Individual Service Funds (ISFs) allow individuals to have more choice and control over how their personal budgets are used to support them. With an ISF, the individual chooses an organization to hold and manage their budget on their behalf. The organization works with the individual to develop a support plan that is approved by the council. Research has shown ISFs can help improve people's lives. While ISFs are available in some areas, more councils are being encouraged to offer them as an alternative to direct payments or council-managed budgets.

1. About Individual Service
Funds (ISF’s) in England

2. Our mission

3. Consultancy
Self-Directed Futures provides practical assistance, training and consultancy to a whole range of
organisations including: support providers, voluntary and community sector organisations; clinical
commissioning groups; local authorities and others who aspire to make radical change for the
benefit of citizens. The collective knowledge, skills and experience of our associates means that
we are able to provide practical advice and support on a whole range of issues -we help with:
• Co-production & visioning
• Commissioning for personalisation
• Training around SDS
• Market engagement and market shaping to support SDS
• Stakeholder consultation
• Coaching & mentoring
• Evaluations
• Embedding culture Change

4. Just so you know a bit about me
• In the early part of my career I worked in a range of settings with
people providing support – I was a support worker in NHS inpatient
units, involved in homecare, residential care, supported housing,
day services and worked as a personal assistant and also ended up
managing these ‘services’.
• I then spent 12 years involved in adult social care commissioning
(NHS/LA), working alongside social workers and allied health
professionals and overseeing many of the ‘services’ that I had
worked in previously. The art of making something very simple and
very human rather complicated.
• These insights have enabled me to set up an organisation Self-
Directed Futures that now works with LA’s and CCG’s across the
England promoting different ways of personalising commissioning
and shifting more control over to people and families .
• I am also a consultant with the Institute of Public Care and run a
small non CQC registered organisation in Dorset supporting adults
with learning disabilities using personal budgets

5. Individual Service Funds
are about citizenship
© Simon Duffy
• Moving away from the ‘professional gift’
• Away from people being seen as
grateful recipient of services
• Towards having clear entitlements
• Freedom to use creativity and own
judgment
• Building good lives not just receiving
services

6. What are Individual Service Funds
(NHS Third Party Budgets)?
© Simon Duffy
• A ‘personal budget’ held by a
nominated organisation on behalf
of a person
• It’s the persons entitlement after
assessment
• Can either be via a Direct
Payment or a commissioned
arrangement

7. Simple ISF arrangement
• Assessment and support plan
details who the person would like to
hold their ISF
• Agreement between the funder and
the ISF holding organisation
• Agreement between the person and
their ISF holding organisation
setting out how they will work
together to use their budget
© Self-Directed Futures

8. 1. The council will work
out how much money
you have in your ISF
Individual Services Funds (ISF) – step by step how they work
2. You choose who you
want to hold your ISF
for you
3. They will then work with
you to make a support plan
4. The council will
check this plan and sign
to say its been agreed
6. Your ISF holder will then
set up your payments with
the council and get the
money into your ISF
account
7. They will then set up your
support for you as agreed in your
plan
5. You will need to agree and
sign your Individual Service
Fund Agreement (your
provider will help you with
this)
8. You can then get on
and live your life
9. After you and the ISF
holder will meet with
the council and check
how it is all working

9. What the Care Act guidance
says
The person can choose for the personal
budget allocation to remain with the local
authority to arrange care and support on the
person’s behalf, and in line with their wishes.
Alternatively, if available locally, it can be
placed with a third-party provider on the
same basis, often called an individual
service fund (ISF).
Where an ISF-type arrangement is not
available locally, the local authority should
explore arrangements to develop this
offer, and should be receptive to requests
from personal budget recipients to create
these arrangements with specified providers.

10. NHS Third Party budgets
….. People can have a personal budget, integrated personal budget or personal health budget in
one, or any combination of these three ways:
• Notional budget: the local authority or the NHS manages the budget and arranges care and
support.
• Third party budget: an organisation independent of the
person, the local authority and NHS commissioners
manages the budget and is responsible for ensuring the
right care is put in place, working in partnership with the
person and their family to ensure the agreed outcomes
can be achieved.
• Direct payment: the budget holder has the money in a bank account or an equivalent account,
and takes responsibility for purchasing care and support.
The budget may be held by the person or by someone else acting on the person’s behalf…..
Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and local authorities should ensure that all three options
are available.7

11. • Place choice, control and power with people and families
• Nearly all the benefits of Direct Payments but without the
administrative worry of being an employer
• People can make adjustments to their day to day support
without having to go back to social work teams or
commissioners (as long as it meets outcomes)
• Current contracts are mainly inflexible – they are also
wasteful
So why are ISFs good?

12. Research on ISFs
The following chart
shows how lives
changed for 24
individuals who used
ISFs between 2008 -
2014
Individual Service Funds LEARNING FROM INCLUSION'S 18 YEARS OF PRACTICE, Animate 2014, The Centre for Welfare Reform

13. Progress on ISFS 2018
https://citizen-network.org/resources/map-of-isfs-in-england.html

14. Progress on ISFs 2021
https://citizen-network.org/resources/map-of-isfs-in-england.html

15. Areas we are working with
✅ Essex County Council
✅ Bristol City Council
✅ Norfolk County Council
✅ Dorset Council
✅ Somerset County Council
✅ Luton Council
✅ Warwickshire County Council
✅ Cambridgshire County Council
In conversations with:
✅ Dudley MBC
✅ Sheffield City Council
✅ Herefordshire County Council
✅ Lancashire County Council
© Self-Directed Futures

16. Q&A

17. DOSH ISF easy to
understand Video
https://vimeo.com/352026373/2fcce355ac

18. Lukes Story Video
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/christopher-watson-frsa-10268a22_isf-individualservicefunds-personalisation-activity-
6523209855996620800-Vt5z

19. Callum’s ISF Story
Video
http://in-controlscotland.org/sds-cinema/calum-and-moiras-story-on-using-an-individual-service-fund/

20. Further Reading

21. https://citizen-
network.org/resources/
selfdirected-support-
network.html