Financial Assessment by Council after move to PIP

Hello,

My wife has just received a letter from her local Council advising her that her contribution to her home care has increased significantly as she has now moved from DLA (higher rates) to PIP (higher rates). They do a financial assessment every year.

The reason that they have given is that after moving from DLA to PIP, they do not disregard the PIP care element as they did for the DLA care element any more.

This has resulted an increase of approximately £30 per week that she now has to contribute towards her care (Direct Payment). Here benefits have only increase by £3 per week.

How is this fair? Are there any arguments(legal documents, guides, etC) that we can use to dispute this large increase?

Thanks in advance for any help.

GK.

Hi Gordon,

Thank you. I found this in the above link you provided:- "If you get an amount for night time needs included in your care component of DLA and if social services do not provide night time care to you, then you should be allowed to keep this amount of night time of your DLA. Hence, your local authority is not allowed to count an award for night needs where they are only providing day time care (and vice versa). The personal independence payment (PIP) is assessed differently and does not divide components into day and night time care requirements. If your award for PIP is based on, for instance, both day and night care needs, you should request that not all of your daily living component is taken into account if the social services only provide you with day care help."

Is this mentioned in any legislation that she can refer too?

Thanks

GK

GK
Does your wife receive care arranged by your local council during the night or only during the day.?

I ask this because DLA Higher Rate Care covered care requirements for both night and day. i believe many LA's took this into account and only took the equivalent of Middle Rate DLA Care into account when calculating the income for persons financial contribution if no care was provided after "Bed Time" or during the night. There is some case law about this (R(Carton) v Coventry City Council (2001).

However PIP does not differentiate between or separate Night or Day care needs. and as Gorden said the Care Act 2014 allows LA's to take into account all of the PIP care amount.

BUT the 2014 Act and guidelines state that if a person has expenditure on Care needs "not " supplied by the LA the cost of this should be deducted from the amount paid to the LA over and above any other allowances that the legislation allows. For example we were able to get the cost of incontinence disposables deducted from the amount my Mother-in-law paid for her LA arranged care.


bill.

Thanks Bill for your help.

My wife is on Direct Payment and she uses this to hire PAs to assist her with her daily needs during the day. I am the main carer during the nights.

You mentioned below that " the 2014 Act and guidelines state that if a person has expenditure on Care needs "not " supplied by the LA the cost of this should be deducted from the amount paid to the LA over and above any other allowances that the legislation allows."

Would the care I provide at nights fall into this category? Not sure how I can quantify this into a monetary sum.

GK