Let's Talk Budget 25/26 - Adult Social Care Proposal

Overview: Fairer Charging in Adult Social Care 

Here in Stockport, we have been able to support the cost of care for our residents, unlike other areas we have capped the amount that individuals have to pay towards their care. This is known as subsidising the cost of care. Unfortunately, this is no longer possible due to the financial pressure on councils and the increasing cost of care.  

 
The Care Act, 2014 provides a single legal framework for charging and requires a local authority to assess a person’s ability to help to pay towards the cost of their care. Everyone receives a financial assessment to decide if they pay towards their care, and if they do how much this should be. All councils' complete financial assessments in the same way based on national practice. We will continue to do this. 

The aim of this consultation and the proposed updates to the Adult Social Care Charging policy is to provide a consistently equitable framework for charging people who receive care and support, following an assessment of their individual needs and financial circumstances. 

We have outlined below our proposals: - 

1. We propose to charge people based on the full cost of providing their care. 
    
   We will financially assess you against the full amount of care that you receive. Currently we have a 50% second carer discount, under this proposal that subsidy will be removed. 

2. We propose to ensure that all people who receive funded care and support from the council will be financially assessed.  

 
The Care Act, 2014 provides a single legal framework for charging and permits a local authority to assess a person’s ability to pay towards the cost of their care.  There are currently some people who receive care and support from the council for their mental health that have not had a financial assessment.  

This proposal would mean these people have a financial assessment and may have to pay towards the cost of their care. 

3. Currently we subsidise care provided in your home by having a cap of £485 per week on the amount that we charge you. This is known as the maximum assessed charge. 

 
We propose to remove this cap to bring us in line with other councils.  However, you will not be asked to pay more than the amount in your financial assessment. 
  

4. Currently we apply a 10% discount to the value of any capital that you may have. Under this proposal that subsidy will be removed. This will impact people who receive care at home and people who receive care in a care or nursing home. 

5. We propose to introduce a charge for arranging care for people who are not eligible for council funding and fully pay for their own care. 

6. Currently we do not charge any interest on money owed to the council when a Deferred Payment Agreement has not been signed. We are proposing to introduce interest charges on the money owed to the council (known as accrued debt). The Care Act 2014 allows us to do this and sets the maximum amount that councils are able to charge. You can read more about how we will calculate this in our frequently asked questions. 

7. Currently we do not charge people for the protection of property. We are proposing to introduce charging for services related to the protection of property. The Care Act 2014 allows us to recover reasonable costs from people relating to protection of property. 

We want to find out what people think about our proposals. We are consulting through: 

• The online consultation, which is also available as a paper copy and in different formats 

• Correspondence with key stakeholders and partners 

• Email /Letter to residents directly affected 

• A number of public forums, these sessions are detailed below. You can book a place on one of these sessions using the links below.  

We will also be arranging an online session which will be delivered one evening. 

In total, all seven proposed charges should take no more than 15 minutes to complete and residents are able to select only those proposal(s) that are relevant to themselves.