Home | Advice for Award Managers| Employing a Personal Assistant
Personal Assistants (PAs) support individuals who need care and support, to live more independently, usually in their own home.
Our Recipients or someone acting on their behalf, such as an Award Manager, will normally use funding from personal budgets, direct payments or ILF Scotland funding to directly employ a PA to assist them to achieve the independent living outcomes that are important to them.
Being a PA means being involved in many aspects of your employer’s life and may include assisting the person in their home, at leisure or at work. The role of a PA is extremely varied and will be different for each person as the individual employer chooses exactly what assistance they want and when and how they want this. The opportunity to focus directly on the needs of an individual, and the diversity and often flexibility of the role, is what frequently attracts people to this type of work.
Anyone can be a PA so long as you have the right attitude and the skills required by the individual employer.
When looking to employ a PA, the disabled person will often look for someone who they have a good connection with. It’s not always about previous experience or qualifications, more that you have the right values to do the job, but some people may look for people with relevant experience.
Family members can also be a PA although ILF Scotland will not normally fund a relative living in the same house as a recipient to act as a paid PA to the recipient. See Policy 31 - Relatives Living with a Recipient as a Paid Personal Assistant for more information.
Relevant experience may include providing assistance for a relative, doing work experience or volunteering.
The Skills for Care Being a personal assistant guide specifically states:
“Being a personal assistant can involve different tasks. The individual employer will have an idea of the type of person they’re looking for and an outline of what they want them to do. This will usually be set out in a job description.
“Before applying for a job, read the advert and job description carefully so that you’re clear about the tasks you’re going to be asked to do. It’s important to make sure you can do them all, because, for example, there would be no point in applying for a job that involves going swimming twice a week if you don’t like water.”
Find out whether social care is the right career for you at: https://www.aquestionofcare.org.uk/
If you think being a PA might be a role for you, visit: https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/Careers-in-care/Think-Care-Careers.aspx
There are many benefits of working as a PA.
According to Skills for Care, here are the four most important benefits.
In Scotland, PAs must become a member of the PVG Scheme. PVG stands for Protecting Vulnerable Groups and aims to help make sure that people who are unsuitable to work with children and protected adults cannot do so.
It is a legal requirement for all PAs to join the PVG scheme and it will be a criminal offence for the PA to work in a regulated role if they do not have a PVG membership. This includes both employed and self-employed PAs.
To apply for the PVG Scheme, PAs should use the Disclosure Scotland website or go directly to Self-employed or work for a personal employer.
The cost of PVG application is £59 for a new applicant, and £18 for a Scheme Membership Statement. The law does not state who is responsible for paying for the application, so it could be the PA or the employer.
ILF Recipients who use their ILF Awards to fully or partially fund a PA, can use money in their ILF account to pay the fee for the PA’s PVG application or Membership Statement.
While there is currently no legal requirement for PAs in Northern Ireland to go through a Disclosure Check, we strongly recommend that Recipients complete an AccessNI Criminal Records Check on anyone they employ.
An AccessNI check costs £16 for a basic or standard check. An enhanced check costs £32.
Visit Apply for an AccessNI check | nidirect for more details.
If you’re seeking to recruit a PA, Self Directed Support Scotland have recently produced a useful PA Recruitment toolkit.
You can also find vacancies or post your own job advertisement on the following websites:
Being or becoming an employer brings with it a range of responsibilities.
Please see our Employer Support Information Note for details of some of your responsibilities and our list of Payroll and Financial Management Agencies.
Centre for Inclusive Living Perth & Kinross
Glasgow Centre for Inclusive Living (GCIL)
Lothian Centre for Inclusive Living (LCIL)
The Centre for Independent Living NI – CILNI
His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC)
Personal Assistant role category - GOV.UK
