Fife Council Revised charges for home care services 2007

Published: Tuesday 09 Oct 2007 by Fife Council

Revised charges for some home care services have been approved by the Council's social work and health committee. The revised charges will bring them into line with most other local authorities in Scotland. This will mean the Council will recover a larger proportion of the cost of service delivery from service users and introduce charges for some services which were previously provided free. This is in line with the Council's charging policy, agreed in December 2005, which adopts a consistent approach across all council services to the management of charges.

Cllr Tim Brett, chair of the social work and health committee said: "We've approved these revised changes in order to bring social work into line with not only other services within the Council but also in Scotland. This is not a new policy we are introducing but revisions to an existing one.

"It's never easy asking people to pay more but we have to be realistic about the cost to the council and how much we can subsidise given the financial pressures on the service.

"We will be carrying out financial assessments across all our home care service users to ensure that they are receiving every penny of benefit they are entitled to so that it can go towards improving the quality of their life at home."

Last year the cost of service delivery for home care, meals on wheels, community alarms, direct payments and shopping delivery was £26.093m and the amount of income from charges was just £1.416m.

Fife Council currently only charges for home care, meals on wheels and meals at day care centres. It is entitled to apply charges for shopping delivery and community alarms. Day care services for adults and older people and equipment and adaptations will continue to be provided free.

The current charge for home care is £4 per week regardless of the number of hours someone receives. The cost to the Council for providing this service is £11.45 per hour. Under the revised charges some service users will be charged a rate closer to the actual cost of delivery. For example some people will pay £11 per hour for home care. There will be a flat rate charge for community alarms or £1 per week, shopping delivery £7 per delivery and the cost of meals will remain unchanged at £2.80 per meal. The actual charge will be dependent on people's available income. People over 65 years who receive free personal care , will still receive this free of charge. None of these revisions apply to people in residential care.

Fife Council has been involved in income maximisation initiatives with the Department of Works and Pension Service to raise awareness of benefit entitlement with home care service users. In the last 12 months this has given 600 service users over £1m worth of extra benefits to spend on services intended to improve the quality of their lives The Council will offer all home care users to undergo a financial assessment to ensure they are getting all the benefits they are entitled to.

There are currently over 6,000 service users receiving a home care service. Only 1,668 of whom contribute towards the cost of the service.

There is national guidance for charging which recommends that charges should only be made to service users with net weekly income above a specific level. This would be the minimum income guarantee plus 16.5% which means for a single person or a couple under 60 years the minimum income level would be £98.33 and £150.33, and over those over 60 years the minimum income would be £138.69 and £211.68 respectively. In addition it was agreed that a further 50% of an individual's disposable income would be discounted before a charge is calculated as well as the first £6,000 of personal savings. Anyone who has an income below these levels and is assessed as needing a home care service, will receive one free of charge.

Cllr Brett concluded: "Everyone who needs a service will receive one and that commitment to providing a service for the most vulnerable in our communities will continue.

"We have put safeguards in place to ensure that people on the lowest income are protected.

"The home care service in Fife is one of the best in Scotland and our staff deliver a high standard of care to service users. Setting realistic charges for home care brings us into line with what is being done elsewhere in the Council and other local authorities across Scotland."

For more information contact

Kenny Leinster, Senior Manager, Older People's Services 
Tel: 08451 55 55 55 + Ext 44 11 79 Contact Kenny Leinster online
By Post: Fife Council, Fife House , North Street , Glenrothes , KY7 5LT

or

go to Fife Direct website http://www.fifedirect.org.uk/