Sleep-Ins: September Update

The Supreme Court is allowing the trade union, Unison, to appeal the Court of Appeals decision about sleep-ins.

This means that the Supreme Court will now look at the case.

The Supreme Court is the highest Court of Appeal in the UK. They make decisions about how the law works in cases where the law is currently unclear.

The decision they make must be used by all other courts.

To have a case heard at the Supreme Court it must be heard at the other levels of Court first. Only cases that are very important to the public go are heard.

The sleep-ins case is about whether support staff should be paid the National Minimum Wage during overnight shifts when they aren’t always working.

It is seen as very important to the public because a decision that staff should be paid the National Minimum Wage for the whole sleep-in shift would have a huge effect on the social care sector. It might mean the sector has to pay around £400 million in back pay to staff. This might bankrupt some organisations. It also is an important message on how support staff are valued for the work they do so many people want a solution that keeps good reliable staff doing their jobs.

For more information about the case and previous decisions, click here.

The 12^th and 13^th February 2020 have been set as the dates for the appeal. It is expected the Court will make a decision by July 2020.

Sleep-Ins effecting Members

Some members have been telling us about changes their providers have tried to make to wages for sleep-ins.

One family told us about their provider trying to reduce staffs sleep-in pay despite the local authority committing to not reducing rates. They have challenged the provider on this as they think its unreasonable and unfair for staff to take a pay cut.

If you have been effected by issues around sleep ins and would like to share your experiences, you can contact Rachael on rachael.hall@ldengland.org.uk

Individual Service Funds in England: Making Choice and Control Happen

About this event

Want more choice and control over your support without the complications of Direct Payments? An Individual Service Fund may be the answer!

Watch to hear about how people are starting to use Individual Service Funds in England to have more choice and control over their support. 

ISFs are a type of personal budget that can offer nearly the same amount of choice and control as a Direct Payment but without some of the complications. 

They were introduced in England through the Care Act 2014, as a promoted option for local authorities to be able to commission this form of self-directed support. 

Since then, several pilots have taken place around England to trial ISFs and to ‘test and learn’ more about how they work and the benefits for people using them. 

In this webinar you will hear from Chris Watson, Founder of Self Directed Futures, Jacqui Hendra, a social care assessor who works with ISF’s in Devon and Gary Kent who runs a support provider organisation called New Key. 

The webinar covers: 

• What ISFs are 

• What are their benefits and why they are different to Direct Payments 

• What your rights are and what is happening with them around England 

• Gary and Jacqui’s work together supporting people with ISFs in Devon 

• Trudy’s real life ISF story 

• Question and answer session with all speakers

For more information about the webinar and resources about ISF, click here

This webinar will be of particular interest to families, support providers and those working for local authorities. 

This was a members only webinar. It was open to individual members and people who are part of organisations who are members. You can join as a member for as little as £12 a year, find out more here

#SolveSleepIns February Update

In November we sent out a survey asking about sleep-in payments and how changes are affecting our members. Disabled people, family members and Personal Assistants/support workers responded.

Some people said their local authority would be reducing their sleep-in rate soon and had contacted them about it. This means that some people will be paid less than the national minimum wage for sleep in work.

Members in Lancashire have told us that their local authority has said their rate will change from the beginning of April from £ 94.20 /night to £47.43/night. Although this change will be phased in over 6 months it will result in staff being paid around half of what they had originally been paid.

Other people said their local authority hadn’t made any changes to their rate of pay, but they were very worried that they might in future.

Most people we spoke to were ‘very concerned’ about the about the legal implications of sleep-ins. Everyone we spoke to wanted to pay their staff the minimum wage for sleep-ins. People wanted to be a good employer and were worried about being breaking employment laws and rights as well as possibly having to pay back pay.  People were concerned about how this would affect both personal budget holders, staff and smaller providers.

People were very concerned that changes to the rate of sleep in pay would have a negative impact on lots of people.

People are worried about:

• Not having a big enough personal budget to pay for support they need
• Losing good staff who had supported them for a long time
• Staff not feeling valued or appreciated
• Concerns about funding redundancies and back pay
• Not being able to recruit more staff

A self-advocate said:

“We would like a lot more Person Assistants & Staff back in Northamptonshire & The East Midlands with a lot more hours for me & Disabled People”

A family member said:

“We have very good staff retention and I try to be a good employer. There is a lot of liability stacked up and any claim would be time consuming and expensive.”

