Lancashire: Leonard Cheshire, the Living Wage and fees for residential care for younger adults

The request was successful.

Dear Lancashire County Council,

Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD) claim that they would like to pay their carers the Living Wage but that they are not paid enough by social care funders such as yourself to do so.

I wonder if you could please tell me:

1) what representations Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD) have made to the Council asking for increases in the fees paid for social care provided by them, in order to pay their carers the Living Wage.

2) Some idea as to the fees currently being paid by the Council to LCD for residential care, per resident per week. A range of fees or a set of anonymised figures of the fees perhaps. Other councils have opted to supply statistical median and range as they were concerned that individual fees could make it possible for people to have a guess at which residents had which fees.

3) Equivalent information for fees paid to other providers for residential care in care homes for people with physical impairments under the age of 65.

Thank you

Yours faithfully,

Doug Paulley

Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

 

 

Dear Mr Paulley,

 

Request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

 

I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your email dated 30/01/15, in which
you request the disclosure of information under the provisions of the
above Act.

 

I can confirm that your enquiry will now be assigned to an officer who
will commence a search for the information you require and they will
respond in due course. The deadline date for issuing you with full
response is 27/02/15  We will endeavour to provide a response well in
advance of this date, however, should we envisage any delays, or require
more details from you, we will contact you immediately.

 

If you have any queries about the above, please do not hesitate to contact
us, quoting ref. 876.140

 

Yours sincerely,

 

On behalf of the ATI Team

 

Access to Information Team

Lancashire County Council

T: 01772 531116

[1]www.lancashire.gov.uk

 

 

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Dear Freedom of Information,

I wonder if you could please check the status of my request for information, and advise me as to a potential timescale for response? Responses should be sent "promptly" and in any case within 20 working days, so at the latest by 27 February 2015 but I haven't received it as yet.

I do appreciate the pressures on service providers, particularly during these times of enforced national stringency, but I would appreciate some idea as to when the information may be provided.

Yours sincerely,

Doug Paulley

Dear Lancashire County Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Lancashire County Council's handling of my FOI request 'Lancashire: Leonard Cheshire, the Living Wage and fees for residential care for younger adults'.

You haven't responded to my request.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/l...

Yours faithfully,

Doug Paulley

Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

Dear Mr Paulley,

 

Further to your email dated 6^th March 2015, please see below our response
to your request that was emailed to you on Wednesday 4^th March.

 

Yours sincerely,

Miss P. Burman

Access to Information Officer

Access to Information Team

Lancashire County Council

[1]www.lancashire.gov.uk

 

 

From: Freedom of Information
Sent: 04 March 2015 12:26
To: '[email address]'
Subject: Request for Information (Our Ref: 876.140)-Response

 

Dear Mr Paulley

 

Request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

 

Further to your request for information, made under the provisions of the
above Act, please see below response we received from our Adult &
Community Services (ACS) Directorate. Please accept my sincere apologies
for the delay in providing this information to you.

 

Request:

 

Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD) claim that they would like to pay their
carers the Living Wage but that they are not paid enough by social care
funders such as yourself to do so.

 

I wonder if you could please tell me:

 

1) what representations Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD) have made to the
Council asking for increases in the fees paid for social care provided by
them, in order to pay their carers the Living Wage.

 

2) Some idea as to the fees currently being paid by the Council to LCD for
residential care, per resident per week. A range of fees or a set of
anonymised figures of the fees perhaps. Other councils have opted to
supply statistical median and range as they were concerned that individual
fees could make it possible for people to have a guess at which residents
had which fees.

 

3) Equivalent information for fees paid to other providers for residential
care in care homes for people with physical impairments under the age of
65.

 

Response:

 

1.     What representations Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD) have made to
the Council asking for increases in the fees paid for social care provided
by them, in order to pay their carers the Living Wage?

We have received correspondence from LCD requesting us to consider an
uplift in the rates we pay, A standard response was sent in December to
confirm that although an uplift of 1.75% had been agreed for older people
services for 14/15 for other adult service user groups it was agreed that
current placements would continue at existing levels whilst the Council
carry out some further work to develop a costing framework to assess
whether individual placements represent value for money. Pending progress
on introducing this framework, rates for current placements will continue
at existing levels. Rates for new placements will be agreed on an
individual basis prior to placement. So although they asked for an
increase in fees, it was declined at this stage.

2.     Some idea as to the fees currently being paid by the Council to LCD
for residential care, per resident per week. A range of fees or a set of
anonymised figures of the fees perhaps. Other councils have opted to
supply statistical median and range as they were concerned that individual
fees could make it possible for people to have a guess at which residents
had which fees.

