Direct Payments

honeybee700

My neurodivergent son currently lives in supported accommodation and requires help with paperwork, form filing, taking/making phone calls etc.  His social worker has agreed that my son can get a support worker of his choosing to help with that.  The local authority will make direct payments to my son who in turn will use them to pay the support worker.  However, the local authority will only pay at a rate of £14 per hour when most support workers charge @ £20PH and my son has been told he must make up the difference! Apparently this is the local authority policy even though my son does not have any savings and only gets PIP and UC.

I cannot find anything online that shows the law regarding the monetary rates for direct payments-can any body help?

poppy123456

You won’t find anything online for the rates for direct payments because there isn’t any. 

Each individual person has their own personal budget depending on their needs. Everyone will be different. 

The Local Authority will then do a financial assessment which determines how much you need to pay towards the care/support you receive. The majority of people have to pay a contribution towards this. Although your son has no savings his UC and PIP daily living part will be used in that financial assessment. 

honeybee700

poppy123456 said:

You won’t find anything online for the rates for direct payments because there isn’t any. 

Each individual person has their own personal budget depending on their needs. Everyone will be different. 

The Local Authority will then do a financial assessment which determines how much you need to pay towards the care/support you receive. The majority of people have to pay a contribution towards this. Although your son has no savings his UC and PIP daily living part will be used in that financial assessment. 

The LA did a financial assessment in April 2023 and it was determined he didn't have to contribute anything towards his social care costs as his income (even taking into account his PIP and UC) was below the minimun set by the Government. 

The LA is currently paying over £20PH to the Housing Association who are the care providers. His care plan is for 31 hours of support per week which is currently provided by the Housing Association where he lives.  This includes help with cooking, cleaning, shopping, general paperwork, making appointments, making phone calls etc etc.  However, I am not happy with the  support they give as regards his paperwork and want that to be handled by a person whom I know is more qualified to deal with it. This person's pay rate is £20PH.

So I'm trying to fing out where in law it says how much per hour the LA should pay towards care.  I could understand them refusing to pay someone £30PH as this would be excessive, but what I dont understand is why if they're already paying over £20PH to the Housing Association they cant pay the same to an individual. 

Jimm_Scope

Hi @honeybee700, sorry this discussion has been neglected this long. Can I ask how you are doing with this situation? If there have been any updates?

I hope you, if it's not sorted already, can get the local authority to help more.

I'm not sure if it will be helpful but there are sometimes grants available for this kind of support, you can search for them here at Turn2us. Grants - what you need to know. | Turn2us