Commentary on Sections Section 1:  Free provision of personal care at home
7.Section 1 makes amendments to section 15 of the 2003 Act together with consequential amendments to other primary legislation.
8.Subsection (2) amends section 15(4)(b) of the 2003 Act to remove the six-week restriction on the free provision of personal care, except in so far as this relates to the provision of personal care to someone living in accommodation that an establishment provides together with personal care. This would cover, for example, care homes but not sheltered accommodation or extra care housing. Extra care housing is an arrangement whereby a person is provided with community care services in specialist accommodation designed for the needs of older people, which may often be found or arranged for them by the care provider. The accommodation and care provided in such accommodation are not provided together but under separate arrangements made by the individual.
9.Subsection (3) provides that the six-week limitation in section 15(4)(b) does not apply to the provision of personal care under an adult placement scheme. An adult placement scheme involves placing an adult in need (such as a disabled person) with a carer who might share their home with the person. It is similar to fostering and the purpose is to enable the person in need to live as independently as possible.
10.Subsection (4) provides that the regulations under section 15 can, in particular, impose on a local authority functions relating to eligibility for the free provision of personal care, and can refer to guidance under section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970. The functions which could be imposed might, for example, include the setting of criteria for the free provision and the determination of eligibility by reference to those criteria and any criteria that the Secretary of State sets.
11.Subsection (4) also inserts new subsection (4C) into section 15 of the 2003 Act. The new provision will ensure that a local authority has the power to make a person's eligibility for free personal care conditional on the person undergoing a process designed to maximise the person’s ability to live independently. This could include a short period of intensive and focussed support to maximise the person’s independent living skills.
12.Subsection (4) also inserts a new subsection (4D). The effect of it is that a person is to be regarded for the purposes of section 15 as living at home if the place where the person lives is not accommodation provided under Part 3 of the 1948 Act or accommodation of the kind described in the amended subsection (4)(b) (a care home, for example).
13.Subsection (5) inserts new subsection (4E) into section 15 of the 2003 Act. This provides that section 21(5) of the National Assistance Act 1948 (“the 1948 Act”) applies for the purposes of section 15 of the 2003 Act. Section 21(5) of the 1948 Act provides that references to accommodation provided under Part 3 of that Act include references to accommodation as well as board and other services, amenities and requisites provided in connection with the accommodation (except where in the opinion of the authority managing the premises their provision is unnecessary). As a result, references in section 15 to the provision of accommodation under Part 3 of the 1948 Act will include the provision of personal care.
14.Subsection (6) makes a consequential amendment to the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 to include functions conferred on local authorities under sections 15 and 16 of the 2003 Act in the list of social services functions in Schedule 1 to that Act. Section 7 of that Act requires local authorities to act under the general guidance of the Secretary of State in the exercise of their social services functions.
15.Subsections (7) and (8) make consequential amendments to the 1948 Act and the Health and Social Services and Social Security Adjudications Act 1983.