Money & rights
The care and support plan
A care and support plan is the document that turns an assessment into support: the needs the council has decided to meet, written where they can be read and argued from. The plan carries the budget figure, it is the document a review works on, and a copy of it can be asked for.
Last checked on 3 September 2026
What is the plan actually for?
It is the document that turns an assessment into support. Section 24 of the Care Act 2014 is titled The steps for the local authority to take, and section 25 is titled Care and support plan, support plan: the Act requires steps, and the plan is the record that they were taken and of what they produced. Everything else in this chain, the budget included, is worked out from that record rather than from the meetings that preceded it.
Care Act 2014, sections 24 and 25. Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026.
Who decides what goes into it?
The council decides, and the section it decides under is worth knowing. Where the conditions are met, section 18 carries a duty to meet needs for care and support, and section 19 carries a power to meet other needs. A duty and a power are different animals, and the difference decides how a refusal reads: what must be met is not the same kind of decision as what may be met. Asking which of the two a decision was taken under, and under which section, is a fair question and an answerable one.
Care Act 2014, sections 18 and 19. Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026.
What is worth checking before you agree to it?
Three things, and all of them are on the page. That the needs the assessment recorded appear in the plan in words you recognise, rather than in a summary of them. That each one is matched by something specific, written as what will happen rather than as an intention. And that the parts you disagree with are recorded as disagreements, because a plan that reads as agreed is a plan that will be reviewed as agreed. Ask for a copy. A plan you have not read is a plan you have not agreed to.
Does everything have to be in the plan to count?
In practice, and this is where plans are won and lost. A grab rail, a level access shower, a class on a Tuesday, the transport that gets you there: each is a response to an assessed need, and each has to be written into the plan to have a payer. An adaptation that is in nobody's plan is a purchase nobody has agreed to fund, which is why daily living and aids follows an adaptation from assessment to fitting rather than from catalogue to front door.
How does the plan turn into a figure?
Through section 26, titled Personal budget, which attaches to the plan the cost of meeting the needs the council has decided to meet. The sequence is the point: plan first, figure second. the personal budget explains how the figure is built, what a financial assessment looks at, and which of the three numbers in a letter is which.
Care Act 2014, section 26, Personal budget. Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026.
When does a plan have to be reviewed?
Section 27 is titled Review of care and support plan or of support plan, and a review is the formal moment at which a plan can be changed. The Act provides the review and sets no interval between reviews, and where an interval exists it comes from the statutory guidance rather than from the Act. This handbook prints an interval only after reading and dating the passage that sets one, which has not happened yet, and a cell without a number is the honest version of that. What can be asked for today is the date of the last review and the date of the next, which is a question with a short answer and a long reach.
Care Act 2014, section 27. Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026. Care and support statutory guidance, Department of Health and Social Care, first published 29 July 2016, last updated 22 July 2025, GOV.UK, read on 3 September 2026.
What if the plan arrives wrong?
A review is the route, and it belongs to the adult as much as to the council. changing your support describes how a review is asked for and what remains when it does not arrive. The document that gets reviewed is the plan rather than the person, and keeping that distinction in the letter is worth more than any amount of emphasis.
How do these steps fit into the journey?
As rows of a table. Steps 9, 10 and 13 of the fourteen are the ones this page has been describing, and the route map puts each of them next to the section that carries it. The start of the chain, and the rights that attach to it, are set out in your rights under the law.
What this page is
This page explains what a plan is for, what is worth checking in one, and how a review works. It is not legal advice about your situation, and it does not say what any plan should contain. The Care Act 2014 applies in England; Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own law.
Sources read for this page
- Care Act 2014, revised text on legislation.gov.uk, version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026
- Care and support statutory guidance, Department of Health and Social Care, updated 22 July 2025
Each source above was opened on 3 September 2026. Where a page here prints a section number or a figure, the source line beside it names the version that number was read from.