Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Strategic Director People on the Care and Support Green Paper. 

The Committee considered a report on the Government’s Green Paper “Shaping the Future of Care Together”.  The Green Paper essentially addressed two large matters:

      The nature of the system for delivering care and support.  The Government recommended the development of a National Care Service in England which would ensure a consistent approach to standards and quantity of care and support in England.  Within this were two options for either a fully National Service whereby Central Government decided how much funding an individual should receive and a mixed services whereby a division of responsibility was maintained between local and Central Government;

      The funding for the system for delivering care and support.  Five funding models were set out in the Green Paper of which two the Government was inclined to discard as unaffordable.  The remaining three models upon which views were invited were the Partnership Model, Insurance Model and Comprehensive Model.  The Partnership Model would mean a guaranteed minimum of every individual’s care costs paid for by the State (regardless of income) with the remainder of costs met by the individual (subject to their means); the Insurance Model was an extension of the partnership model with the option of additional care costs covered through insurance; and the Comprehensive model requiring everybody over retirement age to pay into a state insurance scheme.

The report outlined the implications of a fully national system which it was felt would undermine what was the traditional role of the Local Authority to assess needs and commission services to meet them.  There was also a risk of raising public expectations about what every adult ought to get as a result of reform of the care and support system but if resources were not made available and difficult changes not pushed through, there was a risk of serious disappointment.

During discussion of the item Members welcomed the personalisation and consistent approach within the proposals and hoped the intended support to carers would materialise.

RESOLVED:  that the Cabinet be advised that this Committee:

      Welcomes the emphasis which the Green Paper gives to prevention and early intervention, believing that a sustainable future for Adult Social Care in Cheshire East will depend upon such an approach.

      Welcomes the encouragement given to joining up services, recognising that within Cheshire East significant work is under way on that agenda.

      Welcomes the commitment expressed to pushing forward the development of personalisation, noting that Cheshire East is already well advanced with the task of extending greater choice and control to people.

      Welcomes the ambition to achieve greater consistency, but deplores the idea of establishing a fully National system.

      Recommends that further consideration should be given to the development of a compulsory insurance model, built around a state based insurance scheme.

      Welcomes the attention given to the needs of carers, on the basis that investment in supporting informal carers will be crucial to the future of Cheshire East’s Adult Social Care Services.

      Urges that in the development of thinking about the future funding of care and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23