Decision details

Background: Providers are seeing an immediate impact on their cashflow, with an significant increase in costs for items PPE, Agency staff, food and taxis. The most efficient way to inject funding in the sector is to provide an additional payment to help cover these costs and to ensure they have sufficient capacity to continue to deliver key services

Social care providers are a key part of the emergency  response to the COVID19 pandemic The social care provider market has been significantly affected by rising costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, this could impact on their ability to continue delivering the services commissioned by Kent County Council and on the ability to support the NHS and social care to discharge their statutory responsibilities.

Recent guidance has been published jointly from the Local Government Association (LGA) and Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) on providing temporary funding to assist social care providers during the period of COVID19.

In line with the guidance Kent needs to support the security of the social care provider market in Kent during the COVID19 crisis and enable providers to maintain delivery of essential services to the vulnerable people of Kent it is proposed to award additional payments to Adult Social Care Providers in Kent, the equivalent of 2 weeks provision of care, in recognition of the additional costs that providers are incurring as a result of and in response to the COVID19 pandemic.

Advance payments equivalent to one week’s provision of care (approx. £6.5m) were previously made to providers on the basis that this would be recovered, however it is now proposed that this payment will not be recovered, and will form one of the 2 weeks’ payment identified above. 

The Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health is asked to:

a)    AWARD additional payments to Adult Social Care Providers in Kent, to the equivalent of 2 weeks provision of care, to cover the additional costs that providers are incurring as a result of and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic;

b)    DELEGATE authority to the Corporate Director of Adult Social Care and Health, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health and the Corporate Director for Finance, to finalise the terms of and confirm the relevant payments as required; and

c)    DELEGATE authority to the Corporate Director of Adult Social Care and Health to take other relevant actions, including but not limited to entering into and finalising the terms of relevant contracts or other legal agreements, as necessary to implement the decision

Reason for decision’s urgency - The relevant providers require additional payment to manage the additional costs in relation to pandemic immediately.  The system for processing payments and banking rules will mean this takes approximately a week to implement and any further delay will mean that some providers will struggle to continue delivering services because of cash flow implications.

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