Find out what you might pay
A National working group has been set up by COSLA to try and bring some changes to this patchwork of care charges. However it will not bring any quick fixes. This year they hope to do no more than harmonise income disregards.
We have produced a “Universal Calculator” to show how much your charges might vary from one local authority to another. You enter your income and expenditure, then fill in your housing support and how much you will pay in Inverness, Aberdeen or Glasgow is displayed.
The “Universal Calculator” is available by clicking this link.
It is an excel spreadsheet in which you can enter the appropriate income and expenditure you have and then add the hours of support and number of times a week you go to a day centre. Care charges will be calculated automatically.
This Universal Calculator is based on published information from local authorities all over the country. Some of the care services is different areas are not comparable in different areas and charges may vary as a result.
This is not the same as a financial assessent by a local authority and you should always seek the advice of local authority staff over what you will pay according to your circumstances. In some areas transitional protection is in place and you may pay less than is shown by the calculator. In other cases, local authorities will help you claim benefits that you do not already get and this may increase your income. In such cases you might be better off even though you are paying care charges.
We have tested this calculator with a number of real life situations and believe it is fairly accurate. However if you find an error in how it works, please let us know and we will correct it. Error in Lookup tables for disregards corrected 10th Feb 2012. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.