CIRCULAR SWSG7/93 5455

31 March 1993

Dear Colleague

INDEPENDENT LIVING ARRANGEMENTS FROM APRIL 1993: REPLACEMENT OF THE INDEPENDENT LIVING FUND

Summary

1. This Circular advises local authorities that the Independent Living Fund is being replaced from 1 April 1993, by the Independent Living (Extension) Fund and the Independent Living (1993) Fund. Procedures for the operation of the new funds are explained below.

The Independent Living Fund (ILF)

2. The ILF closed to new applications on 25 November 1992. The Trustees have stated that all applications received before that date will be processed by 31 March 1993; from this date the ILF will cease to operate. Subject to Parliamentary approval, it will be replaced by 2 new funds established by the Government; one covering existing beneficiaries will be called the Independent Living (Extension) Fund and one covering new clients who are very severely disabled and at least 16 and under 66 years of age, called the Independent Living (1993) Fund.

Existing Beneficiaries

3. The entire caseload of ILF clients will be transferred into the Independent Living (Extension) Fund on 1 April 1993. Individuals will, in the main, be unaware of any changes to the Fund, other than the change of name. The care needs of individual beneficiaries may still be reviewed and payments adjusted accordingly to meet any change in circumstances, subject, as now, to the budget being sufficient. This Fund will not, however, be able to accept any new applications.

New Applications

4. New applications will be accepted by the Independent Living (1993) Fund. This will provide new help to certain categories of very severely disabled people. The Government intends that the essential features of the 1993 Fund will be to:

- provide help to the most severely disabled people aged at least 16 but under 66 at the time of application, who are receiving the highest rate of Disability

Living Allowance, who are living on their own or with people who cannot meet their care needs in full and who have incomes at or about Income Support levels after paying for their care;

- work in partnership with local authorities. The Fund will only provide help on the basis of a care plan agreed between the Fund, the disabled person and the local authority whereby the authority will provide a specified level of service which the Fund will supplement by a cash payment to the individual client.

5. The flowcharts at Annex A set out how it is envisaged the Fund should operate and the basis of its partnership with local authorities. Flowchart 1 sets out how a local authority may consider whether an individual is eligible to apply for help from the Fund and whether he/she should apply. Flowchart 2 sets out how the new Fund and the local authority will work together. Flowchart 3 is for information only - it is intended as a guide for disabled people. The charts aim to set out the parameters within which the Government intends that the 1993 Fund should operate: the precise details of the working of the Fund will be a matter for the trustees.

6. There are a number of points which authorities should particularly note from the charts and the accompanying explanatory notes at Annex B:

- the 1993 Fund will only consider an application from an individual who has first been in contact with his or her local authority Social Work Department (which is prepared to endorse the application).

- the definition of "most severely disabled".

- the requirement on the authority to provide day and domiciliary services to the value of £210 in any care package with the 1993 Fund. The Fund will supplement these services by a cash payment up to an overall maximum (local authority services and Fund contribution) of £500. Authorities may levy their normal charges for day and domiciliary services.

- authorities will need to have available information on the costs of day and domiciliary services which they provide or for which they contract.

- new clients aged 66 and over will not be eligible for help from the 1993 Fund, but existing clients will not cease receiving payments when they reach age 66.

- as with the current ILF, the trustees of the 1993 Fund will have the discretion to vary the amount of a payment when a client’s needs increase or decrease, subject to the availability of funds.

7. Where a client is not eligible for help from the 1993 Fund (or is not being helped by the Extension Fund), authorities will need to assess his or her needs in the normal way. The addition to Aggregate External Finance and the Government Supported Expenditure figures of £2.8m in 1993/94, £6.8m in 1994/95 and £10.7m in 1995/96 made available to local

authorities in recognition of the additional costs which will fall on them as a result of the new arrangements and the establishment of the 1993 Fund will help the most severely disabled people.

Further Guidance

8. Further guidance and information will be issued in due course covering operational arrangements for the 1993 Fund and the part which the local authorities will play.

Contact Points

9. Please direct any enquiries about the new Funds Ms June Bull, Department of Social Security, Branch SS-A2D, 6th Floor, Adelphi House, 1-11 John Adam street, London WC2N 6HT (Telephone 0171-962-8859).

10. Enquiries about other aspects of this Circular should be addressed to Mr Trevor Hall, Social Work Services Group, Room 44, James Craig Walk, Edinburgh EH1 3BA

(telephone 0131-244-5455).

Yours faithfully

GAVIN ANDERSON

ANNEX A

FLOWCHART 1

FLOWCHART 2

FLOWCHART 3

ANNEX B

EXPLANATORY NOTES ON FLOWCHARTS

Use of the flowcharts

Flowchart 1 This is intended for use at the initial assessment of the individual by the local authority (LA) social worker. This flowchart guides the social worker through the general "eligibility" criteria of the 1993 Fund and points the social worker in the direction of the Fund if the person wants to live at home and is likely to receive help from the Fund. At the end of the chart, the LA social worker will be clear as to whether normal local authority assessment procedures should be started, or whether an application to the Fund is appropriate.

Flowchart 2 This should be used when the assessment is being made for the joint package of care by both the LA and the Fund’s social workers.

Flowchart 3 This chart is for use by disabled people as a guide to potential sources of help.

(i) Gross fee of £295 per week

The gross fee provides a convenient test for local authorities to define "severely disabled". Those people whose care costs are lower than this are unlikely to be eligible for help from the Fund as they will not be considered the "most severely disabled". A gross fee of £295 in an independent sector home is broadly equivalent to a net cost to the authority of around £200 a week on average, after allowing for normal charge of approximately £95 per week for someone receiving Income Support and Residential Allowance.

(ii) Services provided by the Local Authority

The local authority will provide domiciliary and day care services worth £210 per week. They will however be able to levy their normal charges which are nationally, on average, £10 per week. This therefore equates to a cost to the LA of approximately £200 a week on average. "Domiciliary Services" is taken to include any service provided either directly by the local authority or under contract to the local authority, such as home care, home helps, meals on wheels, day centres, etc. It does not include items of capital equipment such as bath hoists, ramps, stair lifts, etc. Authorities will need to be able to identify to the Fund the cost of the individual services which they will provide. The Fund will reserve the right not to join in partnership with an LA if it thinks that the costs of the services are unreasonably high ie where relatively few services are being provided for £210 per week.

(iii) The £500 ceiling

There will be an overall limit on the amount of help that can be offered to any individual accepted by the new Fund. The value of services provided by the LA and any cash payment for the Fund should together not exceed £500 per week. The LA services which count towards this total are described above. Services provided by other organisations not under LA contract eg charities, or by the NHS are excluded from the total.