Care Act help to keep homes habitable for adults
Case reference FOI2025/00299
Received 10 February 2025
Published 26 March 2025
Request
1) Can you confirm if you have a policy and procedure in place that allows Adult Social workers to ignore the Care Act requirement to help disabled, bed bound clients maintain a "Habitable home", see LGSCO decision:
2) Can you please confirm how many disabled, bed bound clients have no Care Act Package in place that includes help to keep the home habitable as of February 2025? (I know of at least two).
3) Can you provide copies of all your policies and procedures that expressly require you to identify and support someone to maintain their home in a habitable condition, and evidence of how you follow those instructions.
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CLARIFICATION FROM REQUESTER:
For clarity I am seeking information on how many eligible clients with care needs needs, that need help to keep their Home habitable as defined by the Care Act and Health and Social Care Regulations 2008 are having this need recorded on a care plan?
The number of years I require the information for will be determined by the 18 hour rule.
Please be aware the service area are well aware of what help to keep the home habitable is as it is set out in the relevant regulations and acts.
Can I also request a copy of the Equality Impact Assessments that should accompany any policies you provide and a list of when any out of date policies will be reviewed?
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FURTHER CLARIFICATION FROM REQUESTER FOR Q2:
I simply mean Care Act "Package of Care" to support identified needs including needs to keep their Home habitable (domiciliary care)
Response
1) Can you confirm if you have a policy and procedure in place that allows Adult Social workers to ignore the Care Act requirement to help disabled, bed bound clients maintain a "Habitable home", see LGSCO decision:
2) Can you please confirm how many disabled, bed bound clients have no Care Act Package in place that includes help to keep the home habitable as of February 2025? (I know of at least two).
3) Can you provide copies of all your policies and procedures that expressly require you to identify and support someone to maintain their home in a habitable condition, and evidence of how you follow those instructions.
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CLARIFICATION FROM REQUESTER:
For clarity I am seeking information on how many eligible clients with care needs needs, that need help to keep their Home habitable as defined by the Care Act and Health and Social Care Regulations 2008 are having this need recorded on a care plan?
The number of years I require the information for will be determined by the 18 hour rule.
Please be aware the service area are well aware of what help to keep the home habitable is as it is set out in the relevant regulations and acts.
Can I also request a copy of the Equality Impact Assessments that should accompany any policies you provide and a list of when any out of date policies will be reviewed?
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FURTHER CLARIFICATION FROM REQUESTER FOR Q2:
I simply mean Care Act "Package of Care" to support identified needs including needs to keep their Home habitable (domiciliary care)
Answer: The information for question 2 is not held in a form that would enable it to be located, retrieved and extracted within the Appropriate Time Limit which equates to 18 hours as defined by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limits and Fees) Regulations 2004.
Our electronic reporting systems are unable to run a report for this information, as we do not have a recordable category for “bed bound”. To ascertain the data requested, officers would need to manually check individual files for this information. An initial search has shown that 489 files would need to be checked for this information, and it is estimated that it would take 10 minutes to check each file. Once the details had been identified this would need to be noted and once all files had been checked in this way, the total figures requested could be calculated.
This would at a conservative estimate take at least 81.5 hours to complete. Where the Limit is exceeded Public Authorities are not obliged to supply the information requested by virtue of S12 of the Act. Please take this letter as a refusal notice under S17 of the Act.
However, within the 18-hour limit, we can provide answers for questions 1 and 3, the Equality Impact Assessments and a list of when any out-of-date policies will be reviewed (provided its clear which policies this refers to), as requested. Please advise us if this is something you require.
Documents
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