Personal budget target set to increase support demand

May 17, 2013 - PRLog -- A West Midlands charity is geared up to meet increasing demands for support, in light of the government’s target to achieve a minimum of 70 percent take up of personal budgets by April 2014.

Currently, only around 40 percent of adults in the West Midlands with physical or learning disabilities and mental health issues have a personal budget.  However, the government’s campaign to increase awareness could mean that an additional 35,000 people across the region could begin to receive personal budgets over the next few months, to fund their social care provision.

“Whilst this is great news for adults with disabilities and specific needs, it of course means that there will be increased demand for Self Directed Support Services (SDSS), to help them manage their personal budget effectively”, says Vicki Phipps of Sandwell charity, Ideal for All.

The charity quickly anticipated this need and put steps in place to ensure that a more focused, commercial approach would help it not only to identify relevant individuals and groups, but deliver an excellent SDSS service throughout the area, more quickly and efficiently.

Cabinet Office-approved business advisors, Cogent Ventures, helped Ideal for All to develop a strong growth strategy for its SDSS services, enabling it to retain enough flexibility to adapt quickly to the changing environment.

“It’s vital that charities and social enterprises recognise the need to have a commercially-focused outlook if they are to grow and successfully deliver the work for which they were originally formed”, explains Jim Brooks, director of Cogent Ventures.  “With around a third of its workforce comprised of disabled adults, Ideal for All understood this but was keen to retain its user-led reputation.  We showed them how a charitable ethos and commercial approach can be combined effectively”.

“Our new strategy means we’ve been able to already begin to expand our service coverage into Birmingham and the Black Country boroughs”, says Vicki.  “This means that in addition to SDSS we can also offer other social and health care services to disabled adults including employment and skills, lifelong learning and specialist equipment hire”.

-ENDS-

PR:
Claire Shiels      07917 734613         claire@csm-comms.co.uk

Notes for editors:

Founded in 2012, Cabinet Office-approved Cogent Ventures provides consultancy support to social enterprises and not-for-profit organisations involved in the provision or commissioning of health and social care.  It helps clients to create and deliver competitive advantage in an increasingly commercial and often financially constrained environment.

Core service areas include strategy, business planning, business development, bid management, commissioning support, corporate finance, policy development, new ventures, financial modelling, capital projects, governance, partnership development, executive coaching, and team development.

Profits from paid for services are reinvested in providing pro bono and subsidised consultancy services to smaller organisations.

Cogent Ventures is an approved provider for the Investment and Contract Readiness Fund; and a member of Social Enterprise West Midlands.