direct payments for carers

heken123

Hi
This is a weird situation but for the last year I have been trying to return an over payment from direct payments. But they won't take it back! My father started getting the direct payments for his personal care but they were paying too much and there were periods when he went into hospital. When I set it up I stupidly only had one bank account but then struggled knowing what was actually my dads money to spend. I filled out all the forms at one stage but then heard nothing back.
Unfortunately my father is very sick and doesn't have a very long time left to live. I would just like to get this sorted so I can see what can be spent on his funeral without them telling me after I still owe them a lot more than I have calculated it to be.

nannytone_2

as far as i am aware, you have to use a separate, dedicated bank account for direct payments.
what have you been using the money for?
have you been paying for carers? if so, you should have payroll records.
also, when the money goes into the account, the council should be sending statements of how much they pay in and what period it covers.
how do you expect the council to tell you how much you owe if you've been mixing this money up with your own?

heken123

when I first started having direct payments I didn't think to do a separate account I thought it would be just straight forward, money would go in from council and then out to carers. That's all the money was used for was his carers and I sent all the information monthly bills to direct payments. I sent them every bill from the carers and informed them of every period my dad was in hospital. Then there'd the contributions my dad needed to pay as well. I asked for help to try and sort it out, a lady came out but wasn't able to sort it out.

nannytone_2

i am surprised that the council allowed you to carry on in such a haphazard way to be honest.
were the carers through an agency or directly employed by you/your father?
i receive direct payments and every penny has to be accounted for on a monthly basis.
were you paying for insurance from the direct payment?
as for co funding, I'm not sure if all councils do this in the same way.
my council pays the total amount in to my managed bank account and then invoice me for my contribution, which i pay direct to the council;

heken123

nannytone wrote: »

i am surprised that the council allowed you to carry on in such a haphazard way to be honest.
were the carers through an agency or directly employed by you/your father?
i receive direct payments and every penny has to be accounted for on a monthly basis.
were you paying for insurance from the direct payment?
as for co funding, I'm not sure if all councils do this in the same way.
my council pays the total amount in to my managed bank account and then invoice me for my contribution, which i pay direct to the council;

they were through an agency, I think it was when direct payments first started I wasn't told very much at the beginning and opening another account was very difficult as I didn't have power of attorney and couldn't get him to the bank. Money was never checked I wished it was, it might have made things easier. I stopped the direct payments because I found it too difficult to manage