Under the Supporting People Charging Guidance, in Scotland at least, receipt of Housing Benefit means that you do not have to pay a SP charge. So a tenant getting £1 a week HB, could save £00s per week on SP - great! However, there is a danger that some pensioners on the margins of HB entitlement will be floated off HB if they now claim and receive Savings Credit, thus having to pay for SP. I am simply keeping my fingers crossed that no such cases arise.

The Pensions Service are either unaware of this problem or simply don't care as their objective is to maximise the numbers of people claiming savings credit.

Age Concern (or Age Concern Scotland if appropriate) would certainly like to hear if you come across cases where a resident only marginally above HB entitlement faces unreasonable supporting people charges.
There are various transitional protections (eg for people who received HB before April 2003), but the key will be in the LA charging procedure.

quote from our information sheet
"A tenant who does not receive Housing Benefit or an owner occupier not getting Pension Credit, Income Support or Jobseeker's Allowance might be able to get help through the local authority's Fairer Charging policies for charging for personal care services. Authorities have been told they must avoid a 'cliff edge', so that residents whose incomes are just above benefit level do not have to pay the full cost of their support services.
A resident who does not receive one of the above benefits but considers that they need help with their support charges should contact their local Supporting People team. Local authorities may vary in whether they are prepared to use their Fairer Charging policies for Supporting People services. If the administering authority will not do this you can complain through your local authority complaints procedure."

available at
http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/AgeConcern/media/IS19SupportingPeoplejul04.pdf

Also as you correctly say local Pension Service knowledge/awareness of supporting people is patchy

alban

Thanks - useful leaflet and look forward to a Scottish version in due course. In Scotland, because of the different legal relationship between the Scottish Executive and local authorities, the SP Charging Guidance is less prescriptive. The COSLA Guidance to local authorities recommends a unified charging policy for all (care/support services) but local authorities are free to make up their own rules. I deal with 21 local authorities and am continuing to monitor, as best I can, what is actually happening on the ground.
Also in Scotland there is continuing controversy re the free personal care policy and this is probably indirectly influencing what's happening re SP charging policy!

Hi

Only last month we came across exactly what has been said above.

Client previously paying support charges to Abbeyfield pre April 2003, after this full Support Charges (£70 Wkly) paid directly to Supporting People.

Unfortunatly the Social Worker involved did not bother or know how to check the benefit situation.

We checked last week to discover, not only should they have had HB help from at least April 2003, and therefore full transitional Supporting People charges exemption, but she also should have had Pension Credit Guarantee from October 2003 (and M.I.G earlier).

We did backdate her PC claim to October and forwarded her award notice to Supporting People who very quickly refunded £3,331 to them, they also said they would look at the later period.

That's all well and good.

However what we also discovered?

As they did not have any HB last April Supporting People have simply sent them a bill for the full Support Charge (£70 Wkly, no benefit check, no calculation to see how much over HB help they were, no 65% tariff etc.

Quite worrying and how many others are out there?