Three councils return to Care Act compliance leaving four authorities suspending duties

Sunderland, Birmingham and Staffordshire drop 'Care Act easements', leaving Coventry, Derbyshire, Solihull and Warwickshire as only councils suspending duties

Care Act front page
The BASW proposals would likely require changes to the Care Act (photo: Gary Brigden)

Article updated 26 May

Birmingham, Staffordshire and Sunderland councils have returned to applying the Care Act 2014 in full after a period suspending certain duties using emergency powers under the Coronavirus Act 2020.

The authorities’ decisions means there are four councils operating the so-called Care Act easements – Coventry, Derbyshire, Solihull and Warwickshire – down from an original eight.

The easements are designed to help councils deal with significant depletion of their workforces and increased demand due to coronavirus, by allowing them to suspend their duties to assess need, carry out financial assessments, develop or review care plans and, if necessary, meet needs other than where there would otherwise be a breach of human rights. The last, known as stage 4, is a step only taken by Derbyshire and Solihull so far.

Birmingham said it had kept the easements under review since they were implemented on 14 April and, as of 18 May, had decided to stop using the powers.

Expert guidance on using easements

Community Care Inform Adults users can get expert guidance on using the easements from our legal editor, Tim Spencer-Lane, including a podcast answering your questions on how they work, and a summary and analysis of government guidance on using the easements.

Sunderland said it had made the same decision on the same day, also following a review.

A spokesperson said its use of the easements had been “part of prudent planning and contingency measures for care services”. The council did not respond to a question about what actions it had taken under the easements during the time they were in operation.

Both Sunderland and Birmingham are now operating at stage 2, under the Care Act easements guidance issued by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), which refers to using flexibilities already available under the act. For example, this may involve not carrying out reviews of care and support plans on an annual basis, as this is not a strict requirement under the act.

In a statement given to Community Care on 26 May, Staffordshire’s deputy leader and cabinet member for health, care and wellbeing, Alan White, said: “The only easement we have had to enact so far is deferring a number of people’s full Care Act assessments. Everyone still had an assessment to ensure that they were properly looked after.

“Any potential use of Care Act easements has been reviewed on a fortnightly basis. After seeing an increase in capacity at the start of May, we are no longer using care act easements.”

Legal challenge

Of the four authorities using the easements, Derbyshire is facing a legal challenge to its decision to enact them on the grounds that it had not evidenced how it had followed the DHSC guidance.

Solicitors representing the Derbyshire resident bringing the claim are awaiting a response from the council, due next week, before deciding whether to launch a judicial review claim.

The other council operating at stage 4 of the easements, Solihull, received a defence of its approach on Twitter this week from the health and social care spokesperson for the Green Party opposition, Rosemary Sexton.

She said the council had taken a strict interpretation of the guidance on easements so if day centres have closed because of social distancing requirements, this has created unmet need, meaning the council would have to operate the easements.

She also praised the council’s transparency in terms of the number of services and care packages affected, and what steps were being taken to return to normal service. She said the situation in Solihull and the council was looking to reinstate some care packages.

Radio debate

The easements were featured in a discussion on the BBC’s Today Programme on Wednesday this week (the segment starts 52 minutes into the programme)  involving social care legal trainer and head of legal rights charity CASCAIDr, Belinda Schwehr, and the leader of Warwickshire County Council, Izzy Seccombe, who is also a vice-chair of the Local Government Association.

Schwehr said the introduction of the easements meant that the sector was going back to a position where “arbitrariness, inconsistency and fundamental opaqueness about people’s legal rights was the order of the day”, whereas the Care Act, in theory, gave people enforceable legal rights. The easements meant local authorities are “capable of making it up as they go along”.

In response, Seccombe said the imperative to free up hospital beds so the NHS could take in Covid-19 patients had meant that councils had had to act quickly, and that Care Act processes were “a little cumbersome and somewhat slow”. She said the only easement Warwickshire had made use of was in suspending financial assessments.

Coventry has stopped using the financial assessments easement as its online assessment tool was enabling it to carry out financial checks on a business-as-usual basis. It is still using the easements on needs assessments and on care plans and reviews.

More from Community Care

2 Responses to Three councils return to Care Act compliance leaving four authorities suspending duties

  1. Chris Sterry May 22, 2020 at 4:30 pm #

    I commend Birmingham and Sunderland councils for dropping Care Act easements’, however, the Government should never have introduced this through the Coronavirus Bill and then councils should not have subscribed to it.

    For the Care Act easements came at a time that persons in need of care would have required more assistance not less and therefore the Government and the councils who took advantage of the easements are guilty in failing in their Duty of Care and shows how they view people in need of care and also their families where relevant.

  2. ANON May 26, 2020 at 9:41 am #

    I work for Staffordshire and the Care Act returned nearly 2 weeks ago.