WIRRAL Council is among repeat offending local authorities that have been forced to apologise and pay compensation for the distress caused by wrongly charging families for the care of elderly and vulnerable relatives.

An investigation by Newsquest’s Data Investigations Unit has found 80 per cent of the 152 councils with responsibility for adult social care have been criticised on at least one occasion by a government watchdog over their poor handling of charging for care services.

Wirral, at number five on the table, is among proven repeat offenders – along with councils in Staffordshire, Norfolk, North Yorkshire, East Sussex, Essex and Lancashire - ranked as having had the most complaints about charging for care upheld by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman over the last five years.

More than 50 per cent of the 972 complaints submitted to Ombudsman between 2015 and 2019 were upheld.

Wirral Council had 19 complaints upheld during that period.

Many complaints related to top-up fees, while others were about delays in financial assessments being carried out, incorrect invoices and bills issued, and failure to provide clear information about care home fees.

In many cases councils were ordered to apologise, pay compensation and refund any wrongly paid top-up fees.

The Ombudsman said: "People have a right to make informed decisions about care homes.

"A meaningful choice is not possible if they are not aware of the availability of placements not requiring a top-up."

Cllr Chris Jones, cabinet member for adult care and health, said: "Adult social care represents around half of all council spending in Wirral and we help thousands of people with varying and complex care needs every day.

"In this we strive for the best possible care but, where people feel they have not received the service they expect, we encourage them to tell us and to use the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO).

"In addition we have worked closely with the LGO to review complaints which have a financial element to ensure we learn from these cases and people are charged correctly and in a timely manner in future.

"We have been working hard, along with our partners in the NHS who we work with to provide much social care, to ensure standards are kept to the highest level – guaranteeing that the needs of the most vulnerable people in the borough are met with the highest quality care."

Councils can only charge a top-up 'where a resident explicitly chooses to enter accommodation other than that which the council offers them, and where that preferred accommodation is more expensive than the council would usually expect to pay'.

The Department of Health and Social Care says top ups allow people and their families to make a genuine choice to pay more for a premium service but a person must not be asked to pay a top-up because of market inadequacies or commissioning failures; local authorities must ensure there is a genuine choice for the individual.

Professor Martin Green OBE, chief executive of Care England, said: "The high level of Ombudsman decisions about care funding is a reflection of the fact that there is no clarity about what the citizen has to pay, and what is paid for by government. Social care funding is in need of immediate reform.

"The reforms must include a significant cash injection to stabilise the current system, and a long-term view from government about what the citizen is expected to pay, and what will be funded by the public purse."

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “Putting social care on a sustainable footing, where everyone is treated with dignity and respect, is one of the biggest challenges we face as a society which is why we will seek to build cross-party consensus. We will bring forward a plan for social care this year.

“The Care Act sets out a framework which councils must consider when deciding what people can afford to contribute towards the cost of their care.”

The Department says councils are being provided with access to an extra £1.5bn for adults and children’s social care in 2020/21 to help meet rising demand and stabilise the social care system.

Councils will also be able to raise a further £500m for adult social care through a proposed 2 per cent council tax precept.

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said: "The care system is hideously complex and councils haven't got enough cash to go round, so this is a sure fire recipe for some unfortunate older people and their families to end up paying more for care than they legally should.

"At Age UK we have come across numerous examples of the law in regards to care being breached by councils, sometimes deliberately, at other times by mistake.

"It's yet another reason why the Government must keep its promise to fix social care, and that must mean a process of refinancing care alongside a process of thorough going reform."