Free personal care in Scotland, and what the council still charges

The biggest difference is in the first row. In England, help with washing and dressing at home is means-tested: the council looks at income and savings and can charge for all of it. In Scotland the council cannot charge for personal care it has assessed your parent as needing. That has been the law for people aged 65 and over since the Community Care and Health (Scotland) Act 2002, and it was extended to adults of every age from 1 April 2019.

Much of what you may have read elsewhere on this site describes England. Our guides to how council funding works, the council's care needs assessment and financial assessment and direct payments set out the English rules, and the figures in them, including the £23,250 savings limit, do not apply in Scotland. The ideas are similar, so they are still useful background, but check anything with a number in it against this page or your parent's council.

Your parent's council is the one where they live, not the one where you live. If they move between the two countries, for example to be nearer you, the rules change with the address.

Personal care is free whatever your parent's age, income or savings, and whether or not they own their home. It does not depend on a diagnosis either. What matters is that the council has carried out a care needs assessment and agreed that your parent needs the help. Nursing care from the NHS, such as a district nurse changing a dressing or giving injections at home, is free as well.

Two conditions are easy to miss. The first is the assessment itself: the council does not have to pay for personal care your parent had before they were assessed, so if you are already paying a carer to help with washing and dressing, ask for an assessment now rather than later. The second is that free personal care is care the council provides or pays for. If you arrange and pay a carer privately without the council involved, the council does not refund it.

Free does not always mean the council's own staff. Once your parent is assessed, the support can be delivered in several ways, including as a direct payment that lets your family choose the carer. The section on asking for help explains the four options.

Charging for help at home varies by council. Each of Scotland's 32 councils writes its own charging policy, following national guidance, and decides which services carry a charge, what the charge is and how income and savings are counted. We cannot give you one rule for the whole country because there is not one. Ask your parent's council for its charging policy in writing, and ask for a financial assessment if a charge is proposed. The assessment looks at your parent's income and savings, and the charge should not leave them without enough to live on.

In practice, a council visit that combines washing and dressing with some tidying up may be partly free and partly chargeable. It is reasonable to ask the council to show which minutes of each visit count as personal care, so you can see what the charge is for.

The two weekly payments go to residents who pay their own fees, once the council has assessed them as needing personal or nursing care. They are paid by the council straight to the care home, so the family sees them as a reduction in the bill rather than money in the bank. The payments cover part of the care. A resident paying their own fees still pays the rest of the fee, including the whole of the accommodation cost. The payments are not backdated to before the assessment, so ask for one before or as soon as your parent moves in.

If the resident's savings are between £22,750 and £36,750, the council treats every £250 above the lower limit as one pound a week of income, and the resident contributes that towards the fee along with most of their other income. The council must leave them at least £37.65 a week for personal spending. These limits apply to care home fees; charging for help at home follows the council's own policy, as the section above explains.

The capital limits in England are lower, which is why the English pages on this site quote different numbers. Our guides to care home top-up fees and NHS-funded nursing care describe how those work in England.

Contact the social work department of the council where your parent lives and ask for a care needs assessment, sometimes called a social care assessment. You can ring on their behalf, and a GP, district nurse or hospital ward can also ask for one. Describe a bad day rather than a good one. Say what they cannot do safely on their own, and what has gone wrong when nobody was there. If you are doing a lot of the caring yourself, ask for an adult carer support plan for you at the same time.

If the council agrees your parent needs support, it will agree a budget and ask how your parent wants the support arranged. This is Self-directed Support, Scotland's version of the direct payments and personal budgets used in England. There are four options, set out in the Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013, and your parent can choose any of them.

Option 1 gives the most choice over who the carer is and when they come, and it also brings the most responsibility, such as keeping records and, if you employ somebody directly, acting as their employer. Option 3 is the least work for the family. Option 4 lets you mix the two, which suits families who want to choose the morning carer themselves and leave the rest to the council. Your parent can change option later if the first choice does not suit.

The council's budget is for the needs in the support plan, so how the money can be spent, and whether a relative can be paid from it, are questions to ask the social worker before you choose. Self-directed Support on mygov.scot links to every council's social work team.

1. 1

   Carer Support Payment

   Scotland-wide since 4 November 2024

   This replaces Carer's Allowance for carers in Scotland. It pays £86.45 a week to a family member caring 35 hours a week or more, with the Scottish Carer Supplement of £11.70 a week on top. People already on Carer's Allowance in Scotland have been moved across automatically.
2. 2

   Pension Age Disability Payment

   Scotland-wide since 22 April 2025

   This replaces Attendance Allowance for new claims from people over State Pension age who need help looking after themselves or supervision to stay safe. It pays £76.70 or £114.60 a week. People getting Attendance Allowance are being moved across automatically and do not need to reclaim.
3. 3

   Power of attorney

   Scottish law

   An English Lasting Power of Attorney and a Scottish power of attorney are different documents under different law, registered with different offices. If your parent lives in Scotland, ask a solicitor there, and see the Office of the Public Guardian (Scotland).

Both benefits are claimed from Social Security Scotland rather than the DWP. Read Pension Age Disability Payment on mygov.scot and Carer Support Payment on mygov.scot for how to apply. Our guides to Attendance Allowance and Carer's Allowance describe the English benefits, and the Carer's Allowance page has a short comparison with Carer Support Payment. If you care for your parent in Scotland but live in England yourself, check the eligibility rules on both sites before you claim, because where each of you lives can decide which benefit applies.

For power of attorney, the Office of the Public Guardian (Scotland) is the office that registers Scottish powers of attorney. If your parent may lose the ability to make decisions, it is worth setting one up while they can still sign it, because otherwise the family may have to apply to a court for the authority instead. Our guide to paying for care as an attorney describes the English system.