Managing your Money and Paperwork

To be able to receive Direct Payments you need to have arrangements in place to manage the necessary paperwork, either alone or with help. Help is always available from our Direct Payments Support Team.

Because your Direct Payments money is public money you will need to provide evidence of how you spend it by doing certain things and by keeping records.

We'll also need to make sure that the services which you intend to buy with the Direct Payments will meet your assessed needs adequately. For disabled children, we need to know that the services bought with Direct Payments safeguard and promote the welfare of the child. In addition, if you plan to employ staff, you will need to show that you will meet your legal requirements as an employer.

The Direct Payments Support Team will go through all of this with you but we've also put some information here so you can see the kinds of things you'll need to do. For more information you can visit our other pages:

• Buying services or employing a personal assistant
• Your questions answered
• Direct Payments

If You Employ Someone

• You will need to get your Personal Assistant (PA) to fill in timesheets every four weeks and send them to your Payroll Provider. These will need to be correctly filled in and signed by you both.
• The payroll provider will then calculate your PA's wages and send you their wage slip, which will show how much you need to pay them. You will need to pay them by cheque from your Direct Payments account.
• You will have to pay any money which is owed to the Inland Revenue either every month or every three months, depending on who is providing you with a payroll service (the Direct Payments Support Team will tell you who to use). Your payroll provider will send you a letter when this is due detailing exactly how much you need to pay.
• Your payroll provider will also send you a bill for their services which you will need to pay from your Direct Payments account every four weeks.

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Buying any Services from a Care Provider Organisation

• You will need to keep a record of any hours/days etc that you buy. We will give you a sheet which you fill in and send back to us for our records.
• The care provider will send you an invoice (bill) showing how much money you need to pay them. You will need to keep a copy of any invoices that you receive. You can put this in your Direct Payments file.

Review and Audit of your Direct Payments Account

Because your Direct Payments money is public money, we need to ensure that it is being spent properly in the way that it was agreed when it was set up. The way we do this is to audit the bank account every year. This means that we will check the money which was put in against the money that was spent from the account. To do this, we need to look at the bank statements from the whole year so it is extremely important that these are kept safe. You can put them in your Direct Payments file which you'll get from the Direct Payments Support Team.

We also need the invoices for any services you buy (we will already have information about the wages you have paid to any worker you employ). If you paid for any other things such as stamps and envelopes from your account, you need to keep the receipts.

When the audit is done, the Direct Payments Support Team will write to you to and ask you to pay back any money that has been unused to Durham County Council.

Having an audit completed every year is a condition of continuing to receive a Direct Payment and failure to provide the necessary information could result in the Direct Payment being withdrawn.