Direct Payments

What is a Direct Payment?

Direct Payments offer you more choice and control over how your support is provided and who provides it. You can make changes to your care and support to suit you. Through direct payments you can decide to employ your own carers. If you employ staff directly these are called personal assistants.

Assessment and help

We will arrange for a social care assessment and a financial assessment. The law says that any financial support that we give you must be means-tested.

You can manage your own care and support arrangements but if you need extra support, you can nominate a close friend or relative to do this on your behalf.

Making payments

Your Direct Payment funding will be managed by a support provider called People Places Lives (PPL). They will set up a Virtual Wallet for you, which is a secure, online account. Southampton City Council will pay your Direct Payment into this account every four weeks along with any personal contributions that you may have been assessed as needing to make.

Direct payments are tax free and will not affect any benefits you may be receiving.

A couple holding hands

More about our Direct Payments scheme

We are here to help make sure that you have all the support you need to be safe and to do what is most important to you.

We can help you unlock the support available from your family, friends and neighbours and link you up with what is going on in your community. Sometimes, this support will need to be topped up with some extra money, so that you can buy any additional care you need to lead a full life. Direct Payments are the way that we give you the money to do this, helping to keep you in control of your care and support.

What Direct Payments offer you

Direct Payments offer you more choice and control over how your support is provided and who provides it. You can make changes to your care and support to suit you.

We will arrange for a social care assessment and a financial assessment. The law says that any financial support that we give you must be means-tested. This means that we must carry out a financial assessment to work out how much you must pay towards the cost of your care. This contribution is then paid by you into your Virtual Wallet account every four weeks.

We will carry out a light-touch or full financial assessment, depending on your circumstances, and the Direct Payment can start as soon as your Virtual Wallet has been set up. View more information about financial assessments.

Virtual Wallet

To make receiving your Direct Payment as easy as possible we will set up an account for you with Virtual Wallet. This is managed by a provider called People Place Lives (PPL) and it's an online account that your Direct Payment is paid into. Funds from the council are credited to your Virtual Wallet account.

Virtual Wallet is safe and secure, easy to use and the Virtual Wallet support team are on hand to help whenever needed.

Your care and support are managed via Virtual Wallet, which then makes payments to your Personal Assistants and providers. You tell it what you are spending your Direct Payment on and the system does the rest, automatically paying your providers.

Setting up Direct Payments

  1. We will agree your Care and Support Plan with you and this will set out how the money should be used to keep you safe and help you do what is important to you to lead a full life
  2. A financial assessment will be completed so that we can work out whether you need to pay anything towards the cost of your care and support. If this is the case, you will be told how much this will be.
  3. Your Social Worker or Independence Advisor will give you a Direct Payment agreement, which you will need to sign and return to us. It is a contract between you and the council and tells you what your responsibilities are. The sooner you return this, the sooner we can get going.
  4. After this the Virtual Wallet account will be set up. The payments will be set up and paid every four weeks. If you need to pay a personal contribution, you will need to pay this into your Virtual Wallet account as well.
  5. Once it’s all set up, we’ll keep an eye on your Virtual Wallet account so that we can be sure that the money is being used to meet your needs, which we must do by law. We will let you know if we need anything else from you and will carry out regular reviews to make sure that it’s all running smoothly.

Real experiences of using Direct Payments

Chris How SHOW


Nicky Wood SHOW


David and Kim Cruse SHOW


Denise Fullbrook SHOW


Mr and Mrs Pathak SHOW


Direct Payments FAQs

What is a Direct Payment? SHOW


Why should I choose a Direct Payment? SHOW


What can I spend my Direct Payment on? SHOW


What can I not spend my Direct Payment on? SHOW


How will I receive my Direct Payment? SHOW


Can I get my funds back if I no longer receive a Direct Payment? SHOW


Who do I contact with questions about direct payments? SHOW


Virtual Wallet FAQs

What is virtual wallet? SHOW


How does virtual wallet work? SHOW


What do I need to do? SHOW


Virtual wallet and payroll providers SHOW


How do I contact virtual wallet support team? SHOW


Where can I get more information about Virtual Wallet? SHOW


Arranging your care FAQs

Arranging your care SHOW


Registering a directly employed personal assistant SHOW


Using a payroll provider SHOW


Personal assistant’s timesheets SHOW


Receiving care from agencies SHOW


How is my personal information and privacy protected?

We safeguard your information in accordance with our Privacy Policy and
applicable law:

Further support and contact information

If you require further support or advice, please contact your social worker or contact Southampton City Council.

Find out more about Virtual Wallet