Commentary on Sections Preserved rights
243.Sections 50 – 52 concern the abolition of preserved rights. Until 1 April 1993, when the community care reforms came into effect, residential care was paid for by the social security benefits that residents received. The community care reforms transferred the responsibility for paying for residential care to local authorities. However, people who were in residential care immediately before 1 April 1993, retained their right to the higher rate of income support that they had been receiving to pay for their care. Responsibility for paying for their care was not transferred to the local authority.
244.Over time, residential care costs have increased at a disproportionate rate to social security benefits, and in some cases social security benefits are not sufficient to cover the cost of the residential care. This has meant that sometimes people have had to leave the care home they have been living in and find alternative accommodation the cost of which is covered by the social security payment.
245.These sections provide for the removal of the entitlement to higher rates of income support or jobseeker’s allowance and require local authorities to make appropriate accommodation arrangements, for those people who received those higher rates, in the same way as they are required to do for those who entered residential accommodation on or after 1 April 1993 . They will require the Secretary of State for Social Security to ensure that the special provision made for those with preserved rights ceases. At the request of the Scottish Executive and by the approval of the Scottish Parliament, which was obtained on 17th January 2001, section 50 operates on devolved legislation concerning Scotland so that preserved rights can cease across the whole of Great Britain on the same day.
246.These new arrangements will require local authorities to assess (under the 1948 Act or its Scottish equivalent) the care needs of those who have had preserved rights rates of benefits for community care services.