Reform-led Nottinghamshire County Council’s plans to increase adult social care fees in a bid to raise £1.5 million have been branded “outrageous”.
The authority currently provides care for 12,700 adults on a permanent basis, while 4,600 people are receiving temporary care.
Some people are required to pay fees for certain services, including appointee and deputyship services, if a financial assessment deems them able to do so.
Fees have not changed since 2017, with the council’s previous Conservative administration arguing that it had sought to keep costs down for some of the county’s most vulnerable adults.
However, Reform’s cabinet agreed to raise some fees – to recover some of the costs to the council, to the tune of almost £1.5 million – at a meeting on Thursday (January 29).
Some service users will therefore see their fees rise from April this year.
Councillor Sam Smith (Con), the leader of the Nottinghamshire Conservatives opposition group said: “The fees haven’t been increased since 2017, and 2017 is a really key point because that is when the Conservatives took over control of the council.
“The reason why the fees weren’t increased is because the Conservatives believe in supporting the most vulnerable when they require it.
“Whilst blowing their trumpet saying they haven’t increased [council tax] by the maximum, what they have done on the other hand is increase the adult social care charges by over £1.45 million.
“It is outrageous. The people who need the support of the council the most are being asked to pay more under Reform.”
Asked why the fees weren’t increased by the previous Conservative administration, despite a rising deficit in adult social care, Cllr Smith added: “Would you rather have a deficit in adult social care knowing full well you are delivering good-quality care to the residents at a low cost, or would you rather increase the fees by £1.45 million and make the most vulnerable pay more?
“That was the question facing politicians. The Conservatives always took the view not to increase the fees.”
The changes include self-funder arrangement fees, which are charged when the council arranges care at home for an individual paying the full cost of their care.
For this service, the council will charge a set-up fee of £75.97, followed by £14.39 every four weeks.
This is up from a flat fee of £12.77 charged every four weeks.
Appointee fees, which are applied when the council acts on behalf of an individual and takes over responsibility for managing their money, are increasing from £57.24 to £61 per month.
A new fee structure will also come into force for the Universal Deferred Payment Scheme (UDPS), which is designed to prevent people from needing to sell their homes in their lifetime to pay for their care.
People using this will now be charged a set-up fee of £279, a closure fee of £56, and an annual fee of £275.
This marks a change from the £226 for legal support, £272 for admin, and a £25 annual fee under the previous structure – an overall increase for the service from £523 to £610 in total.
Deputyship bank charges, which are charged by a bank, will now be passed on to the service user to recover the cost, at a new fee of £6 each year; and a digital inclusion programme will now cost £3 per week.
Cllr Barry Answer, Reform’s cabinet member for adult social care, said: “It is the way we want to manage it under our administration, how we want to be fair with people.
“We want to be looking at our costs. We want to make sure we give them the best possible care, and everybody has to be assessed whether they go into a care home or assisted living, and that assessment they get costs us money and costs our staff hours to do that.
“Under the [Care] Act we can charge our costs, but we can’t make any money. It is costing us money for every assessment. Adult social care isn’t free. It is not like the NHS. It has to be paid for and the Government doesn’t give us enough money – grant money – for us to be willy-nilly. We have to manage it.
“So we are just trying to manage the way we are going forward and wanting to improve our service and make it better, and in some cases, it is going to incur a cost in that sense. But it is not a cost we are making money on; we are just covering costs.
“Nobody has to pay if they cannot afford it. If they are assessed and they aren’t able to pay it, they don’t pay it. It is only about people who are able to take that cost on.
“Every year wages go up and what have you, we have just been observing that, and we need to make sure our costs, wherever we can, are claimed back.”
Guy Van Dichele, director of adult social care at the council, added: “The costs are quite low, but we know more people are requiring those [services] and there is more demand on our staff to support that work. So the cost increases are minimal to enable us to continue to provide those services.”
