Financial assessment and independent advocacy

Financial assessment and charging policy for care and support

Charging for care and support

Following a review of the financial assessment process for residents in receipt of adult social care and support in 2021 and the subsequent issues raised, a review was carried out. The review resulted in several changes:

• Co-designed information booklets with customers to provide information about the financial assessment process and who to contact. The information booklets have been produced and are available as printed copies and online here (home/community) and (residential)
• A review of internal processes and use of IT was undertaken and changed to speed up the annual assessment of charges to provide information in a timely way. We now use a batch update tool in Mosaic (the ASC case management system) for the annual re-assessment programme and this year over 80% of customers with community care charges, have had an updated re-assessment with a notification in advance and then a breakdown of their new contribution at the start of the new financial year.
• Additional capacity has been put into the Welfare Benefit Assessment service to address the demand for financial assessments. New customers who provide all the information required upon request are financially assessed within 20 working days. There is currently no waiting list for a financial assessment. Additional capacity in the financial assessment team is remaining in place until March 2025.

The impact of these changes is monitored on a weekly basis by experienced officers from both the Finance and Adults’ Services teams. There are weekly and monthly reviews of the position and a monthly joint review with Adults’ Services.  

An Adults’ Services and Finance working group was established to ensure the council’s approach to charging for social care continues to comply with the Care Act, financial regulations, and other significant learning, for example Local Government Ombudsman findings. The group reviewed the current policy to ensure its approach is compliant and that there is appropriate coordination and consistency between policy, practice, and public information. The charging policy approach to housing-related expenses has been clarified following recommendations from the group. It is now continuing its work to understand the impact of the overall policy, particularly for those with protected characteristics and to explore mitigations, where these may be required.

Provision of independent advocacy

West Sussex County Council commissions advocacy in various arrangements including in partnership with other local authorities and health services. Statutory advocacy for Independent Care Act Advocacy (ICAA), Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA) and Relevant Persons Paid Representatives (RPPR) is commissioned in partnership with Brighton City Council, East Sussex County Council and NHS Sussex via POhWER. The ICAA and IMCA services are meeting the target of acknowledging referrals within 2 working days and contacting within 5 working days. For ICAA and IMCA people wait less than 3 weeks for advocacy support. For RPPR there is a waitlist, which until April 2024 was increasing. This is mostly related to challenges in recruiting staff to the service however a mitigation plan is in place.  The trend since April 2024 has been a decreasing waiting list and this will continue to be monitored. This service is due to be re-tendered in 2025 and the process of recommissioning is underway.

In addition to this the council also commissions via The Advocacy People to provide advocacy support for parents with a diagnosed learning disability undergoing childcare proceedings who meet the threshold for support under the Care Act. The Advocacy People provide up to 25 hours advocacy for up to 6 people per year under this service that commenced March 2024, there have been 3 referrals to the service since and it is kept under review to ensure that the service offer remains accessible.

Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA) is currently commissioned from MIND by NHS Sussex. Independent Health Complaints Advocacy (IHCA) is currently commissioned by the council via Public Health Commissioning from Healthwatch. There are no plans to bring this into scope for the wider statutory advocacy recommissioning.