Someone has brought this little anomaly to my attention and I was wondering if anyone else had noticed it: 1. when PC capital limits increase to £10,000 in November the effect on GC will be a straight increase of £8pw for people with enough tarrif income. 2. However for Savings Credit it will be more complicated. Since tarrif income is a qualifying income for SC, the qualifying income will go down by £8. This results in a drop of up to £4.80 in your SC. 3. The overall effect will be, for people with SC through tarrif income, that they get a total increase of £3.20 with £4.80 being in effect transferred from SC to GC. 4. Fair enough, they're still better off. But now consider Fairer Charging Guidance which requires (para.27) that all SC is disregarded. Effectively you are transferring £4.80 from SC (where it is disregarded for Fairer Charging) to GC (where it counts). 5. If you are paying charges for a non-residential care package (say at 75% of excess income which is the figure here in Wirral), you then get a £3.20 increase in your overall PC and a £6 increase in your charges (because your chargeable income has gone up by £8: £3.20 actual increase, £4.80 transferred from SC to GC).
If others agree with the analysis, any suggestions where we can take this up?
Richard Atkinson
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