Guidance

Annex A: grant determination

Updated 1 July 2022

Applies to England

Determination under section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003 of a ring-fenced Rapid Testing Fund to Local Authorities for 2020/21 No. 31/5312.

The Minister of State for Care (‘the Minister of State’), in exercise of the powers conferred by section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003, makes the following determination.

Citation

This determination may be cited as the Adult Social Care Rapid Testing Fund Determination 2020/21 No. 31/5312.

Purpose of the grant

The main purpose of this funding is to support additional rapid testing of staff in care homes, and to support visiting professionals and enable indoors, close contact visiting where possible. This includes adult social care providers with whom the local authority does not have a contract.

In order to ensure that the relevant measures are put in place as quickly as possible, local authorities should make the relevant payments to care home providers within 10 working days of receipt of these allocations. All expenditure financed by this grant should be incurred between 2 December 2020 and 31 March 2021. Any funds not used by 31 March 2021 will be recovered and local authorities must have measures in place to allow this to happen efficiently.

Determination

The authorities to which grants are to be paid and the amount of grants to be paid, are set out in Annex B.

The grant will be paid in a single instalment in January 2021.

Grant conditions

Pursuant to section 31(4) of the Local Government Act 2003, the Minister of State determines that the grants will be paid subject to the conditions in Annex C.

Subject to the conditions in this grant determination being satisfied, local authorities should pass 80% of the funding straight to care homes within the local authority’s geographical area on a ‘per beds’ basis, including to social care providers with whom the local authority does not have existing contracts. This funding must only be used for the measures specified in Annex C. The local authority has the discretion to target the allocation of the remaining 20% of funding to support the care sector to operationally deliver lateral flow device (LFD) testing.

If at any point the local authority reasonably believes that the funding is not being used to support the rollout of LFD testing, they should withhold further payments until satisfied that the previous payments have been used for the purpose set out in this grant determination.

The local authority must not make a first allocation of any funding to a care home unless they are completing the Capacity Tracker regularly (at least weekly) and have committed to doing so once per week until 31 March 2021.

If the local authority finds that the provider has not used the funding or any part of it to support the measures for which it was provided, the local authority must take all reasonable steps to recover the money that has not been so used.

Care homes must account for all payments funded by this grant allocation and keep appropriate records. In so far as a care home does not use the entirety of the ‘per beds’ allocation in pursuit of the measures outlined, any remaining funds must be returned to the local authority. Local authorities must ensure that appropriate arrangements are in place to enable them, if necessary, to recover any such overpayments. None of the funding provided is to be used for any purpose other than the specified measures.

Treasury consent

Before making this determination in relation to local authorities in England, the Minister of State obtained the consent of the Treasury.

Signed by authority of the Minister of State for Care, Helen Whately

Hester Wadge, Deputy Director for Adult Social Care Funding and Legislation, Department of Health and Social Care

13 January 2021