Council set to increase charges for social care services
SOCIETY’S PEOPLE most in need could be charged more for the care they receive under cost-cutting proposals unveiled by a Yorkshire council which has to slash £172m from its budget.
North Yorkshire County Council leader Councillor Carl Les said the authority would be faced with its most difficult decision in eight years of austerity as extra charges for people who need more than one carer at the same time are examined.
The council will launch a public consultation on levying the additional social care fees and increasing social care transport charges next month.
A meeting of the authority’s care and independence scrutiny committee was told the majority of people accepted the council’s daily £2.70 charge for transport to day care centres needed to rise, given each journey costs the council an average of £18.
Officers declined to estimate how much the proposed transport charges would be, but said decisions needed to be made over whether to charge a flat rate for users, whatever distance they lived from a day care centre.
However, members did raise concerns that raising residents’ transport contributions was likely to fuel isolation among the county’s most vulnerable residents.
The meeting was told the proposal to charge people with assets above £23,350 for second and third carers would hit “the people facing the greatest need”.
At the moment, if a person needs to have two care workers at the same time, they are only charged for one.
Only a small proportion of such care recipients would pay the full costs, members heard.
Independent councillor Helen Grant said while she appreciated the mounting social care costs and budget pressures the council was facing, she found the proposal “a bridge too far”.