Home care charging policy

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How we work out your Home Care charges
We use your “available weekly income” to work out what you have to pay.

Firstly, we need to work out what your available weekly income is, from the information you give us. Available weekly income is what comes into your home every week from various sources, such as welfare benefits, pension, less certain payments you have to make.

Then we apply a set charge (currently 75p) for each £1 of your available income which falls above a set level.

What we include in your weekly income
When we are working out what your available weekly income is, we include as income:

• any works pension you receive;
• your state retirement pension;
• welfare benefits you receive (although some are left out - see below); and
• an amount related to any savings you have above £10,000,
  If you have savings between £10,000 and £23,500, we will add £1 to your available weekly income for each block of £500 between these amounts. For example, if you have savings of £12,000, then £4 of income per week will be added to your available weekly income.

Where people live in the same house but are not partners, we will only include the income of the service user.

What we leave out of your weekly income
When we are working out what your available weekly income is, we leave out:

• Any rent, or mortgage interest, you pay;
• Council tax payments;
• The “mobility component” of Disability Living Allowance;
• Independent Living Fund payments;
• The first £10 of a war widows pension;
• The first £10 of a war disablement pension; and
• Any disability living allowance you receive for a child, or the disabled child premium.

There are some less common payments we also leave out.

Free services

• a single person aged over 60 years, whose available weekly income is £161 or less will receive free service; people with an income higher than this will be charged for service;
• couples aged over 60 years whose available weekly income is £245 or less will receive free service; couples with incomes higher than this will be charged for service;
• the amounts of £161 and £245, above which charging begins, are called the charge thresholds;
• single person aged under 60 years, whose available income is £113 per week or less will receive free services; and
• couple aged under 60 years, whose income is £172 per week or less will receive free services.

Please note: If you are aged 65 years and over and have been assessed as requiring a personal care service, this part of your care package will be provided free of charge, however other elements may be subject to charge.

The amount you will actually pay
When we have worked out your available income, we will charge you 75p for each £1 that your available weekly income is above the charge threshold.

When we work out your charge, we will never charge you more for the service than it costs us to provide it.

The rate for 2011/12 is £14.24 per hour. This rate is applied to anyone whose capital is above £23,500. Anyone whose capital is less than £23,500 but more than £10,000 and/or whose weekly income is above the stated thresholds will be required to pay towards the cost of all chargeable services.

We will send you a letter telling you what your charge is.

For more information on Care at Home Charging please click on the following leaflet.

Charging Policy - public information (pdf - 197KB)

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