Social services Paying for social care and support

Working out your contributions

Social care, unlike health care, is not free, so following on from your Care Needs Assessment, which works out what support you need and how much it will cost to provide, we’ll offer to complete a financial assessment to work out how much of that cost Manchester City Council can cover, and how much you’ll need to pay for yourself.

Depending on the amount of income, savings or assets you have, you may have to contribute towards some or all of your social care and support. There are Government guidelines on how much you can have in savings or assets before you will be asked to pay for your support. Like all Local Authorities, we are obliged to follow these rules.

Financial Advice

There are organisations that can give you independent financial advice

How we’ll work out the costs

Our financial assessment team will look at how much your identified needs cost to provide, and evaluate your finances in more detail to work out your contribution.

If you don’t want to have a financial assessment, you will have to pay the full cost of your support services.

How savings are treated

There is a fixed upper limit to the amount of capital you can have and still get a contribution to the costs of your support from the Council. Your capital includes savings, investments and property, but we ignore the value of the home you live in.

Minimum Income Levels

If you have a weekly income (including Tariff Income calculated from your savings) of less than the minimum which the Government says you need to live on, you will not be required to contribute towards the cost of your home support services. These levels depend on your age and whether you get a certain disability benefit. These amounts are based on Income Support plus 25 percent.

Calculating your contribution towards your home support

Any income you have above the minimum income levels will be treated as being available for you to contribute towards the cost of your care. However, further allowances will be made for any eligible costs you may have as a result of your disability. These will be identified during your financial assessment.

You will not be asked to contribute more than the actual cost of your care services.

Download our Charging and Deferred Payments policies

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