Allowance of £23.50

[Whatmonth]

DM is in a nursing home with dementia.
She is self funding.
Her 3 daughters (including me) have POA.
We have been told that she is allowed £23.50 per week for herself.
Is it ok to allocate that money into an account so she has money
for new clothes, hair cut and toiletries. Also she still wants to give
money for birthday presents for her Great Grandchildren.
And money for Christmas gifts for others.
It was only ever £20 per child. Did that since they were born.
They are now teenagers.

who gave this "allowance"? Bit confused.

Is that it! £23.50 that's nothing 😩

you work hard all your life, career, houses, family and this is how it ends? £23 a week?

FML

That is exactly how the allowance is intended to be used and why it exists.

@EmmaEmerald it's the amount someone is allowed to keep of their income per week if they are in a care home and the local authority is funding/part f7nding some of it. It's been calculated as enough to fund all the items identified in the OP.

Only if you are asking the local authority to fund/part fund your care.

if you can afford to pay for it yourself without involving the local authority then your money is yours to do with as you wish.

That’s the disregard for financial assessment. Just as they leave a certain amount if savings out of the assessment, they also leave out £23.50 of income.

If she’s a self funder she can have as much or as little as she wants.

I pay for presents, haircuts, chiropody, clothes out of my father’s general savings account.

If she is self funding then she can do what she likes with her money, there is no 'allowance '.

If it was normal for her to give gifts then her LPOA can carry on as long as the amounts are not impacting on her needs.

As others have said, as she is self funding then no one can tell her how much of her own money she can have or spend.

Tell them to do one (politely, of course )

@hatgirl thank you so much for explaining!

If she's self funding then the disregard doesn't apply. I was PoA and spent mum's money on haircuts, clothes, chiropody and the traditional presents for her grandson. Her pensions went into her bank account as they'd always done and I paid the bill for the care home from that each month.

But OP said her mum is self funding.

I suspect she is a full cost payer not a self funder.

sounds like the same thing but it isn't.

a full cost payer pays the full cost of the residential placement as arranged by the local authority at the local authority agreed rates. They have had a local authority financial assessment and have been found to have sufficient income be a full cost payer. From their income they can officially 'keep' £23.50 per week out of the financial assessment. It may be that their income is high enough that actually it is more than cost of placement at LA rate + £23.50 but officially the LA has ensured they still have enough to cover the cost of toiletries etc.

a self funder contracts directly with the care home and pays the weekly rate they agree with the care home. They don't have a local authority financial assessment and it's up to them/their family to decide what to do with whatever is left after paying care home fees.

Or if she is a self funder has become so after having a local authority financial assessment and been told they will be a full cost payer anyway...

I'm sure OP can clarify

After her needs are met I can’t imagine there being any left for buying presents for others.

The £23.50 isn't for 'needs' though.

technically it's to cover toiletries and extras like hair cuts, chiropody, sweets, wine, fags, new clothes etc.

The allowance has hardly changed in 20 years and obviously really doesn't go very far these days. Especially if you are a smoker.

In theory it should cover the odd small gift to a grandchild, and for some it still does if they don't have big outgoings otherwise.

Just short of £100 a month goes quite a long way if you a bald man who uses 1 bar of soap a month, a new toothbrush when needed and doesn't drink or smoke, and daughter comes and does his toenails and gives him a wet shave when needed.

A lady who wants her hair set once a week, has chiropody come and do her nails and likes a glass of wine after tea isn't going to get much change out of £23.50 a week.

We arranged for mum to go into a home nothing to do with the local authority.
Who didn't want to know as mum has money.
She has enough savings to last for another 10 years with the sale of her house, pensions and her investments.
She is in the later stages of dementia now. Aged 88.
There are enough clothes in her wardrobe.
All we pay out after the care home fees are for hair cuts and toiletries.
Pads are included with the fees.
All she talks about now is the great grandchildren and giving them money to buy comics and sweets ( thinks they are all little)
Funny she remembers their births but not us 3 or our children.

So who has told you she only has an allowance of £23.50?

Because that is entirely a local authority income disregard thing and entirely irrelevant to any other situation involving people self funding their care?

Social worker told us that information when she first came out.
Then when realised mum had money told us that WE had to arrange
a care home and not seen anyone since.
Reading these comments I think we have got it wrong.
We didn't want to spend mums money on the great-grandchildren
if that's not allowed.
I'll let my sisters know it's not against the rules.
It will still only be £20 per child. 10 in total.

Yep! The social worker has a duty to inform you that any care arranged by the local authority will be subject to financial assessment and that means that all income up to the local authority care home rate will be taken into account EXCEPT for £23.50 a week which is disregarded.

The £23.50 becomes irrelevant if the local authority aren't arranging the care. You can ignore it and just follow the guidelines provided by the Office of the Public Guardian in relation to your duties as a LPOA.

Oh and the OPG is fairly clear on gifts, and what you are suggesting would be seen to be perfectly reasonable.

£20 gifts to grandchildren is absolutely fine, you don't need to consider the allowance as she is self funding.

I think the only thing you need to worry about is spending that could be seen as 'Deprivation of assets'. This would be spending your mother's money so that she would be entitled to social funding. We had similar when my DF went into care home. We were told that he could carry on giving monetary gift for birthday/ Christmas etc, if this is what he had done in the past.

When dad died and mum went into a (self funding) care home, by brother and I took over her finances. We both got bank cards and a cheque book.

Id buy all her toiletries, clothes, drinks for the fridge in her room, ready meals that she enjoyed and we also used her card when we took her out for a meal, which is how she got her greatest pleasure. She always asked if there was ‘any money left on dad’s card’ and when I said yes, she said ‘lets use that, he wont mind’.

I also drew cash out for her to have in her purse so she felt more in control.

She’d always been very comfortabley off so she was upset if she didnt have access to money. It was her money after all.

She died in February and today would have been her 91st birthday.

Please hug your mums today if you can x x 💔

Thank you for all your advice.
We were under the impression that she wasn't allowed to spend more than 23.50 per week silly us.
Plenty of money in her account.
Not sure how much longer she has.
1 month, 1 year or longer.
What a sad end to an interesting life.
Now frail, incontinent, confused, hardly eating unless its cake.
The only ones she knows is the great grandchildren and for some reason my husband.

When my gran was in a similar position, self funding a care home it was decided by the family that I would keep her debit card with access to all her money and when she needed money I’d withdraw cash for her and/or buy toiletries, etc.

I certainly was never told I needed to stick to a certain amount per week but I was under the impression that if it was thought money was being used either for stuff which wasn’t for her or to hide her savings via other bank accounts so she then didn’t have enough to pay the care home then that would be looked into.

I don’t think I ever had power of attorney either……actually I think my brother did and then delegated the day to day stuff to me as I lived closer. Not sure if what we did was officially allowed or not but it worked.