Local Authority - Care Funding
If you need home care , live-in care or have to move into a care home, local authority care funding can contribute to your care costs– in full or part. The rules for how funding works are laid out in the Care Act 2014.
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Care Act | Care Needs Assessment | Financial Assessment | Personal Budget | Direct Payment
What is a Care Act?
The Care Act 2014 is a piece of legislation that governs local authority’s duties in relation to assessing your care needs and your eligibility for publicly-funded care and support.
The Act creates a single, consistent set of rules about who is entitled to local authority care funding and how the assessment process works to figure this out.It covers all adults with care needs.
This begins with an assessment of your needs and a decision about whether your needs are eligible, including a financial assessment where necessary. This will determine whether you need to pay for your own care.
After the process of assessment is finished, the decision can be made about whether you’re entitled to care and support arranged by the Local Authority.Where care is needed the local authority have the responsibility to meet your care needs.
The Local authority must help you to make decisions about how you want your needs to be met and prepare a care and support plan.
Under the Act, there’s more flexibility to focus on what you need and what you want to achieve, and to design a package of care and support that suits you.
What is the Assessment Process?
An assessment is how a Local Authority decides whether you need care and support to help you live your day-to-day life.
The assessment must be carried out by an appropriately trained assessor, for instance a Social Worker or Occupational Therapist.
The aim is to get a full picture of your life and what needs and goals you may have. After carrying out the assessment, the council will then consider whether any of the needs identified make you eligible for support.
The local Authority uses an eligibility framework to decide which needs are eligible to be met by public care and support.
What are the requirements for the Assessment?
The assessment must:
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Be provided to all people who appear to need care and support, regardless of their finances or whether the local authority thinks their needs will be eligible.
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Be of your needs and how they impact your wellbeing, and the outcomes you want to achieve.
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Be carried out with the involvement of you, your carer or anyone else you’d like to nominate. If you’d like one, the council has a duty to help you choose an independent advocate to represent you during the assessment.
How the Local Authority determine if you have eligible needs?
You’ll have eligible needs if you meet all of the following:
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You have care and support needs as a result of a physical or a mental condition being determined under certain section of the Mental Health Act.
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Because of those needs, you can’t achieve two or more day-to-day ‘outcomes’, like getting dressed, going to the toilet or completing domestic chores.
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As a result a significant impact on your wellbeing resulted after
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Who should pay for care?
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Local authority funding: When you primarily have social care needs. This is when you need help to get on with your daily life. Think about your ability to: dress, eat, get around and maintain a social life.
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NHS Continuing Healthcare: When you primarily have health care needs. This is when your illness or condition means you need regular help. Think about support with breathing, help with medication and the general impact of the condition
How important should your involvement be in care and support planing be?
The Act provides you with a legal entitlement to a personal budget, which is an important part of your care and support plan. This is how much money you’ll be paid towards your care. It must be included in every plan, unless you’re only receiving intermediate care or re-enablement support to meet your identified needs.
This adds to your right to ask for a direct payment to meet some or all of your needs. Provided that the direct payment is used to meet the needs identified in your plan, you should have freedom over how the money is spent.
You must be involved in developing your plan. The local authority will have to do everything the can to agree the plan with you.
The Local Authority must also provide an independent advocate if necessary to help you take part in the planning and review process.
Care Needs Assesment
The care needs assessment will tell you exactly what care needs you have and what support is available to you.
If you’re entitled to funding from the council, the care needs assessment determines the size of your budget. It involves an assessor asking you about your day-to-day life and how you cope with certain things
Getting started is easy. Simply contact your council to apply.
How the local authorities assess your needs
If you need help, don't think that you can’t get help because you may be different or because you may have money. When you are struggling physically, mentally or you my just need little help with your tasks, is best to contact your local authority for help. They can talk to you about your daily life to give them an idea of the support you need. This process is called a care needs assessment.
