Purpose

To approve the annual uplifts

Content

RESOLVED
 
KEY DECISION
 

 

That the Executive approved Option 3 –
“Uplift including National Living
Wage for frontline carers and recognising inflationary
pressures” and the following increases in fee levels
for 2024/25, with the proposals to come into effect from
1st April 2024. The table at
paragraph below, summarises the proposed uplifts for the
recommended Option 3 and further detail is set out in detail
throughout section 3 of the report.

 

Table 1

 

Provision
Type

Recommendation

Net
increase in cost £’s

Home Care framework
6.85%

Uplift the
minimum hourly rate for domiciliary care by
6.85%.

1,227,824

Older Persons Residential
Care

Increase
the expected to pay rate by 8.68% to £712 per week NLW only
would be 6.07% and this represents additional investment of
2.61%.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total cost
impact 2,895,539 of which 958k is over and above the uplift
required to meet NLW increases.
 

Older persons Dementia Residential
Care

Increase
the expected to pay rate by 8.68% to £806 per week. Uplifting
by NLW only would be 6.07% and this represents additional
investment of 2.61%.

Older Persons Nursing
Care

Increase
the expected to pay rate by 10.88% to £785 per week
(excluding funded nursing care). NLW only would be 6.6% and this
represents additional investment of 4.28%.

Older Persons Dementia Nursing
Care

Increase
expected to pay rate by 10.88% to £850 per week (excluding
funded nursing care). NLW only would be 6.6% and this represents
additional investment of 4.28%.

Working Age Adults Residential
Care

Increase
Tiered Payments by 6.16%

Supported Living
Providers

Increase
tiered payment rates by an average of 4.58% with a range of 5.87%
to 2% aligned to individual tiers.

1,076,451

Day
Opportunities

Increase
tiered payments rates by 5.87%.

143,058

Respite

Increase
tiered respite payments by 6.07%

70,203

 

Shared Lives

Increase
care and support element of Shared Lives Carer Payment by
5%

30,000

Independent Living Framework
(Extracare)

Increase
care and support tiered payments by 5.32%

24,332

Direct Payment increase where
personal assistants are employed

Increase
hourly rate by 5.87% to meet National Living Wage

575,932

 

Total

 

6,043,339

 

 

Reason for
Recommendations

 

·      
The National Living Wage (NLW) increase for 2024/25
is 9.8%. This compares to 9.7% in 2023/24. In addition to this we
know that providers continue to face broader inflationary
pressures. 

 

·      
The care and support market in North
Northamptonshire continues to experience difficulties with the
recruitment and retention of care staff with a vacancy rate of 9.8%
(2.2% lower than in 2021/22) and turnover rate of 24% for care
providers (2% lower than in 2021/22).

 

·      
Whilst this is an improving trend the data continues
to demonstrate that providers are facing challenges in recruiting
and retaining care staff. This is caused by competition from other
industries as well as the legacy of Covid-19.

 

·      
The ability of providers to recruit and retain a
sufficient workforce is one of the key challenges and risks for the
sector. By effectively targeting our annual uplifts we support our
contracted care providers ability to develop strategic responses to
workforce challenges, including offering rates of pay that are
competitive with other local sectors.

 

·      
The position in North Northamptonshire is in keeping
with the national picture. Alongside targeting our inflationary
uplifts, we continue to work in partnership with our contracted
providers to make social care an attractive career proposition
within North Northamptonshire.

 

·      
During 2022/23 we have offered fully funded training
to care staff working within the independent care sector and
continued our work to develop our social care workforce strategy.
However, fee uplifts remain a crucial lever in ensuring providers
are able to support social care as being an attractive career
option for people in North Northamptonshire.
 

 

·      
There continues to be a need to utilise non
contracted providers and to commission individual packages of care
with spot providers. Whilst there has been a significant decrease
in the number of spot providers commissioned, these providers
continue to be comparatively more expensive on a unit (hour or
week) basis.

 

·      
Spot provision is costly to the Council and the
proposed uplift seeks to positively influence existing contract
framework supply through retention and sustainability whilst also
incentivising an increase in supply through levering better rates
of pay and reward for our contracted providers. Work continues to
minimise our utilisation of spot providers and to focus our
commissioning activity solely with our contracted
providers.

 

·      
Our strategy is to focus our development and
commissioning activity specifically with our contracted providers.
Alongside this fee uplift we are focused on utilising our enhanced
provider offer for contracted providers that includes funded
training and an enhanced quality monitoring and support function.
This enables the Council to support improvement in the quality of
its contracted care providers, secure a sustainable market of
high-quality providers and secure value for money in our
independent care spend.
 

 

Alternative Options Considered: The alternative
options, in summary, considered included:
 
Option 1: Do
nothing and apply no uplifts (not recommended)

 
Option 2: Targeting uplifts at particular service types (not
recommended)

 
Option 3: Uplift
including NLW for frontline carers and recognising inflationary
pressures (Recommended Option)

 
Option
4:Lower uplift
to the whole market including spot and framework providers (Not
recommended)
 
The
alternative options are presented in more detail in section 5 of
the report.