The Executive Director of Social Care and Health submitted a report outlining the requirements of the Fair Cost of Care and Market Sustainability Fund and providing an overview of the actions to date alongside the planned next steps including submission of a Draft Market Sustainability Plan to the Department of Health & Social Care.

The report noted that the government had committed to a national programme of Adult Social Care reforms which would significantly impact on the ‘cost’ of Adult Social Care. The ‘Fair Cost of Care’ element of the reforms required local authorities to undertake a collaborative exercise with Adult Social Care Providers of Home Care (for people aged over 18) and Providers of Nursing and Residential services (for people aged over 65) to determine a ‘Fair Cost of Care’ and to develop a 3-year Market Sustainability Plan.

The report explained that the current care market was such that people who funded their own care often needed to pay much higher rates for their care than people whose care was commissioned by local authorities.  This had long been considered unfair and the government was keen to create a system whereby comparable rates were paid for care, no matter whether the care was funded by the local authority or directly by the person receiving care.  As a consequence of the government’s social care reforms therefore, any care provider currently charging a higher rate to self-funders and/or using self-funder income for the same service to subsidise the true cost of care, might be at financial risk as this was unlikely to be a viable business model. 

The report explained that the government had made available a three-year Fair Cost of Care and Market Sustainability Fund - “the Fund” - to support local authorities in ensuring the ongoing sustainability of their local care markets.  A sum of £384k (of which 25% could be spent on implementation) had been made available to the Council this financial year, with future allocations to be confirmed, noting that current projections suggested that the cost of achieving the fair cost of care was likely to exceed the total amount of funding allocated to Reading.

This report outlined the requirements of the Fund, which included a fair cost of care exercise, and a market sustainability plan, and provided an overview of the actions to date alongside the planned next steps notably a requirement to publish a ‘Fair Cost of Care’ on the Council’s website and submit a Draft Market Sustainability Plan to the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) by 14 October 2022.  Failure to submit the requirements of the Fund might mean that a local authority would not have access to future Fund resource.

Resolved –

(1)      That the requirements of the Market Sustainability and Fair Cost of Care Fund 2022/23 and the actions of officers to date to meet the requirements of the Market Sustainability and Fair Cost of Care Fund in its first year (2022/23) be noted;

(2)      That the Executive Director of Adult Social Care and Health, in consultation with the Director of Finance and the Lead Councillor for Adult Social Care, be authorised to approve the submission of both the cost of care exercise and the provisional Market Sustainability Plan to the Department of Health & Social Care by 14 October 2022, and to publish the cost of care exercise outcome on the Council’s website;

(3)      That it be noted that the final Market Sustainability Plan outlining how the Market Sustainability & Fair Cost of Care Funds would be spent in Reading would be submitted and published in February 2023, after local government budgets had been finalised.