Adult Social Care Cost of Care
On 16 December 2021, it was announced that local authorities would receive Market Sustainability and Fair Cost of Care grant funding*. The primary purpose of the fund is to support local authorities to prepare their markets for reform.
As a condition of receiving the funding, local authorities were required to undertake a cost of care exercise with care homes (65+) and home care providers (18+) to determine a median rate for the market, as part of the preparations for social care reform.
The results and analysis of the process, which have been submitted to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) can be found below.
Care Home Cost of Care
Home Care Cost of Care
Market Sustainability Plan
The government have stated that the Cost of Care exercise was not to be regarded as a fee setting exercise. However, there was an expectation that, over a 3 year period, with additional government funding, local authorities would move towards the median market rate, unless there was reason to consider the median figures as unreliable. This would enable a levelling off of fees to begin to address the difference between the rate paid by the local authority v the rate paid by a private client.
It was subsequently announced as part of the Autumn Statement 2022 that the social care reforms will be delayed.
Milton Keynes City Council do not consider the median figures obtained to be useful as regards fee setting due to the data quality issues (as outlined in our Annex B report) meaning it is unclear to what extent the figures reflect the actual Cost of Care locally.
*Milton Keynes City Council received £0.613m of Market Sustainability Funding. The full year cost to MKCC of the additional fee uplift awarded during 2022-23 as a first step towards the median rate is circa £1.1m.
