A LAST-minute plea has gone out in advance of a meeting of social services chiefs next week for a ceiling on the amount vulnerable elderly people should have to pay for being looked after in their own homes.

Age Concern says many of the price increases for home and domestic care being proposed by City of York Council are comparatively small in themselves. But taken together they could impose a real burden.

Sally Hutchinson, chief officer of Age Concern York said: "They need to consider the cumulative effect of charges. Perhaps they should be setting a maximum charge per week that anyone would pay.

"Otherwise the more disabled you are and the more help you need, the more you have to pay. That's not always fair."

Council officials have been consulting over a whole package of above-inflation care increases in a bid to increase revenue and help balance the social services committee budget next year.

The proposals include putting up the cost of home care by an average of 10 per cent, putting the cost of meals on wheels up by 10p or 20p, to £1.80 or £1.90, and increasing the cost of domestic support by 25p an hour, to £2.90, with a maximum charge of £10 a week.

The charges could earn the hard-pressed council an extra £132,000 a year, helping to plug an expected cash deficit for the whole council next year of up to £10m.

Social services committee chairman Coun Bob Fletcher has pledged to listen to what elderly people have to say, and said he would be surprised if some changes were not made.

But it was clear this would mainly involve juggling the price increases around so as to cause minimum difficulty to those most in need, rather than foregoing them altogether.

Social services committee members who meet tomorrow will make a final decision in time for the council's budget meeting.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.