To request a care assessment you can contact the local authority by telephone, in writing or online, and to do that you can
Apply for a needs assessment on GOV.UK
To get you care needs assessed a trained professional from the local authorities like a Social Worker, Occupational Therapist or Nurse will ask how you feel and how managing your day-to-day tasks. They do this in order to get a clearer picture of what your life looks like. Think about the things you’re coping well with, and those you’re finding a bit of a struggle.
If you feeling unsure, you can have a friend or relatives with you to support with the needs assessment or in any case those are not available you can have an advocate. who can speak on your behalf.
The local authorities are looking at your assessment as a whole to determine if:
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You have a care and support needs caused by a physical or mental condition
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You can achieve two or more outcomes in your day-to-day life
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Your care and support needs have an impact on your wellbeing.
After the assessment, the local authority making the decision of whether you need help, and provide you with the results of the assessment.This will identifies what kind of care and support would help you and information of how to pay for your care
If the assessment identifies you need help, you will need to have the financial assessment (means test) to see if you eligible for any payment towards your care which will be arranged by the local authority.
Care Needs Assessment
Financial Assessment
Financial assessment is to look at whether is your responsibly to pay for your care or the local authorities. The local authorities are helping to pay for your care needs when you have less then £23,250 and this depends on your eligible care needs decided at your care needs assessment.
The financial assessment and the care needs assessment go hand in hand.
First, the care needs assessment determines what your needs are, and then the financial assessment determines how much caring for your needs will cost and who is going to pay for it.
How do you apply for a financial assessment?
Financial assessment is usually face to face meeting in your own home at council office if you prefer or over the phone.
During the meeting, a financial assessment officer, who is employed by your local authority will review your finances with you. The assessment officer will look at evidence of your income and outgoings and ask you questions about how much money you have and where this money comes from. Mainly the financial officer will look at your earnings, pension, benefits (Attendance Allowance), savings and properties.
The financial officer would not need to know about your possessions or any life insurance policies and they won`t ask you to sale your home before your financial assessment.
If you’re a homeowner, one important difference to the financial assessment is whether or not you’re hoping to be cared for in your own home, or move to a care home.
If you’re cared for at home, your house is not included in the financial assessment.
If you’d like to move to a care home, then your house will be included in the financial assessment and in this instance, the payment that local authority paying for your care are low. Also, the financial officer will be looking at your capital, income and expenses.
If you have savings or other capital assets (excluding your main home) over £23,250, you are unlikely to get local authority funding for your care and support. If you are deemed eligible for support, you can request a Personal Budget which you can take in the form of a Direct Payment, held directly by you or by a suitable person on your behalf.
Appeal if you are not happy with the assessment
If you are not happy with the result of your financial assessment, you have the right to complain and how you can do that is entirely up to you.
First you can complain to your local authority and if you are still not happy with the way they have been handled your complain then you can take it to your local government and social care ombudsman
The ombudsman is an independent person who’s been appointed to be dealing with the complaints about the organisations.
Apply for it
Find out more
If you want to talk to someone about the financial assessment you can 0800 377 7070 (for older people):or FirstStop Advice
Personal Budget
A personal budget is the amount of money that’s allocated by the local authority to cover your care needs. It’s how much money you need to cover those needs, calculated after your care needs and financial assessment.
You are the person who matters most and should always be kept at the heart of any decision making about your care.
A personal budget is the means to give you the control of something you already have a right to. It promotes flexibility, choice and quality of life.
What is included in your personal budget?
Your personal budget is the amount of money your local authority will pay towards any care and support you need.
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What is the overall cost to your local authority to meet the needs identified in your care needs assessment ?
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What amount of money have you been assessed in your financial assessment as being able to afford
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How much you're able to afford yourself
Where the personal budget have been calculated by the local authority, you can chose how this can be paid:
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Directly into your account or
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Someone you chose Direct Payment
What happens when circumstances change?
