Agenda item

The minutes of the meeting of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission held on 18 AUGUST 2022 have been circulated and the Commission is asked to confirm them as a correct record.

The Chair suggested that a Members briefing session be arranged following the Health and Care Reforms item and delays on the White Paper and to help understand the market stability plans and fair cost of care plans. The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education noted that this situation could change and that the government had announced some key elements of the reforms had been postponed for 2 years. The Introduction of Care Accounts and Care Cap and the changes to the means test which was more important to Leicester were parts of the reforms that had been delayed.

Additionally, under section 18.3 of the Care Act which allowed for self-funders to request the authority to buy their care for them at the rate the local authority pays had not been commenced. Therefore, the Fair Cost of Care work had also changed as there was no longer the pressure for local authority fee rates to be increased in order so that, there was no differential between self-funders and the local authority rates and as a result, the government would not be allocating the funding that would have been allocated for that particular purpose.

Overall, with key parts of the reforms postponed, it was not clear at this stage if the local authority would need to provide a market sustainability plan but the department will do so anyway. As a result, it was suggested that it would none the less be helpful to provide a briefing session for Members as a lot of the reform programme would still be going ahead.

Members of the Commission welcomed this, as it would bring Members up to speed in an area where there were constant changes. Additionally, Members of the Commission also suggested that in advance of the budget, the briefing session should also cover aspects of the budget.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education took the opportunity to update the Commission following the Autumn Statement where £2.7 Billion of funding had been announced for Adult Social Care next year. Funding that was going to be allocated for reforms had been taken to increase fees, a majority of the funds were from the Better Care Fund which went to the NHS and the Adult Social Care service would work with the NHS on allocating this funding. Some of the additional funds also came from the Social Care Grant and it was important to recognise that this was for adults and children and was a non-ringfenced grant.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education further noted that, although, the DHSC Officials had been talking as if all of the money was going to go to adult social care, this was not the case and that although there was an element of the funding that was ringfenced to Adult Social Care, there was a large amount that was based on the presumption that councils would put up Council Tax by the additional 2%. DHSC have assumed that councils would have raised Council Tax to work out spending power and this would be a decision made by Full Council for Leicester in due course.

The Government had recognised that there was an inverse correlation between the amount the council can raise in council tax and the level of need for Adult Social Care. Essentially, more deprived places are in need of more adult social care services and are able to raise less money, so the government had indicated that they would change the formula by which they allocate the £400million that is in the ringfenced Adult Social Care Grant to take account of that and the consequence of this was that the council did not yet know what Leicester would receive. It was suggested that this would be in the region of £12million but it was critical to recognise that the budget work already carried out suggested that pressures would be in excess of the £12million and that the service did not have more money this year but the amount of reserve the council would need to spend would be smaller than it would have been.

Members were reminded of the briefing session that had been arranged on next Thursday and discussions were had about the possibility of rearranging this in the new year as there were other meetings on at the same day.

AGREED:

That the minutes of the meeting of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission on 18 August 2022 be confirmed as a correct record.