Issue details

22/00063 - Additional Mid Year Adult Social Care Community Contract Fee Uplifts

Proposed decision:

As Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health, I propose to:

a)    APPROVE the proposed fee uplifts as set out below

 

Contract

Percentage Uplift

Care and Support in the Home - Home Care

4%

Care and Support in the Home – Supported Living/Supporting Independence Service

4%

 

b)    DELEGATE authority to the Corporate Director Adult Social Care and Health in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health, to agree the fee uplift for Direct Payments and Personal Assistants; and

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

 

Reason for decision:

The exponential increase in fuel costs and the general cost of living increases means that for community providers the 3% fee uplift applied in April is not sufficient to meet the rising costs of delivery, leading to an increased number of unmet care packages as framework providers are unable to meet the costs of delivering these.Providers have highlighted that they are facing spending pressures from inflation and increased pay and national insurance costs in excess of the average 3% provision for locally negotiated fee uplifts that was affordable within the 2022-23 budget. The 3% fee uplift was set, taking into account the Kent pay scheme recommendations for 2022-23, the significant financial support given to providers over the last two years, and the available funding for 2022-23 raised through council tax and government grant settlement.

 

The most efficient way to offset these pressures is to provide an additional mid-year fee uplift to ensure community providers have sufficient capacity to continue to deliver key services.

 

Updates to client management systems will require a considerable amount of information to be made available in a timely manner to enable the systems to correctly reflect the decision made. The scope of the fee uplifts, in terms of eligible services and providers, rates to be applied and requirements for automated and manual inputting of data, will be required at key points in July to enable test runs of data in the systems.

 

All additional fee uplifts will be made as soon as all system changes and arrangements are in place, and this will be no later than 15 August. This enables a logical process for communication to providers as their invoices are clear and are based on full weeks. Further, this links in to benefit reassessments and other factors

Financial Implications:

The table below sets out the budget allocation that is estimated would be required to fund the proposed 4% fee uplift as recommended in this report. This does not include Direct Payments or Personal Assistants.

 

Contract Type

Amount (£000)

Care and Support in the Home – Homecare

1,387.1

Care and Support in the Home – Supported Living/Supporting Independence Service

3,019.9

Total

4,406.9

 

The proposed additional 4% fee uplift represents an affordable amount accounting for the cost pressures facing community services and will be funded from the Adult Social Care and Health (ASCH) prices and market sustainability budgets.

 

There will be crossover with Children, Young People and Education (CYPE) who also access these contracts for those young people aged 0-18 and 18-25. The impact of the additional price increase for children’s is a further £479k in a full year. CYPE will fund £269k from their remaining prices monies and ASCH will fund £210k from the market sustainability budget (all in a full year). However, CYPE Commissioning are involved and aware of this approach.

Decision type: Key

Reason Key: Affects more than two Electoral Divisions;

Decision status: Recommendations Approved

Division affected: (All Division);

Notice of proposed decision first published: 29/06/2022

This decision will be taken under urgency procedures.

Decision due: Not before 11th Jul 2022 by Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health

Lead director: Richard Smith

Department: Social Care, Health & Wellbeing

Contact: Clare Maynard, Head of Commercial and Procurement.

Consultees

No Cabinet Committee consultation possible due to urgency process: The chair of the Scrutiny Committee, Group Spokespeople of the Scrutiny Committee and Chair and Group Spokespeople of the Adult Social Care Cabinet Committee will be consulted as part of the urgency process and their comments will be included in the Record of Decision. The decision will be reported retrospectively to the Adult Social Care Cabinet Committee.

Financial implications: As above.

Legal implications: Following all necessary governance and budgetary approval, providers who are to be awarded a fee uplift will be contacted via email (letters by post shall be used by exception only). This will be via an agreed standard template outlining the award percentage. It is important to note this mid-year fee uplift is provided for the purpose of sustainability and is not a contractual requirement.

Equalities implications: This mid-year fee uplift will enable providers to continue to deliver care in the community, failure to do this would have a significant negative impact on the relevant protected characteristic groups.

Decisions