Draft Charging Policy for Social Care Services
In this section
- Managing property and finances
- Advocacy
- Deferred payments
- Invoicing for charges
- Non-payment of charges and debt
- Deprivation of Assets
- Additional costs (AC) for permanent / temporary admissions to a care home
- Additional costs (AC) for respite/short-term admissions to a care home
- Application of the rules to individual cases
- Reviews and methods of appeal
- Appendix 1 - Variations/adjustments to charges for financially assessed services
- Appendix 2 - Operational rules for commencement and termination of packages of care and support
Financial assessment
12. Financial assessment
All persons with care and support needs who receive a chargeable service other than services provided at a flat rate fee, will be invited to have a financial assessment to determine how much he/she can afford to pay for their assessed package of Care and Support commissioned by, or on behalf of or provided by the local authority.
Persons with care and support needs can decide not to declare their financial assets. In such cases, that person will be charged the appropriate charge for the services they are assessed to receive up to the maximum charge for a non-residential service and the full cost for a residential care home placement.
When a person with care and support needs declares their assets, expenditure, expenses etc., they will be asked to provide documentation to support and enable verification of financial and other information declared for the financial assessment.
If the documentation requested is not provided, then that person will be assessed as if they have chosen not to declare their assets or any other information.
A person with care and support needs will normally be expected to return the completed financial assessment information within 15 working days. A person with care and support needs can request an extension, and Carmarthenshire will consider any reasonable request and where an extension is refused then it will explain the reasons for the refusal.
Carmarthenshire will undertake the financial assessment and will confirm the result, together with a breakdown of the calculation in writing to the person with care and support needs or any other person nominated by them.
All charges will be applied from the first day that the service(s) are received. Where any service(s) changes or a person’s financial circumstances change, then any revised charges will be applied form the date the change occurred.
Carmarthenshire will normally review the financial assessment annually or sooner if further relevant information becomes available or if it is notified of changes to someone’s financial circumstances.
The financial assessment will not impact in any way on the assessment of a person’s care or support needs.
The weekly charge for services runs from a Monday to Sunday.
The authority will charge based on the assessed level of service of the person shown in the care and support plan and variations to the charge will apply as set out in Appendix 1. Variations to the assessed level of service will not necessarily mean that the charge to the person with care and support needs will reduce for that week because the person may have been financially assessed to pay less than the charge for the reduced service.
Some support services will be charged based on the service delivered to the care recipient, e.g. if the Care and Support Plan states that the service is ‘up to XX hours per week’, the service user will be charged for the hours actually delivered to them.
Similarly, services provided once long-term needs have been identified following an assessment service will be charged based on services delivered until a Care and Support Plan has been completed.
