As the Care and Support Bill prepares for the House of Lords, Paul Robertson meets Partnership mananging director Chris Horlick for an update.
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This is actually where Horlick feels this Bill starts to come together as under the present system 80% of self-funders never go anywhere near their local authority.
He said: “When there is a capped cost model, in April 2016, there will be an incentive for them to do that. The vast majority will go to the local authority, giving the opportunity to capture their data, identify them as self-funders and to refer them to the panel the local authority has chosen.
“Where we are consulting with authorities that’s what we advise them to do.”
Horlick went on to explain that these panels can be local or national but all members will have the relevant qualifications. Councils may also require qualifications beyond the basic CF8, they made need to be Society of Later Life Advisers (SOLLA) accredited.
Of course, so far the discussion has centred around the position of those needing to go into care, this is fair enough, as that is essentially the gist of the Care and Support Bill. But what of those who would know about long-term care before it becomes a crisis? It is certainly on Horlick’s to-do list.
“To date we have been discussing the point-of-need people. If you think of it, someone in their seventies has stopped the accumulating part of their life and it is a bit too late to plan for care in any meaningful way. These will be point-of-need type customers.
“Over time, and the bill needs to address this, we would like to see people engaging earlier and saving towards this. We would like to see changes in pension legislation in order to make pensions more flexible when used for care, and so forth … All of this is currently being discussed.”
Simple mechanism
This legislation will put a duty on local government and there is a need to provide relatively simple mechanisms that allow the authorities to deliver on that duty. These mechanisms must also flow through the other advocacy services that they refer people to, if they identify people as needing financial advice.
“There should be no way for local government to get out of the duty to self-funder is to ensure they get regulated advice,” said Horlick.
“This is about measurable outcomes. Authorities should want to know how much self-funders falling back on them is costing them, what the savings would be if they took steps to mitigate against that cost and what are the measurable outcomes of doing that.”
It would seem the Bill is still on track.
