Cap on Care Costs
The Care Act 2014 (the "2014 Act") contains provisions relating to adult care, support and health. Part 1 of the 2014 Act is intended to provide duties and responsibilities to local authorities in meeting the care needs of their population. Part 1 also includes powers for a local authority to charge for the cost of care and provisions to implement the changes put forward by the Commission on the Funding of Care and Support.
	Section 15 of the 2014 Act establishes a cap on the amount that adults can be required to pay towards eligible care costs over their lifetime. These costs are either specified in a personal budget (under section 26) where the local authority is meeting the person’s needs, or, once commenced, in an independent personal budget (under section 28) where the local authority is not.
	The amendments made in this Act were introduced in order to enable the introduction of a cap on the amount anyone in England will need to spend on their personal care over their lifetime. While the power to set a cap was already legislated for in the 2014 Act, the decision was made that the cap, and the way people meter (accrue costs) towards it, should operate differently to how the Government envisaged in 2014.
	Prior to the amendments made by this Act, section 15 of the 2014 Act stated that people who receive financial support from the local authority will meter to the cap at the cost of care specified in their personal budget; this cost is met through a combination of local authority and individual contributions.
	The Act provides that only the amount that the individual contributes towards these costs will count towards the cap on care costs, and so individuals will not reach the cap at a faster rate than their personal contributions.
	The Act also makes technical changes to the 2014 Act to ensure the policy intentions for Personal Budgets and Independent Personal Budgets are reflected in legislation.
	The legislation specifies the information which must be included when creating a Personal Budget, to ensure that all contributions made by the individual which ought to count towards the cap at the local authority determined rate are recorded in the Personal Budget – to bring it in line with the policy intention. This is aimed to ensure that Personal Budgets and Independent Personal Budgets work as they were originally intended when being used in conjunction with the cap.