PA rate of pay for more complex tasks

Camellia
Camellia Online Community Member Posts: 89 Empowering
edited August 27 in Housing and independent living

Hi

I am autistic and will be having a PA for half a day on average a week to help with tasks requiring strong spoken and written language skills such as assisting me at meetings, writing formal letters, assisting me as a litigant in person at a tribunal etc - all for things, I cannot get help for, through local advocacy services.

My local council has a set rate for PA pay that is in my view, insufficient to recruit and keep an individual with the necessary skills to do the role, for only a limited number of hours per week.

Has anyone had any luck with getting their local authority to approve a higher rate of PA pay for more complex tasks?


Or does everyone just ‘top up’ the PA’s pay in such instances?

Does anyone know what the law is with regards to PA pay?

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

Camellia

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Comments

  • Holly_Scope
    Holly_Scope Posts: 3,981 Scope Online Community Coordinator

    Hi @Camellia I'm really sorry you've not had a response to this. I haven't been through it personally myself, but I'd say if you were concerned about it's definitely worth disputing this with your local authority if you haven't already. This link might be helpful, specifically the financial assessment part - Challenging or complaining about social care | Disability charity Scope UK. I hope you're able to get this resolved if you haven't already. If you have, it'd be great to know how things went?

  • Camellia
    Camellia Online Community Member Posts: 89 Empowering

    Hi Holly, Thanks for responding and for the link.

    I have now made a formal complaint and have also written to the statutory monitoring officer at the council. And will take it to the Local Government Ombudsman if I need to.

    For anyone who is interested, there is something in the care act about the budget needing to be sufficient to meet needs. If the council set rate does not match the going rate; the service user will not be able to purchase all the hours of help they need. There was also a legal precedent set - Havering Council if I remember correctly - where a lady who had to ‘top up’ her PAs pay from her own resources, had this rectified by the court.

    I may post back here in some months time to let you know how I got on with the rate of pay issue.

  • Camellia
    Camellia Online Community Member Posts: 89 Empowering
  • Holly_Scope
    Holly_Scope Posts: 3,981 Scope Online Community Coordinator

    Thanks @Camellia for sharing all of that. I'm sure it'll be helpful to others in the future who are going through something similar. I'm just sorry you're having to go through this ordeal. I hope it's not too stressful. It'd be really good to hear how you get on, thank you.

  • Camellia
    Camellia Online Community Member Posts: 89 Empowering

    thanks Holly,

    I am very happy to dig up my notes from going to some workshops by Belinda SCHWER (a barrister with expertise in the care act) which have covered this topic- if anyone asks

    Here is a link to some of her slides from one of these talks.

    https://cascaidr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Direct-Payments-The-rate-core-material-and-getting-the-rate-UP-Week-3.pdf


    If the link doesn’t work it is on the CASCAIDr.org.uk website and the title of the talk is: Direct Payments and the core material on the rate and the law

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