Purpose

Proposed decision:
Approve the fee uplifts for
Adult Social Care Providers for 2025/2026 and delegate authority to
the Corporate Director Adult Social Care and Health to take
relevant actions, including any changes to the percentage uprates,
as necessary to implement the decision
 
Reason for the decision:  We uplift our fees in line with our contract terms
and in order to fulfil our duty to
ensure a reasonable supply of good quality care.
 
We are
cognisant of the impact of changes announced in the budget on the
increase in the National Living Wage (6.7%) and changes in
employers National Insurance Contributions, which combined with the
National Living Wage adds upwards of 9% to the costs of employment.
The local government settlement does not take account of the impact
of these cost increases on the adult social care provider sector.
The additional £680m funding for social care does not come
close to meeting the full impact of these changes.
 
The
detail of the uplift proposals will be set out in the formal
decision report , which cannot be
finalised until after we have received the local government finance
settlement which will not be received before 19 December
2024.
 
The
County Council has met with providers to discuss the impact of
these changes and has worked together with Kent Integrated Care
Association to lobby the Government for proper funding.
 
Direct
Payments will be handled separately depending on the purpose of the
payment.
 
The decision
supports Priority 4 of ‘Framing Kent’s
Future’, to ensure the sufficiency of the market of social care in Kent and
objective 2 of Securing Kent’s Future to set a
sustainable budget and meet our Best Value duty.
 

Other Options Considered and Discarded

 
Apply differing standard percentage uplifts applied to specified
framework contracts according to the services provided.
We rejected this option given the funding envelope
available and the need to try to sustain the wider market, not just
those on our framework contracts.
 
Apply no uplifts across all services:
this was discarded, because although we cannot meet
providers’ expectations, we have
to do what we can within our constrained resources to
support providers with their challenges.
Apply standard percentage uplift across all service
provisions: This was rejected because it
would not recognise the differential impact between providers with
differing fee levels.
 
The
proposal will be based on allocating the available funds to try to
maximise the benefit and secure stability in the care
markets.
 

Decision

As Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and
Public Health, I:
 
a)       APPROVE the fee
uplifts for Adult Social Care Providers for 2025/2026; and
 
b)       DELEGATE authority
to the Corporate Director Adult Social Care and Health, to take
relevant actions within the overall budget allocation, including
any changes to the percentage rates, as necessary to implement the
decision.