Adult Social Care Contributions Consultation

Overview

Consultation results:

This consultation closed on 25 September 2018.

Thank you to everyone who took part in our recent consultation into the way we calculate service user contributions for Adult Social Care services. Councillors have carefully considered the responses and have agreed to implement all the proposed changes from 12 November 2018. A full copy of the Policy Committee report is available (item 6).

This hasn’t been an easy decision, but councillors have weighed up the responses alongside the need to save money. Nottinghamshire also currently funds more of people’s care costs compared to many other English councils.

The changes will mean that 58% of service users will make a contribution towards their care compared to the current 46%. Many people won’t be affected by the changes.

We will write to all service users in the coming weeks to confirm whether or not they are affected. For those people with a change, we will provide details about their new individual contributions. We can support them to ensure their needs are still met and that they are receiving all of the benefits and allowances they are entitled to.

Nottinghamshire County Council is considering a proposal which could affect the amount of contribution some people make towards their care and support. We would like to know what you think about this. What you think is important and will help Councillors decide what to do.

Like most other local authorities Nottinghamshire County Council is facing unprecedented financial pressures. Whilst it has made significant savings over several years there is still a budget gap of £54 million.

The Council is always looking to provide services more efficiently to help address this budget challenge but sometimes it still has to make difficult decisions.

In 2017 the Council consulted on a proposal to review the benefits and weekly living costs that are taken into account when assessing how much a person can afford to contribute towards their care and support. After considering the feedback from the consultation, the Council made a decision not to progress with the proposal until further work had been carried out to understand how this change may affect people.  As part of this work, the Council has also looked at what other local authorities take in to account when undertaking financial assessments and determining the amount that people will be required to contribute to their care costs.

The Department of Health provides guidance to Councils on what benefits they can take into account when determining the amount people are asked to contribute to their care costs.  However, not all Councils do the same when undertaking financial assessments. In Nottinghamshire we have previously taken a local decision to ignore some benefits that we are able to take into account, whilst other councils have chosen to adopt the Department of Health guidance in full. We need to review this in order to ensure that services are sustainable to the Council without it impacting on the provision of care and support for people with eligible needs.

By adopting the Department of Health guidance in full, which will be in line with many other councils around the country, including Leicestershire and Sheffield, the Council would save £3.8 million a year.

Please follow the link below to access an easy read version of the consultation:

Easy read version of consultation

Please follow the links below for further background information:

Adult Social Care and Public Health Committee Paper

Adult Social Care and Public Health Committee report appendix

Equality Impact Assessment

Department of Health guidance