Direct payments

In Coventry, the default way of receiving a direct payment is via a prepaid card that the Council will set up for you.  

The Council will load money on to a card (similar to a debit card) which you can then spend on your care and support needs. More details about prepaid cards can be found in the following section. 

In a small number of cases people that have direct payment may be asked to open a bank account to receive the direct payment money in to instead of receiving it via a Prepaid card.  

If this happens, we will ask them to send us statements from their bank account  and complete some forms usually every 6 months to tell us how they have been spending the money for care and support. 

People that have direct payments may be asked to keep all receipts and invoices to show the Council how they have spent the money. 

Some people that have direct payments set up their own care and support by buying support from care agencies. Other people employ their own staff called Personal Assistants This means they are the employer and have to do things like make payments to the tax office, organising rotas, submitting timesheets to a payroll service and paying wages. Penderels Trust can help you with this. 

It is important for people that have direct payments to have plans about how to stay safe and what to do for example if carers cannot come into work one day.