Agenda item

Shona McFarlane, Director of Health and Wellbeing, presented a report on the transfer of the Independent Living Fund (ILF) to local authorities as from 30^th June, 2015.

The ILF was established by the Government in 1988 as a charitable trust which made payments to disabled people on low income who had to pay for personal care.  The maximum ILF award was £475 per week.

It was the Government’s original intention to close the Fund from April, 2015, and transfer the funding and responsibilities to local authorities.  However, the closure programme was stopped due to a Court of Appeal ruling regarding the Government’s administration of the process.  This had now been resolved and it had been announced in March, 2014, that the ILF would close on 30^th June, 2015.

There were currently 105 ILF users in Rotherham 62 of which were known to the Learning Disability Service and the remainder known to other Adult Social Care Teams.  All had received information about changes to their future funding and, in recent months, ILF administrators and Local Authority Social Workers had conducted joint reviews of each user. 

There were 33 people with a learning disability in supported living schemes who received ILF funding for a significant proportion of their care package.  To continue in supported living the ILF funding would need to be replaced by revenue funding from the Local Authority.

ILF policies on deciding funding packages were different to the criteria of Fairer Access to Care Services (FACS).  Frequently ILF paid for ‘desirable’ elements of care that FACS could not.  There were also significant differences between ILF rules on user contributions to support packages and Fairer Charging.

It was likely that many ILF users would face a reduction in support funding if FACS was applied across the total care package.  In many instances users had received high levels of ILF funding for desirable rather than essential elements of support.

The proposed options were:-

For customers in the community:-

Option A – replicate existing funding packages by replacing ILF with a Direct Payment.  Customers would be happy and this would be relatively easy to administer.  However, this would replicate what was already a 2 tier system and there may be challenges from customers who did not previously receive ILF funding.

Option B – replicate existing funding packages but agree a phased reduction over a fixed period.  There were likely to be fewer complaints and customers could make a more gradual adjustment to the loss of funding.  However, this was potentially a very complex administrative process for the Local Authority.

Option C – assess everyone under FACS criteria and award funding accordingly.  Whilst this was probably fairer, it would cause hardship and/or some significant readjustments of lifestyle for some very disabled people and their carers.

For people in supported living schemes:-

To allocate an appropriate amount into the Supported Living budget to allow the placements to continue.  The alternative would be significantly more costly and inappropriate residential care placements.

Discussion ensued on the report with the following issues raised:-

-          Public perception

-          Due to the age profile of the customers, the numbers were not expected to decrease significantly and would have an entitlement for many years to come

-          Uncertainty of the budget which was not ringfenced

-          Could leave the Authority in an overspend position for those receiving ‘desirable’ elements of care

-          Some users would receive exactly the same service as they currently received; others would get the service to meet their needs

-          Benchmarking showed that Rotherham was higher in spending terms with regard to meeting learning disability needs

Resolved:-  (1)  That, following the 2015 transfer to the Local Authority, Option C (as set out above) be approved together with maintaining the necessary support for Supported Living.

(2)  That provision be made for those instances were challenges were made by clients and a phased reduction negotiated.