Members of Cabinet (Resources) Panel approved the increase when they met last week, to both help sustain the local adult social care market and meet increases in the National Living Wage.
Councillor Linda Leach, the City of Wolverhampton Council's Cabinet Member for Adult Services, said: "The city's social care sector has a vital role to play in supporting our most vulnerable residents, and we want to ensure it is as strong and vibrant as it can be. We also want to make it a more attractive sector for people to work in, particularly as demand for services continues to rise.
"We know that, like other employers, adult care and support providers are facing a perfect storm of rising costs and recruitment issues, and we have already increased the hourly rate we pay to homecare providers and reablement providers to help ease the pressure caused by Covid-19.
"We have continued to engage closely with our providers and are pleased to be able to further increase rates by up to 10% from April 2022 compared to last year, which will not only benefit providers and their staff, but also service users and their families.
“It means we will be putting an extra £4.1 million into adult social care in the coming financial year, and will bring our total investment in adult social care to nearly £80 million in 2022 to 2023.”
The council will increase rates by 10% for nursing care for people with dementia and community activities for older people, by 6.3% for Direct Payments, home care, home based respite, supported living and community activities for adults with complex needs, by 5% for residential care for older people, by 3.2% for rapid response and reablement home care, and by 3% for extra care and nursing and residential care for adults under 65. The increased rates will come into effect from 4 April, 2022.
Councillor Leach added: “Through the fee review, we have also proposed a new self employed rate, which we hope will support people to work in care. The self employment rate will allow people to work under an umbrella for their training and DBS needs, but answer immediate calls for care workers.”
The Wolverhampton Cares initiative, launched by the council and key partners last autumn, has seen a package of help and support put in place to help the local health and social care sector through the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond. To find out more visit Wolverhampton Cares.
