The DH is urging councils to speed up personalisation of budgets following Audit Commission findings that many authorities are failing to give people their own budgets to spend on social care.
The Commission has found only a few councils in England are on target to offer 30% of eligible service users their own budget by April 2011, but most are not.
In its report, Financial Management of Personal Budgets, the Commission reveals six of the 152 councils are meeting the target.
In one council 60% of eligible people have a budget, while in another the figure is just 13%.
The Commission identifies a number of obstacles faced by local authorities , including the challenge of sorting out exactly how much each individual should receive, changing financial systems to cope with the new way of doing things, providing information to people on how the new system works, and making sure there is a local market in social care where budgets can be spent.
The report has details of the different approaches used to move councils from providing services in the traditional way, to providing personal budgets.
Also included is a self assessment form to help councils review progress and identify areas for improvement.
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