Wirral council charged vulnerable adults for free care services

Vulnerable adults were charged “substantial” amounts by Wirral council for care services that should have been free.
The charges were enforced between 2005 and 2012 – when the authority was plunged into chaos for overcharging for other care services.

Wallasey town hall blamed the charges on “accounting errors” and said changes brought in after their previous charging scandal highlighted the mistakes.

Over a seven-year period, two adults receiving treatment under the Mental Health Act 1983 were incorrectly charged for the services by Wirral’s department of adult social services.

During that period the same department overcharged dozens of vulnerable people for accommodation, leading to external consultant Anna Klonowski’s damning report slamming the council’s “corporate governance”.

The new charges were discovered following a Freedom of Information request.

Through the Act the Post retrieved a statement drawn up in August 2012 – months after the publication of the Klonowski report – which said: “We have uncovered the need to make two substantial refunds after two people were incorrectly charged for their care over a number of years. Both were being provided with aftercare services that they should not have been charged for.”

Wirral council said drawing comparisons between the errors and the previous care scandal would be “misleading in the extreme”.

The authority refused requests by The Post for the full amount the individuals had been wrongly billed and insisted the council did not need to discuss the repayments in public.

A spokesman for the council said the repayments, thought to be under £60,000, were not revealed to the council’s cabinet “as they were accounting errors and as such could be dealt with in-house”.

He added  “robust processes” were  in place which identified the issue and “the details of the case are personal to the individuals concerned”.

Conservative leader Jeff Green slammed Wirral council for the errors and questioned its commitment to honesty and openness.

He said: “Not reporting it openly brings everything that this administration has said in terms of its openness and transparency into question and it seems once again this administration has not learned the lessons of the past.” The obvious question is how many ‘accountancy errors’ are going on that the public haven’t been told about?”

Cllr Green said he would be demanding “immediate assurances” about the “breach of faith with vulnerable residents”.

Cllr Chris Jones, cabinet member for adult social care, said: “One of the actions arising from the Anna Klonowski report was ensuring the department did a full review of every person using services to ensure the charges they were receiving were correct.

 “This review resulted in two cases being identified of people being mistakenly charged due to a simple accounting error.  Clearly this is regrettable and apologies were issued. However it is categorically not related to any previous issues related to charging within the department and to claim otherwise is extremely misleading.”