As i have said in another post that i am being charged £257.01 for respite a week. This has been arranged by Social Worker. I have since found out that Direct Payments can be used for short breaks (respite) Quote : you can use your direct payments to buy the occasional short breaks if your local authority agrees that is what you need. Does anyone know about this ? Or is this another thing i havent been told by SW. It was the Social Worker who arranged and booked it. Are the Social Work just trying to take money of us?