standardised), exclusive of transport costs	22.00
Daytime homecare hourly cost (standardised)	14.00
Night home care (waking) hourly cost (standardised)	14.00
Night home care (sleep in) hourly cost (standardised)	7.00
Total nursing home accommodation cost (standardised)	567.04
Total residential accommodation cost (standardised)	599.00
Total sensory case accommodation cost (standardised)	1100.00

d) users of services for people with mental health problems

Devon County Council does not provide estimated budgets for service users with a primary need relating to mental health. For information about Mental Health please contact Devon Partnership NHS Trust.

Commissioning process

Devon encourage people to have their budget by means of a direct payment, where they do not wish this then support can be directly commissioned.

Where Devon County Council commission on behalf of someone, the estimated budget, developed from the FACE overview assessment, remains the key informant.

Factsheets

Additional information can be found in our series of social care factsheets, such as:

• Personal Budgets
• Estimating your budget
• Guide to personal brokerage
• Direct Payments.