There is flexibility as to the timing and manner of the response to the need, and as to the identity of the business or worker who provides the care and support – but not much more than that.
That is because the budget one is given to spend, must, in legal terms, rationally relate back to the type of needs identified on the assessment, the extent to which the difficulty was impacting significantly on the person’s wellbeing as defined, and the rate in the market, for a response to that sort of problem.
To put that another way, one cannot spend the money on horseriding if the budget was provided for managing hydration and nutrition.
One cannot go to see Lion King or other West End show every month if the budget for facilitating access to leisure and recreation was set on the basis of the ticket price for 3 shows a year for an escort, assuming one has no other spare money for one’s own ticket.
The fact that a council can recover the money under the Care Act for misuse makes it obvious that if one were to treat it as down to one’s own decision-making without regard to the plan, money that should have been spent on meeting unmet eligible assessed need would not in fact be available for that purposes and that would be a breach of the condition that is applicable to ALL Direct Payments.