It may be a little too early to tell, but I’m wondering if anyone has already had any trouble with their paid carers/services yet regarding the national minimum wage increase from April 1st, and the Coronavirus Bill allowing local authorities being able to freely reduce funding?
A couple of member’s of my family get direct payments for personal care, all at varying budgets. I know their local LA never increased any of their budgets in line with the new NMW last year (we have raised issue with them and have been ignored) so for the last twelve months they’ve all basically been eating into the redundancy surpluses trying to maintain their carer’s wage at the legal level.
The new increase is really go push them into hot water, especially given the circumstances with the new bill and councils being likely on the lookout for any excuse to cut funding to people. It’s also a worry how they are all high risk of severe infection from COVID, so the LA’s failure to increase their budget could really come back to bite them/their PA’s on the butt if any of them are made redundant due to the virus.