Lancashire's care provider fees to increase

The council has contracts with more than 800 providers, which deliver services such as residential care, supported living, day care, home care and extra care.

It pays fees to these providers to ensure they can cover costs that increase annually with inflation, such as the national living wage, pension costs and non-staffing related costs.

New fees will be introduced on 1 April 2022 and are set by the county council. The council's cabinet will consider the proposal for this year's increases on Thursday 3 February.

County Councillor Graham Gooch, cabinet member for adult social care, said: "Our providers do a superb job, delivering services to some 35,000 adults who need social care support in what continue to be very challenging circumstances.

"These businesses have a number of costs, which increase each year with inflation, including paying staff wages, pension costs and other bills.

"We've once again worked closely with these organisations, holding a consultation, workshops and discussing the proposals at our fortnightly provider webinars, to give opportunities for providers to share their views before setting the fees outlined in the proposal.

"We already introduced increased fees for home care providers in December last year and residential care providers in January 2022 because of ongoing challenges caused by the pandemic, staff retention issues and other factors across the sectors. We will continue to pay fees for these providers at these increased rates from April."

In addition, the proposals include increases in the fees for Carers, Shared Lives Carers, and an increase in direct payment budgets for people who manage their own social care packages.

County Councillor Gooch added: "It's vital that we cover the costs for carers and shared lives carers, who don't work for organisations, but face increased costs due to inflationary pressures. We've also increased direct payments for those people who pay for services they need from their personal budgets.

"These proposed increases in payments are vital in ensuring people continue to get the social care support they need in this challenging time."

For further information on this cabinet item, including a breakdown of the fees, see agenda item 8 on our cabinet webpage