News

The threat of a Scottish-wide ban on all local authority referrals to independent care homes receded last week after local authorities found funds to add to money already on offer from the Scottish executive.

The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities had previously insisted that councils could not afford to make any contribution to the agreed increase of £50 per resident per week, costed at £50m a year. The Scottish executive had proposed funds of £24m towards the total (News, page 12, 7 February).

But after a Cosla summit last week, local authorities agreed to contribute £3m this year. This will allow fees to increase by £27 per resident per week from 1 April.

The Scottish executive has promised that the £50 per week per resident will be fully funded from 2003-4, but has not yet said how.

Scottish Care, the umbrella organisation that represents 800 private care home owners, will now meet to consider the revised offer on fees. It refused to comment on the likely outcome, but early signs suggest that it will be accepted.

Scottish Care has long accused local authorities of spending government grants intended for the care of older people on other services.

Its claims are supported by two reports, published last month, which conclude that 10 per cent of funds allocated for older people's services are being spent elsewhere.

The Care Development Group report states that the £63m gap "highlights the difficulty the executive has in ensuring that the priority it attaches to older people's services is reflected at a local level in every part of Scotland".

It adds: "We suspect that, in the past, home care services have been an area where it has been possible to defer new investment and from which new money has been diverted to other areas of council budgets."

The second report, by an independent group chaired by Scottish Ambulance Services chairperson Owen Clarke, reached similar conclusions.

Opposition politicians have now called for the Scottish executive to safeguard money allocated for services to older people's care by ring- fencing all such funds. But a spokesperson for the executive said there were no current plans to introduce any such change.

- Fair Care For Older People from the Care Development Group at www.scotland.gov.uk  

….but Welsh homes threaten action

Several care home owners in Wales have rejected fee increases proposed by councils and have threatened to withdraw from contracts.

The Welsh Local Government Association has asked owners to pull back while discussions are held with the Welsh assembly. It said issuing ultimatums was unacceptable because of the distress and uncertainty caused to residents and relatives.

WLGA leader councillor Sir Harry Jones said the increases demanded were well above fee assumptions made by the assembly in calculating the local government settlement and social services specific grants for 2002-3, and could only be met "by cutting other valuable services".

He added that local government remained committed to working with the independent sector to identify measures to ease the pressures.