Please provide the following for 2022/2023 and 2021/2022:
- The lowest rate per hour paid to a Homecare Provider for daytime personal care services
*Response below
- The highest rate per hour paid to a Homecare Provider for daytime personal care services
*Response below
- The average rate per hour paid to a Homecare Provider for daytime personal care services
2021/2022 – £23.18
2022/2023 – £25.14
- The lowest rate per week paid to a Homecare Provider for live-in personal care services
*Response below
- The highest rate per week paid to a Homecare Provider for live-in personal care services
*Response below
- The average rate per week paid to a Homecare Provider for live-in personal care services
2021/2022 – £1215
2022/2023 – £1300
- The lowest rate per hour paid to a Homecare Provider for overnight personal care services
*Response below
- The highest rate per hour paid to a Homecare Provider for overnight personal care services
*Response below
- The highest rate per hour paid to a Homecare Provider for overnight personal care services
Devon County Council (DCC) do not hold this information, but we can tell you for 2021/2022 the average weekly rate was £299 per week and for 2022/2023 it is £328.
- The total number of services available for spot contract purchasing during this period
DCC have a pool of approximately 147 providers that we can purchase domiciliary care from. At any one time the number of providers that are actively providing and picking up new work hovers around 110.
- The total number of hours available for spot contract purchasing during this period
DCC do not hold this information because hours are not blocked or guaranteed.
- The average number of hours available for spot contract purchasing per month during this period
*Response below
*DCC are applying Section 43(2), which exempts information where disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any legal person.
The information that has been requested is commercial in nature.
This market is under considerable strain, and capacity to provide services is low. If this information was released, it could lead to an increase in fees. The risk is that we open up opportunity for providers to submit pricing increases, destabilising our financial position.
The likelihood of this happening is high, because this service is currently operating on a spot contract basis and is due to e competed. Therefore providers can if they want ask to increase prices or hand back the packages of care they currently deliver.
Devon County Council acknowledges that there is a general public interest in openness and transparency. However, the public, commonly, are not able to secure the rates that DCC pay for these services as the private funder is not purchasing at the high volume that DCC are. The public could ask DCC to source their care and they would pay at DCC rates. Local Authorities struggle to meet the needs of the people they do fund, if they were to have the additional burden of the private funder the system would be overwhelmed. We also believe it is in the publics best interest for DCC to get best value for taxpayers money, releasing this information would prevent us from doing so. Therefore, for this reason we believe that the balance of public interest lies in withholding this information currently.