Adult Social Care and Public Health Committee Update
Everything we're doing is aimed at meeting the needs and aspirations of our service users and their families and carers effectively, ensuring the council delivers services that are right for each person, while providing best value for money.
This was Councillor Graeme Cooper, chair of Wirral Council's Adult Social Care and Public Health Committee speaking after a meeting this week. He went on to explain that the committee had taken three major decisions when it met on Tuesday 20th January:
We voted to carry out a public consultation on how to improve day care for our service users and we took the difficult decision to end a support service aimed at helping people who may be showing signs of struggling. It was not proving to be cost effective and was duplicating services that are already provided elsewhere.
We also voted to end a subsidy the council was giving to people who were eligible to pay for their own care that they receive in their own home, saving more than £2 million every year and bringing Wirral in line with the majority of councils in the country.
This was about meeting our legal and moral duties fully while also ensuring that the services we provide, whether directly or commissioned from outside, are right for each individual. Implementing all these decisions will be carried out carefully, with consultation with those involved, and with what is always best for our service users in mind.
Full details of the meeting including a link to the web cast can be found at: Agenda for Adult Social Care and Public Health Committee on Tuesday, 20th January 2026, 6.00 p.m. | Wirral Council
Here’s a breakdown of all the decisions taken at the meeting and the next steps:
Day Services
Councillors agreed to a consultation on transforming day care services going ahead.
The aim of transforming day services is to promote choice, dignity and independence for people who need care and support as well as help them get better outcomes. The consultation will be for a period of up to 12 weeks to gather views from stakeholders, with a report on the outcome brought back to a future Adult Social Care and Public Health (ASC & PH) Committee.
The full report with details of the proposals is available in the report on the committee agenda, available on the council website here and the appendix here. The decision was Item 6 of the meeting and can be viewed on the webcast here.
Commissioning Adult Social Care services in the future
The Committee also considered proposals to give the council more control over how careAdult Social Care services will be commissioned in future.
Previously the council has relied on using the open market or has utilised procurement frameworks (an approved list of providers that can be used) within the Liverpool City Region.
The aim with this decision is to set up Wirral’s own frameworks so services can be better tailored to local needs. Councillors agreed this could go ahead.
The report on the Establishment of Commissioning Frameworks For Adult Social Care is item 7 on the committee agenda, available online here. The webcast for this decision can be viewed here.
Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG)
More than £2m will be saved every year after councillors agreed to change how much extra funding the authority will contribute to adults who need care, over and above a nationally agreed figure.
The Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG) is a financial safety net designed to ensure that people have a basic level of income to cover their living costs. For those people receiving Local Authority arranged care and support (not including care homes), the MIG is an amount of money set by national Government that a person must be left with to meet day to day living costs after their care charge is calculated. The MIG is uplifted each year by inflation. In Wirral the council has previously ‘topped up’ the amount people received above national rate.
At the ASC & PH Committee council members were asked to agree to move to the national Minimum Income Guarantee from 1 October 2026 after the full re-assessment of people impacted.
The report says that currently Wirral taxpayers, through the council, are contributing £2.2m towards the non-residential care for people who are deemed to be able to contribute from their own finances, according to national policy. From October, after being assessed, some people will be asked to pay more towards the cost of their non residentialnon-residential care.
Details of the proposals, the consultation response and the full report are included in the report at agenda Item 8 on the committee agenda here, long with the appendices. The webcast for this agenda item is available to be viewed here.
AbleMe
The AbleMe service is set to be stopped after councillors approved the proposal. It follows a decision by the committee in October 2025 which authorised the Director of Adults, Health and Strategic Commissioning to begin consultation with affected staff.
AbleMe is a local service set up to help people stay independent and active, with short term care. The report presented to members of the committee said the service was not cost effective to run in house and that the existing community care market is sufficiently well established and capable of delivering the services needed.
The full report beingthat was presented to councillors is available online at agenda item 9 together with the appendices. The webcast for this item can be found here.
In addition councillors considered changes to charges for Adult Social Care services
Item 10 on the committee agenda was a report on a review of charges for Adult Social Care services.
Across day services, providing transport for older adults or those with disabilities and technology-enabled care, the council has not been recovering what it costs to provide this support, with no increases made for at least 10 years.
The report said that on average the council provides transport to 235 passengers per day, the majority of these being adults with learning disabilities, plus some older people and thosepeople with physical disabilities, with a total of just under 118,000 journeys in a year. The council also provides a universal day care offer for 347 adults, operating from eight locations and delivering up to 122,000 sessions a year.
Councillors agreed to increase the current charges made for these services. Full details are in the report, available here.
The full agenda for the meeting of Wirral Council’s Adult Social Care and Public Health Committee is available online.