Fees paid to Leonard Cheshire of which we have 6 placements.

 

Range   £299.22

Ave      £685.00

Median £686.13
 

3.     Equivalent information for fees paid to other providers for
residential care in care homes for people with physical impairments under
the age of 65.

Fees paid to remaining providers:

 

Range   £2,430

Ave      £587

Median £482

 

I trust the above is useful.

 

Your request will now be closed as of this date.

 

Yours sincerely,

Miss P. Burman

Access to Information Officer

Access to Information Team

Lancashire County Council

[2]www.lancashire.gov.uk

 

 

 

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Dear Freedom of Information,

Thank you,

Please continue to conduct the internal review though. You haven't provided the information I requested. You haven't indicated whether Leoanrd Cheshire Disability have requested an increase in fees paid to them to enable them to pay their carers the Living Wage.

Yours sincerely,

Doug Paulley

Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

Dear Mr Paulley,

 

Thank you for your email below, in which you indicate that my response to
Q1 has not answered your query.

 

You requested to know whether LCD have asked for an increase in fees, and
in my response, I advised that 'although they asked for an increase in
fees, it was declined'. Please see highlighted sentence below.

 

'We have received correspondence from LCD requesting us to consider an 
uplift in the rates we pay, A standard response was sent in December to 
confirm that although an uplift of 1.75% had been agreed for older people 
services for 14/15 for other adult service user groups it was agreed that 
current placements would continue at existing levels whilst the Council 
carry out some further work to develop a costing framework to assess 
whether individual placements represent value for money. Pending progress 
on introducing this framework, rates for current placements will continue 
at existing levels. Rates for new placements will be agreed on an 
individual basis prior to placement. So although they asked for an 
increase in fees, it was declined at this stage.'

 

I trust the above is useful.

 

If you would still like me to continue with your request for an internal
review, please advise by return.

 

Yours sincerely,

Miss P. Burman

Access to Information Officer

Access to Information Team

Lancashire County Council

[1]www.lancashire.gov.uk

 

 

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Dear Freedom of Information,

I must say I am starting
to get a little exasperated. Here's my question again.

"You haven't indicated whether
Leoanrd Cheshire Disability have requested an increase in fees paid
to them to enable them to pay their carers the Living Wage."

To put this another way: Did Leonard Cheshire cite their wish or intent to pay their carers the Living Wage as a reason for their requested increase in fees, or
during the fee negotiation process?

Please don't just send me the same answer again, which doesn't mention the Living Wage at all, it won't do my blood pressure any good; and please continue to conduct the internal review as requested. After all, over 100 other councils have successfully read this question and answered what I asked, which - as my preamble makes entirely clear - is about Leonard Cheshire's actions or otherwise to enable them to pay the Living Wage.

hank you

Doug Paulley

Dear Freedom of Information,

Please tell me what is happening with my Internal Review requested on 5th March 2015?

The Information COmmissioner's Office has indicated that they expect reviews to be completed within 20 working days, which would be by 5th April. You haven't responded. Please tell me what is going on, when I can expect a response. I don't want to have to ask the ICO to intervene - but I will do if necessary.

Yours sincerely,

Doug Paulley

Doug Paulley left an annotation ()

20wd 05/04/2015 40wd 04/05/2015

Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

Dear Mr Paulley,

 

Thank you for your email dated 8^th April 2015.

 

I have made further enquiries regarding your request, and I have been
advised by our Adult & Community Services (ACS) Directorate that we were
not trying to be obstructive, or deliberately try and avoid answering the
original question.

 

The response provided to you on 4^th March was in response to the more
generic question in terms of whether LCD had approached LCC for a fee
increase. Unfortunately, we did not respond to whether there had been a
specific request from LCD to allow them to pay their staff the Living
Wage. This was a simple misunderstanding of what had originally been
requested.  

 

In response to your question below, we can confirm that the correspondence
received from Leonard Cheshire to request an uplift in fees did not cite
their wish or intent to pay their carers the Living Wage as a reason for
their requested increase in fees. There is a general reference to
'external factors beyond our control' within the correspondence from LCD
but no specific reference to the Living Wage. This has also not been
discussed as part of the negotiation process.

 

'What representations Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD) have made to the
Council asking for increases in the fees paid for social care provided by
them, in order to pay their carers the Living Wage.'

 

I trust the above is a satisfactory response. Please accept our apologies
that the original response did not provide the information required.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Response by: Miss P. Burman

Access to Information Officer

Information Governance Team

Lancashire County Council

[1][Lancashire County Council request email]

[2]www.lancashire.gov.uk

 

Internally reviewed by: D J Bonser

Head of Information Governance

 

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