- Your LGA
- Public affairs
- Legislation
- 2009-10 Parliamentary Session
- Personal Care at Home Bill
- Personal Care at Home Bill – Ping Pong - LGA Briefing
- LGA briefing - Personal Care at Home Bill - Report and Third Reading - 17 March 2010
- Personal Care at Home Bill – LGA consultation response
- LGA Briefing - Personal Care at Home Bill – Committee Stage - Amendment to delay implementation - 22 February 2010
- LGA Briefing - Personal Care at Home Bill – Committee Stage - Amendment to independently review the costs of the policy - 22 February 2010
- LGA Briefing - Personal Care at Home Bill - Lords Second Reading - 1 February 2010
- LGA Briefing - Personal Care at Home Bill - Committee Stage - 12 January 2010
- LGA Briefing - Personal Care at Home Bill - Second Reading - 14 December 2009
LGA Briefing - Personal Care at Home Bill - Lords Second Reading - 1 February 2010
The LGA has prepared a briefing for the Second Reading of the Personal Care at Home in the House of Lords. The Bill would enable regulations to be made requiring personal care to be provided free to persons with the highest needs in their own homes.
Key messages
- The cross-party Local Government Association supports the principle of helping more people with care needs to stay in their own homes. Having the Department of Health part-fund this new commitment is a positive step towards the closer alignment of health and social care spending that we have long called for.
- Councils are expected to part-fund the commitment to the tune of £250m a year from non-specific ‘efficiency savings’. The Government argues this is not a new burden. We completely reject this assessment. This is clearly a new burden and, as such, should be met fully from central government funding, or via the lifting of other existing burdens on councils.
- Councils have demonstrated they are most efficient part of the public sector and are already taking difficult decisions to meet a 3% efficiency requirement for 2009-10, rising to 4% for 2010-11. Councils do not have further efficiency savings sitting waiting to be used on new initiatives.
- We are concerned that the actual number of beneficiaries (and therefore costs) is likely to be very different from the Government’s estimates. The Bill’s Impact Assessment provides little reassurance. We are particularly concerned that the estimated number of people with high care needs who self-fund their care may be too low. Given the Government has full confidence in its forecasts, it should be happy to commit to funding any shortfall that emerges during implementation.
- Free personal care will only be available to people with the very highest needs. Without adequate funding, more pressure will be placed on services for people who have significant, but not critical, needs.
- Budgets for the next financial year are being set now and the Government’s national assessment tool will not reach councils until ‘the summer’, which could mean August. Implementing the plans from 1 April 2011 rather than 1 October 2010 would give councils more time to budget appropriately and make proper preparations to ensure smooth implementation.