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Guidance on choosing accommodation and additional payments Information, advice and complaints

  1. For individuals to be able to exercise genuine choice they need information about the options open to them. They should be given clear and balanced information with which to make the best choice of accommodation. The local authority should explain to individuals their rights under the Care Act. Individuals should be told explicitly that they may allow the local authority to make a decision about accommodation on their behalf, or, if they wish, they are free to choose any accommodation subject to the constraints set out in the regulations. 
  2. Under Section 4 of the Care Act 2014 a local authority must establish and maintain a service for providing people in its area with information and advice in relation to care and support. This must include information and advice about the different care providers available in the local area to enable choice as well as information and advice to help people to understand care charges, different ways to pay and money management. Local authorities should also have a role in facilitating access to financial information and advice provided independently of the local authority, including regulated information and advice where appropriate; to support people in making informed financial decisions. This may be particularly appropriate when a person is considering paying a top-up to help them to understand what they would be paying the top-up for and come to a judgment about whether it would represent good value for money. 
  3. Where a ‘top-up’ arrangement is being entered in to, all parties should fully understand their responsibilities, liabilities and the consequences of the arrangements. A local authority must provide the third party with sufficient information and advice to support them to understand the terms of the proposed written agreement before entering in to it. Local authorities must also have regard to the general guidance on Information and Advice set out in Chapter 3. 
  4. Complaints about how choice or any ‘top-up’ arrangement is exercise by the local authority fall within the scope of the local authority’s statutory complaints procedure.