Home care firms take legal action against council over low pay

Eighteen private home care providers have begun legal action against the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council and are demanding the authority pay them more or face court.

The Bradford Care Association, which represents the providers, is angry about the £13-an-hour rate paid by the council and has launched, what is believed to be, the first legal action taken by home care providers against a local authority.

The UK Home Care Association (UKHCA) recommends a minimum rate for an hour of homecare should be £16.16 (until the National Living Wage of £7.20 per hour is introduced in April 2016 - when the hourly rate should increase to £16.70).

Colin Angel, UKHCA policy director said: "To our knowledge Bradford Council have not challenged the assumptions on which our calculations have been made."

The Bradford Care Association has been meeting with council representatives over the last twelve months because the fee rates the council proposed failed to meet the providers' actual care costs.

At the start of October, the council’s 50p-an-hour pay rise to the firms (from £12.50 to £13) seemed only to add insult to injury and kick-start talks with their solicitor.

The providers' move highlights a critically underfunded care system and indicates they may not be the last low paid care providers to seek justice in the courts.

Mr Angel added: "Legal action is one of a range of options for providers to consider. We believe that it can be pursued when other less costly options have been exhausted and may well illustrate the degree of concern by local businesses for the stability of the local market.

"The consequences of a successful review of home care fees in Bradford could be a wake up call to councils that there has to be a better way of engaging with providers to create more effective and efficient home care services.

"An expert review of the fee rates paid for home care would recognise that low fees are incompatible with the legal requirements of the Care Act and can not create a safe and equitable home care service."

Councillor Jeanette Sunderland, leader of the Liberal Democrats at the council said: "I’ve been behind the council’s scrutiny review looking at the cost of care. The council should absolutely re-think the amount it pays to home care. It’s not a fair price.”

Councillor Ralph Berry, executive member for health and social care at the Labour-led council, went further to highlight a nationwide funding crisis.

He said: “This situation isn’t going to improve the amount of resources that the Government gives Bradford Council. I’m facing more than £13m in budget cuts this year. The next year will be worse.

“Social care in England is in crisis. It is massively underfunded. The Care Act is not resourced properly nationally. Care Quality Commission activity is driving up our costs. If a provider is failing we, as the local authority, have to step in and run care homes.”

Speaking on the third and final day of the National Children & Adult Services Conference in Bournemouth (attended by social care providers and local authorities) Cllr Berry said: "I’ve come to see how I can collaborate with others. In the past, you would get invited to talks with ministers.

"For the first time ever there hasn’t been any ministerial [health minister] representation here apart from the minister Alistair Burt this morning. I’ve been coming here for 20 years. It’s like the ministers have been gagged before the Spending Review.”

More than 883,000 older and disabled people rely on home care each year. However, home care providers receiving low fees from local authorities could be forced into withdrawing from care or going out of business, according to a recent United Kingdom Homecare Association survey.

The survey gathered data from 492 home care providers in the UK, with 63 per cent of them trading with at least one local authority. Many providers said they have already been forced to hand back contracts for people’s care to local authorities because fees are uneconomic.

Referring to the legal action, a Bradford council spokesman said: "The council can confirm that it has received a pre-action letter from BCA's solicitors and will be responding to it in accordance with the court protocol."