Written question asked by Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat) on Wednesday, 30 November 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Friday, 2 December 2005. It was answered by Liam Byrne (Labour) on Monday, 19 December 2005 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Residential Care

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 7 November 2005, Official Report, column 273W, on residential care, on what legal basis local authorities can set cash limits on the amount they will pay for residential placements to meet assessed needs.

Answer: The Department allocates funding to local authorities (LAs) to enable them to carry out their social service functions. It is for LAs to decide how they spend this money, taking account of the need to balance their overall budgets and meet their statutory obligations.Under section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970, the Secretary of State may issue guidance to local authorities on how they carry out their social services functions and LAs are required to act in accordance with such guidance, unless they have good reason for departing from it but without freedom to take a substantially different course. The latest guidance is contained in local authority circular LAC(2004)20, which is available in the Library.Under that guidance, LAs should set the amount they would usually expect to pay for accommodation having regard to assessed care needs-the ‘usual cost'. This cost should be set by LAs at the start of a financial or other planning period, or in response to significant changes in the cost of providing care, to be sufficient to meet the assessed care needs of supported residents in residential accommodation. LAs should set more than one usual cost where the cost of providing residential accommodation to specific groups is different. When placing people in residential care, councils are not required to pay more than they would usually pay, having regard to the usual cost.

Secondary information