Someone has brought this little anomaly to my attention and I was wondering if anyone else had noticed it:
1. when PC capital limits increase to £10,000 in November the effect on GC will be a straight increase of £8pw for people with enough tarrif income.
2. However for Savings Credit it will be more complicated. Since tarrif income is a qualifying income for SC, the qualifying income will go down by £8. This results in a drop of up to £4.80 in your SC.
3. The overall effect will be, for people with SC through tarrif income, that they get a total increase of £3.20 with £4.80 being in effect transferred from SC to GC.
4. Fair enough, they're still better off. But now consider Fairer Charging Guidance which requires (para.27) that all SC is disregarded. Effectively you are transferring £4.80 from SC (where it is disregarded for Fairer Charging) to GC (where it counts).
5. If you are paying charges for a non-residential care package (say at 75% of excess income which is the figure here in Wirral), you then get a £3.20 increase in your overall PC and a £6 increase in your charges (because your chargeable income has gone up by £8: £3.20 actual increase, £4.80 transferred from SC to GC).

If others agree with the analysis, any suggestions where we can take this up?

Richard Atkinson

Hi Richard,

We don't deal with community care issues including fairer charging but I do agree with your analysis and figures.

If there is any discretion for LA's in the fairer charing guide, then I would suggest asking locally for an additional disregard to match the lost £2.80 and then take it up with the relevant government department (DoH?) regarding altering the rules on a national basis...?

I also agree with analysis..something I hadn't considered...of course, all LA charging for Domiciliary care IS discretionary under LASSASSA.

Could be worth a pop on an affected client with a view to more general LA policy change...sounds like a wider social policy issue aswell.

I thought I'd posted this earlier but it doesn't seem to have appeared.

There will, of course, be a higher protected income figure because of the basis from which the 25%+ figure is assessed. That will offset, to a lesser or greater degree, this calculation.