This consultation is Closed
Consultation Open 15 March 2024 to 07 April 2024This consultation is now closed.
Introductory
Nottingham City Council is proposing to change the way it manages the money of citizens who live in a residential care or nursing home who need support because they are unable to manage their own money. This could be due to severe disability or mental incapacity. We would like your support with obtaining the views of the citizens affected and are asking other interested parties about our proposal to introduce charges for appointeeship money management Service when it changes.
What is the current situation?
Within Nottingham City Council the team who currently manage citizens money under a Department for Works and Pensions (DWP) ‘appointeeship’ where they live in a care home are the Adult Residential Services team (ARS). This team is responsible for calculating, invoicing and collecting the charges a citizen is required to pay towards the cost of their care. The ARS team also currently support about 250 citizens by managing their benefit income because they are unable to do this for themselves.
What is being proposed
During 2024 these 250 ‘appointeeship’ cases would transfer to the Deputyship Services to manage. The Deputyship Service is a specialist money management team within the local authority who manage the property and financial affairs of citizens who lack mental capacity. This team are appointed by the Court of Protection and they are supervised by the Public Guardian who make sure they meet strict standards of care. The proposed changes would see the Deputyship Service changing to manage citizens finances under both Deputyship and Appointeeship in 2024, and would take over the money management of the 250 cases that are currently supported by the ARS team.
Nottingham City Council believe that this change would bring positive impacts for citizens. The Deputyship Service have the expertise and time to manage each case individually: each citizen will have a named case worker who will get to know them and their circle of care and ensure their money is used in their best interests. Safer and easy to use Pre-payment cards can be used to provide personal spending money. The team can be more responsive to request for extra funds for things a citizen needs and make more significant decisions about spend of their savings. Some of these 250 cases will be converted into Deputyship Orders and some will remain as Appointeeship only. Deputyship and Appointeeship give different levels of authority but fundamentally they are about managing someone’s else’s money because they are unable to do this for themselves and because there is no-one else who is suitable, willing or able to take on this role.
There are already charges in place for Deputyship cases: the amounts are set by the Court of Protection. The average charge per citizen for a year is £900, which is expected to increase to £1,080 during 2024.
Nottingham City Council is proposing to introduce new charges for those citizens whose money management will stay under a simple benefit appointeeship once the case has transferred to the Deputyship Service. The charges proposed are as follows:
| Appointeeship for those living in a residential care setting | £10 a week | £520 a year |
| Appointeeship for those in the Community | £15 a week | £780 a year |
| Deputyship cases (charges already in place) | Average charge of £17.31 a week (from 1st April 2024 expected to rise to £20.77 a week) | £900 a year (from 1st April 2024 expected to rise to £1080 a year) |
These charges will increase in line with CPI rises annually. They are similar to what other Local Authority Deputyship and Appointeeship services and private money management companies charge. There will be protection for citizens who have a low level of income and capital – no charge will be made for people with less than £2,000 in savings and where they have insufficient spare income to pay the charge.
We would like to hear your views on the proposals. If you have any queries about the consultation process, please contact kate.dixon@nottinghamcity.gov.uk