Once your care and support begins, there should be an initial review after six to eight weeks. Thereafter, you are entitled to at least a yearly review. But you don’t just have to sit and wait for this. You should contact your local authority whenever you think there has been sufficient changes to your care needs and request to review your care.
Requesting a review may conclude that you need more care therefore you will need more money to pay for or also conclude the opposite.
If you think that the personal budget is not enough, you can speak with the person who carried out your care needs assessment to review it and request an explanation of how is been worked out and what system they’ve used to calculate this.
Appeal if you are not happy with your Personal Budget
If you disagree with the way you personal budget is been worked out, you can make a complaint by requesting to speak with your local authority before making a official complaint to see if they can help.
You have the right to complain if you have been told your not eligible to receive money towards your care and support or not agreeing of how much money they contributing.
You can speak with your social worker and request reassessment or contact local authority for a complaint form
If you are not happy with the local authority`s response you can contact your Local Government Ombudsman to investigate further.
Find out more
NHS Continuing Healthcare is fully funded care, paid for by the NHS-if you need more complex care for a long term condition or disability it may be possible to agree on
Personal Health Budget by the NHS team to support your identified health needs.
Direct Payment
Direct payments are a way for you to take control of your personal budget and choose for yourself how you want to spend it.
Anyone with a personal budget is entitled to apply for direct payments.
You can choose to have some, or all, of your personal budget amount paid as a direct payment.
Who's elidgible for direct payment?
To apply for a direct payment, you must have already completed your care needs assessment and financial assessment, as well as been given a personal budget.
The council has a responsibility to discuss with you ways to control your personal budget you prefer and the high majority of people should qualify for direct payments.
The Care Act is clear about direct payments. The council has a duty to discuss them with you and to give you a chance to explain why you prefer them and which care services you’d prefer to purchase with them.
So long as you can demonstrate that you, or someone acting on your behalf, is able to properly control the personal budget, and you identify care services that are within budget and will meet your eligible care needs, your request should be accepted.
How does direct payment work?
The options will usually vary depending on the arrangements made by each local authority. The most common options are:
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Bank accounts – Most councils require direct payments to be paid into a separate account which you only use for direct payments and most common way is to open a standard current account.
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A third party – An accountant, or an individual service fund (ISF), or payroll services are an option, but keep in mind that this will add extra cost that will come out of your personal budget.
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Small, one-off deposits without a separate bank account – Some councils offer small payment schemes where payments up to an agreed limit (e.g. up to £500) are paid into your own, original bank account. This option is more suitable if you are just looking to buy equipment or use a service once.
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Vouchers – Some councils offer vouchers, but this will likely restrict the products and services you can buy to a limited number of companies. They are not a very popular option.
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Prepaid cards –This option is relatively new, but more and more councils are now offering this option. The council gives you a special card and they load your payments onto it for you. You don’t have to have a bank account, but some require you to use systems similar to telephone or internet banking.
Sign up for your direct payment
The council might ask you to sign a document called a direct payment agreement before you can use your direct payment to pay for services, equipment, or activities that meet your eligible care needs.
You can use your direct payment to pay for:
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Arrange an Agency to support with your care needs
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Purchase specialised equipment to support with your day to day living
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Make adaptation to your home to gain access to facilities and be supported in way you wish
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Employ a Personal Assistant for a better continuity of care and support
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Pay for social activities or Day care Centres
The local authority would like you to keep all records of your spendings and if possible ,save a receipts of all purchases. Is your responsibility and the employer if you paying for care worker.
You must remember not to spend any of your direct payment on something that is not agreed in your care plan as the local authority will end your direct payments.
If you finding difficulty in managing your personal budget or direct payment you can ask your local authority for support by contacting :
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the Disability Rights UK personal budgets helpline on 0330 995 0404
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the Age UK advice line on 0800 055 6112 (for older people)
Further information
Age UK have a detailed fact sheet on personal budgets and direct payments in social care
The Money Advice Service has a guide to direct payments
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