Do I have to disclose my sisters financial affairs to her supported living providers?

wendy40

Hi all, I'm new here. I'm in need of some advice please. My sister lives in supported living and has done for about 6 years now. The providers where she lives are requesting to make all of her financial affairs, i.e benefits how much, when paid etc, if they have savings. I am their apointree and have POA and Seal with all the financials. Can I refuse to disclose this information to them? Does anyone know where I stand on this? Thank You 

Rosie_Scope

Hi @wendy40, welcome to the community. I'm afraid this isn't my area of expertise, but I hope some of our members will be along shortly to offer their advice. I just wanted to say hello and welcome first!

I'll pop your post over to our disability rights section where more people with the right experiences can find it  

woodbine

@wendy40 hi and welcome to scope, I assume they are assessing her contribution to her supported living cost ? if thats the case then yes you will have to provide what they are asking for being her appointee with POA will make no difference.

surfygoose

I would have thought they don’t have the right to know if you don’t want them to. The local authority would have done a financial assessment to decide how much she needs to pay towards her care from her benefits and as her appointee I’m sure you are the one dealing with making any payments from her benefits towards her care package. As long as you are keeping the actual benefits people informed if her savings went above the limits for claiming means tested benefits and informed the local authority if she had new sources of income to take into account, then I don’t see why the supported living provider has to know all of those details. If they were the ones supporting her to make the payments or to make benefits claims then of course they would need to know so they can do it for / with her.
i live in residential care and my parents support me with my finances. My care home has never asked us exactly what benefits I’m claiming or how much I’m paying the local authority towards my care or how much money I have. Yes they have sections in the care plan and risk assessments about money but they simply have it recorded that my financial affairs are looked after with me by my parents who have power of attorney. I can see why they need that written down just so they can show that I am not being neglected and that they are aware of who is helping me, but they don’t need to be able to have any of my bank details or how much money I have. Also they hold some of my cash for me in the safe in the home so they can give me access to spend it on what I need with the staff, but again, either my parents hand that money in to the staff or the staff take me to the cash point, but they have never asked how much I have in total, they just mark down for example that they are looking after £100 for me so they can take me for haircuts or shopping etc.

wendy40

Thank you surfygoose. Basically it has arisen as I questioned their spending of my sister's money and requested receipts etc and now they have come back with they don't have any financial details on him and want to know what benefits, how much, how frequent and what bank account it is paid into and if she has savings. I feel this is a violation of their privacy but not sure if legally I can withhold such information. They are saying it is a requirement by CQC but I'm not too sure 

surfygoose

I would agree with you and I just asked the staff at my care home and they said that CQC don’t require that of them here in residential care, and I also messaged and asked my friend’s mum who manages his money in his supported living and they don’t require that either. Does seem funny and also seems interesting timing that they’ve raised this issues only after you raised concerns about spending. Are they just deflecting from the issue you raised. You can always contact CQC yourself and ask them. They are very friendly, we’ve contacted CQC before outside of inspection time when we had concerns with my old care home and they had someone phone us back and were very respectful.

woodbine

wendy40 said:

Thank you surfygoose. Basically it has arisen as I questioned their spending of my sister's money and requested receipts etc and now they have come back with they don't have any financial details on him and want to know what benefits, how much, how frequent and what bank account it is paid into and if she has savings. I feel this is a violation of their privacy but not sure if legally I can withhold such information. They are saying it is a requirement by CQC but I'm not too sure 

is the supported care subsidised in any way ? does she pay towards it ? if yes then they are perfectly allowed to request details of income and savings, just as they would as an example if someone was in a care home. I'm really not sure what your problem is ?

surfygoose

I live in a care home and pay towards my care with my benefits but it’s not the care home that does the financial assessment. That’s the local authority. I pay the local authority my care bill and then they top it up and pay the care home. That’s why the lady is wondering why the support provider needs to know all of her sister’s finances because it’s unusual that they would need to know. The provider would need to know someone’s financial situation if they are responsible for informing the benefits people of their savings limits being reached but if her sister is her appointee and is managing her finances for her then they wouldn’t have to know. Usually they would just need to record in their care records who is responsible for managing the person’s finances. They may be asking so that when staff support her with spending her money they can be more careful to not overspend, but that could be dealt with by her appointee telling the home what an acceptable weekly budget is for her sister to spend.

wendy40

Thank you all for the replies. Yes basically I feel it's a little retaliation from me questioning them and now it's escalated to this. 
Care is funded by local authority and I pay for my sister's bills,food etc. I just wanted a legal on stance on if I can not disclose this information as it seems a violation of her affairsr.