Activities Unlimited Short Breaks Personal Budgets - Appeals Process
April 2023: Please note that due to exceptionally high demand, appeals are currently taking longer to process than our published timescales. We will start hearing appeals in May 2023 - we apologise for this delay and would like to assure families that we are working hard to process all applications and appeals as quickly as possible.
We will write to you via the portal to let you know the outcome of your application for a Short Breaks Personal Budget. If you are not happy with the outcome of your application, you have the right to indicate your intent to appeal within 28 days of the date of our letter.
In the first instance, we recommend that you accept the offer made to you on the portal and then email us at info@activities-unlimited.co.uk to indicate that you would like to appeal. If you have been awarded a personal budget, this will enable us to make an initial payment to you pending the outcome of your appeal.
Please note: you may decline the offer made to you on the portal if you would prefer; but this will mean that any initial payment is not made. If you have already declined your offer and wish to change and accept it pending your appeal, please contact us via email. Doing this will not affect the outcome of any appeal.
We will then make the appeal form available to you on the portal. Please note that the appeals process will not begin before May 2023.
Once you receive access to your form, you will be able to log in and give us further information to support your appeal. As part of your appeal, you should include the reasons why you feel we have not made the correct decision and submit any supporting evidence to us at the same time via email. Please ensure you have read our budget indicator information before submitting your appeal.
We will then consider your appeal and notify you of the outcome within 28 working days of receipt of your appeal form.
The possible outcomes to your appeal are as follows:
1. Your appeal is upheld and we agree that you should receive a higher level of Short Break Personal Budget. We will inform you of this and make the payment to you. This will be backdated to the date of your initial application.
2. Your appeal is not upheld and we consider that our original assessment of your application should stand. In this instance, you will remain entitled to the original amount. If this has not already been paid to you; it will then be paid and the amount due will be backdated to the date of your initial application.
Activities Unlimited Short Breaks Personal Budgets are issued on a financial year basis (1st April-31st March) each year and do not automatically renew. We will write to you when the time comes for you to submit your application for the following year. At this point you will be able to log in again, review the information we hold and amend as necessary for any future applications. The budget awarded may increase or decrease in future years depending on the level of need assessed.
We would always encourage families to contact us on the details above in the first instance and will work with you to find a solution whenever we can. However, if you remain unhappy with your outcome or would like to make a formal complaint about our service at any point, you can find the Suffolk County Council formal complaints process here.