Dear Editor, Birmingham’s social services finance manager David Waller has asked for maturity from care home providers over fee levels (Post, July 28), while director Peter Hay criticises home providers for taking legal action with the aim of obtaining an increase in fees paid by the council and not taking steps to absorb extra costs (Post, June 10)

In fact, care home providers have shown great maturity despite having to suffer year after year of inadequate increases that have not kept pace with increases in costs. Two years ago, the council even withdrew an offer of money that had been promised to recognise quality care. The situation is even worse for homes providing care for people with learning disabilities, which have not received an increase in the rate paid by the council for three years, and providers of domiciliary care, who have not had an increase for five years.

Whether inadequate funding for care is the fault of the local authority or central government, or a mixture of both, may be open to argument, but what is certain is that fee levels paid by Birmingham need to rise if future care home closures are to be avoided.

Independent experts Laing and Buisson calculated that care home providers needed an increase this year of 2.8 per cent nationally just to meet increased costs. The average increase in the UK was 0.3 per cent. It also showed the real costs of care, which local authorities do not match in the fees they pay.

One response by care home providers to inadequate local authority fees has been to introduce or increase “top up” fees, to be paid by relatives as a contribution to the true costs of care. Incredibly, Solihull Council recently suggested it would not place people with homes who required a top-up fee. In such a hostile climate, it is no wonder that care home providers feel victimised.

David Waller refers to “social services being under huge pressure to deliver public spending cuts”, but from whom? Certainly not from the thousands of people reliant on care, nor from their relatives. Probably not from the many thousands of others who recognise that good quality care should not be provided on the cheap.

Social Services director Peter Hay apparently says home providers should have “taken steps” to absorb the lack of increase, thus implying that they are at fault. People do of course have a right to expect homes to provide value for money, but how can that be measured?

One way is to compare the cost of the independent sector with corresponding local authority provision and it is on average around half, perhaps one of the reasons that local authorities have been withdrawing from direct provision.

Birmingham should be given credit for closing a number of its own care homes over the last few years, but is it not disingenuous of Mr Hay then to blame independent home owners for being unable to absorb cost increases while accommodating people for half the cost of council provision?

Laing and Buisson already provide objective independent evidence that care home fees are too low to meet current costs and provide for future maintenance. Given that fact, one wonders why Birmingham council now wants care home providers to submit to an “open book” approach. One can only hope that this is a genuinely objective exercise, rather than one aimed at cutting costs for the council.