Money & rights
Taking part locally
The Care Act 2014 makes well-being the purpose of every decision a council takes about an adult, and a week is part of that well-being rather than a luxury attached to it. What the week is meant to contain belongs in the plan, because the plan is the document the money follows.
Last checked on 3 September 2026
What does the law say a good week is?
It says the question comes first. Section 1 of the Care Act 2014 is titled Promoting individual well-being, and the duty it creates attaches to every decision a council takes about an adult, which includes the decisions that fill a week rather than a rota. The Act sets out the parts that well-being is made of, and asking which part of well-being a decision was weighed against, with the answer in writing, is the question that turns a general refusal into a specific one.
Care Act 2014, section 1, Promoting individual well-being. Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026.
What this handbook does not do is paraphrase that list here. A statutory list carries its own words, and those are the words a decision has to be measured against. The section is short, it is on the same register as the rest of the Act, and it is one click away. The place it holds among the law's starting points is set out in well-being in the Act.
Where does taking part get written down?
In the plan, or nowhere that lasts. Section 24 sets out the steps the council has to take, section 25 is titled Care and support plan, support plan, and the budget is worked out from that plan rather than from the meetings that came before it. A class, a volunteering role, a regular evening out and the transport that makes them possible are, in the eyes of the Act, all answers to the same question the plan exists to record: what the council has decided to meet, and how.
Care Act 2014, sections 24 and 25. Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026. The budget attached to the plan is carried by section 26, Personal budget, Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026.
That is the practical point of this page. An activity that lives in a conversation and never reaches the plan has a way of not surviving the next review, and what the plan must cover is written up page by page in the dossier that follows this chain.
What can realistically be asked for?
The contents of a week are yours to propose. The plan is where a proposal becomes a decision, and the decision is the council's to take against the needs the assessment recorded. What can be asked for, in practice, is that a proposal be weighed against well-being rather than against a list of what happens to be available locally, and that the answer, whatever it is, arrive in writing. A refusal that says what was weighed and why is a refusal that can be answered; a refusal that says only that nothing is running at the moment is not.
Where does a week outside the plan come from?
Partly from the same places it comes from for everybody, and partly from the support the plan pays for. A day programme is the frame many weeks use, and day activities today describes what that frame looks like now and how it is bought. A day out is the smallest unit of a life outside, and it usually fails on transport or on the price of a ticket before it fails on anything else, which is why days out and leisure reads the practical rules one at a time.
The two are not interchangeable, and the difference matters when a plan is written. A programme is a frame that arrives with its own timetable; a day out is yours to shape. A week built only out of frames is a week somebody else drew, and the drawing is what the well-being duty is about.
What do the national statistics say about all this?
Less than you would hope, and about other people. The national statistics office publishes series on disabled people's lives, and those series describe populations. A figure about a population cannot decide what a plan should contain for one adult, and this page prints none of them for that reason. What a plan can be tested against is the section of law quoted above, which is a text rather than a percentage.
Who helps you say what a good week looks like?
Nobody has to say it alone. Section 67 of the Act is titled Involvement in assessments, plans etc., and where an adult would otherwise have substantial difficulty taking part, an independent advocate is arranged so that the taking part happens. The section matters here as much as anywhere else in the chain, because a week is harder to describe than a need, and describing it is the whole task. independent advocacy sets out when the duty bites and what to ask for before the assessment starts.
Care Act 2014, section 67, Involvement in assessments, plans etc. Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026.
What this page is
This page explains what the well-being duty covers and where a life outside the rota has to be written down. It is not legal advice about your situation, and it does not decide 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
- Office for National Statistics, disability statistics
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.