Forum Home → Discussion → Universal credit administration → Thread
loss of SDP/EDP & Care Act duties
Apparently the DWP are raising the point that when people lose their SDP and EDP local authorities will pick up the strain with Care Act duties.
I have no expertise in Care Act duties. Has anyone made a request to a LA to make up the short fall? I can only imagine the response!
If you have knowledge of LA Care Act responsibilities your comments would be welcome.
Not sure I entirely unserstand the question Peter? Is it that where someone is receiving local authority care and support at home and receives some kind of MTB that includes an SDP, and that SDP is subsequently lost for whatever reason, the local authority are obliged to, if requested to, carry out a review financial assessment taking account of the lower benefit income and therefore potentially paying more towards the care and support?
I think it is more along the lines of an argument like ‘DHP will make up any shortfall due to the bedroom tax’ so claimants won’t suffer hardship in practice (so the policy is justified) = LA’s have duties under the Care Act so could make up any financial loss caused by removal of SDP/EDP and claimants won’t suffer finacial hardship in practice.
Does the Care Act give such a wider power / discretionary duty to make payment to aleviate financial hardship (I assume not)? Particularly to claimants who are not otherwise engaged with the LA under the Care Act? I am assuming the LA would have at a minimum to undertake an assessemnt of care needs in addition to any financial assessment?
I think it is more along the lines of an argument like ‘DHP will make up any shortfall due to the bedroom tax’ so claimants won’t suffer hardship in practice (so the policy is justified) = LA’s have duties under the Care Act so could make up any financial loss caused by removal of SDP/EDP and claimants won’t suffer finacial hardship in practice.
Does the Care Act give such a wider power / discretionary duty to make payment to aleviate financial hardship (I assume not)? Particularly to claimants who are not otherwise engaged with the LA under the Care Act? I am assuming the LA would have at a minimum to undertake an assessemnt of care needs in addition to any financial assessment?
Does the Care Act give such a wider power / discretionary duty to make payment to aleviate financial hardship - No is the short answer.
Particularly to claimants who are not otherwise engaged with the LA under the Care Act? - Exactly, if they’re not recieving care and support already, then this kind of falls at the first hurdle.
I am assuming the LA would have at a minimum to undertake an assessemnt of care needs in addition to any financial assessment? - it’s actually slightly more nuanced than that - the duty on a local authority is to undertake a needs assessment for anyone who might have eligible care needs. If they establish that the person does have eligible needs, they then agree a care and support plan with them and this incorporates a financial assessment to decide whether the person can receive any funding support, in terms of the care and support needed to meet their eligible needs.
For more information on the financial assessment, see section 4 and 5 of our factsheet Paying for care and support at home for more details.
The Care Act also includes a preventive duty: the LA must act to prevent/reduce/delay a person’s need for care services. I think the ingenious argument that DWP is developing here goes something like this:
- the origin of the SDP is a substitute for carers allowance in a case where someone has an informal care arrangement with a friend or relative, and for whatever reason that person does not get carers allowance. The SDP enables the disabled person to make a payment equivalent to carers allowance as a thank you.
- the loss of some of that money might jeopardise such an informal arrangement, thereby increasing the risk that the LA will have to commission care services for the disabled person
- relying on the Care Act, the LA could step in and spend a small amount to preserve the informal arrangement, thus preventing or delaying the need for public provision
That argument would only work in a case where the disabled person actually is paying £60-odd a week to an informal carer in lieu of carers allowance. In reality, the SDP has over time been absorbed into generic benefit entitlement - claimants do not see it as being notionally ring fenced for care and I doubt that many claimants use it that way.
And the EDP was never conceived as a care payment in the first place.
I think the original parliamentary intent behind many benefits is being rewritten.
Carers allowance has saved the UK billions yet even now entitlement to that is being heavily scrutinised
The DWP might also be thinking of local authority direct payments for the service user to buy in their own care. However, this involves the service user establishing an employer-employee relationship with their carer, keeping detailed records of expenditure and accounting to the LA for that expenditure. Relatives are generally excluded from being employed under these arrangements unless they are registered carers.
There are also issues around paying the minimum wage (in SDP terms this will buy about 8 hours care per week), paying tax and national insurance (where due), holiday pay and health and safety at work. Furthermore, there are meticulous rules, where records are kept, on data protection. Breaches can have serious consequences.
Although there is local authority support through direct payment teams to help manage all this, it is a headache that many disabled people will run a million miles from.
This is a typical glib response from some ill-informed civil servant or junior minister who has simply no idea of realities on the ground.