DPA001 – Activity

This section provides an overview of Deferred Payment Activity (DPA) activity for each local authority.

DPAs should only be counted as either written-off or recovered once the DPA has fully come to an end and all recovery activity has completed. If an individual has passed away or property has been sold and the recovery process has not yet been completed then the DPA should not be counted as written off or recovered this may mean that the data are recorded in the following year.

Traditional style DPAs are where the local authority pays the care home directly and defers part of the charge against the value of the property.

Loan style DPAs are where the client pays the care provider and the local authority loans them the cost of their care in instalments.

The following data are recorded on the activity measure DPA001:

Total number of DPAs

• the total number of outstanding DPAs at 31 March 2024
• the total number of new DPAs during the year beginning 01/04/2024 and ending 31/03/2025. A DPA is only counted in this group if it has been fully signed off and agreed by all parties
• the number of which are loan style DPAs

DPA write offs

The total number of DPAs written off or defaulted during the year. A DPA is considered written off if the value of the DPA could not be collected in full.

This should be split by:

• the number of DPAs where recovery was attempted but no value recovered
• the number of DPAs where recovery was attempted and a partial value was recovered
• the number of DPAs where the local authority did not attempt recovery

Recovered DPAs

The total number of DPAs recovered during the year. Recovered DPAs are those which have come to an end (either following the sale of property or the death of the individual receiving care) and the value of the DPA was collected by the council. Only DPAs for which the entire value of the DPA was retrieved are counted here.

These measures are broken down by if the client met the statutory eligibility criteria (mandatory DPA) or not (discretionary DPA).

These measures are also split by the age bands of 18 to 64 (table 1a) and 65 and over (table 1b).