A Support Worker told us:

“As a support worker I feel I may be driven out of the care sector due to low income and if this happens across the whole sector the people we care about will not get the level of support and respect they deserve.”

We asked about where people are getting their information and support from about sleep ins. They got information from lots of different places including, other disabled people and families, providers, local authorities, social media and the news.

People thought that guidance and information weren’t very clear and sometimes was different depending on where it was from. They also found it difficult to find any easy read information.

Learning Disability England is part of the #SolveSleepIns Alliance. The Alliance has been campaigning to bring more attention to the issue of sleep ins and prompt a response from the government in,

• Clarifying its policy position on sleep ins
• Confirming employers won’t face unfair potential HMRC enforcement
• Communicating and working with everyone to make sure they understand how ‘sleep-in’ overnight care should be paid for and where any genuinely new money required for this will come from.
• Working with providers and local government on a sustainable funding solution for overnight care that will ensure care workers are valued and fairly paid.

Our last update included a letter to and response from MP Kelly Tolhurst. The letter recognised the current situation around sleep-ins as an issue. A key message being that the Department of Health and Social Care is telling local authorities and commissioners they should not be using the Court of Appeals judgement as a chance to radically change their fee-paying practices.

You can read the last update here.

The survey is still open if you would like to share your experiences or opinions.

Click here

Social Care Futures

Including everyone session – Thursday 15^th November

Next week Learning Disability England members and some of the team will be part of running a session at the Social Care Futures event.

Social Care futures is a get together organised by volunteers and supported by a lot of different people with the aim of sharing what is most important and possible for social care in the future

We are working with the Alzheimers Society and  Dimensions to share examples of how people are being supported to live a good life even though often the service system sees them as having complex needs.

Through the session, we want to share what is working but also work out what it will take for those kinds of support to be available to more people

Tim and Andrew are part of the session sharing what they have been involved in with New Prospects in Whitley Bay.

Building Community, not fighting for inclusion?

Tim and Andrew will share New Prospects work in Whitley Bay on being part of local community groups and working in partnership with people and groups

Some of what they will talk about was in this paper

Everyone in – what this session is about?

The session will share practical examples of how people traditionally viewed as having complex support needs are being supported in a variety of different settings to maintain or build relationships, activities or work with a focus on a good life not only their support or care needs.

About Tim & Andrew

Tim Keilty

With a background in the advocacy movement and training and consultancy, Tim now works for a support provider in the North East – New Prospects Association.  He has learned that; telling people what to do on behalf of someone as an advocate, teaching people what to do as a trainer and advising people as a consultant are all easier than actually doing it…

Andrew Strachan 

Andrew is an award-winning volunteer and community activist.  Well known, well respected and well connected.  Andrew is nosey, helpful, genuine and friendly; his brain hosts a web of names, stories and connections – the key traits of a community builder.

A life, not a service?

Jennie and Sarah will talk about Local Area Coordination in York.

Jennie Cox and Sarah Charlton are Local Area Coordinators in York. The LAC programme has been running for 18 months in York and has already seen some great impact on people’s lives and futures, including those labelled as having complex needs.

We are place-based, strengths-based practitioners offering person-centred, flexible, support to individuals and families in defined geographical areas. Our roles involve community capacity building to promote greater social inclusion for all. Our roles are also integral to system change in coproduction with several other innovative programmes in York, such as our Future Focus adult social care transformation programme, our Social Prescribing service and the Multiple Complex Needs Network. We are social innovators, expert generalists and specialists in thinking outside the box.

Our response to the consultation on mandatory training by Department Health and Social Care

Learning Disability England has responded to the government consultation

LDE has written a response too based on what self advocates, family members and people who work in organisations have told us.

The main points are:

We think all staff should receive face-to-face training which has been designed and delivered primarily by people with learning disabilities and/or autism.

We think people with learning disabilities should be employed to design, deliver and evaluate the training. This means they should be paid the living wage and have a proper contract. They should be paid the same amount as any non-disabled co-trainers.

There are many programmes that already work using this model and it should be considered best practice, informing and providing the basis for the mandatory training.

You can see our full response here – LDE Mandatory Training Response