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The Independent Living Fund is designed to help you, if you are severely disabled, to live independently at home rather than in residential care. You can use payments from the fund to employ people to give you personal and domestic care in your home.
You can apply to the Independent Living Fund if you:
The amount you receive is based on the cost of the care you need, worked out on an hourly or weekly basis.
The maximum available payment is £455 per week. Your savings, income and certain other benefits and expenses also affect how much you get.
Independent Living Fund payments are made directly into any account of your choice which accepts benefit payments. This might be a bank, building society, Post Office® or National Savings account.
If you're registered blind or need someone who cares for you to collect your money, payment can be made by sending a cheque to cash at the Post Office®.
Payments from the Fund won't affect your other benefits. This is because they are used to pay for your care so are not counted as income.
But the Independent Living Fund takes half of the Disability Living Allowance and full Severe Disability Premium into account in their financial assessment.
You can use payments from the Independent Living Fund to pay for employing a care agency or personal assistant(s) to help you with personal and domestic tasks including:
You may be able to get personal care when you're socialising or at work.
You can't use payments from the Independent Living Fund to pay for:
You can ask your local authority social services department for an Independent Living Fund application form, or download one from the Independent Living Funds website. The form includes notes to help you complete it.
You should let the Independent Living Fund know as soon as possible if your circumstances change as this may mean that your weekly payments will increase or reduce.
If you are unhappy about a decision or award made by the Independent Living Fund you can ask for a 'decision review' by writing, emailing, faxing or telephoning the fund within four weeks of the decision date.
If the Fund believes you may qualify for a payment, one of their social workers will contact your local authority social worker to arrange a convenient time to visit you and do a joint assessment of your needs.
Every two years the Independent Living Fund will review your circumstances to check you're still getting the right level of payments.
An independent assessor and your local authority social worker or care manager will visit you to do the review. You can also ask to have a friend, relative or your personal assistant at the review meeting.
