Section 112 Charges for local authority welfare services
275.Under Section 112 the powers of local authorities to charge for certain non-residential social services are to be treated as social services functions as defined in the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 (“LASS Act”). This will allow statutory guidance to be issued under section 7 of the LASS Act for charges for non-residential services. The need to produce statutory guidance follows the publication of the White Paper “Modernising Social Services”. This recognised that the scale of variation in local authorities’ home care charges was unacceptable. The Audit Commission report “Charging with Care”, which was published on 10 May 2000, highlighted the full extent of these variations.
