ENGLISH families are often paying too much for social care because they are not getting the correct information, the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) reported yesterday.

In a paper on the “top-up fees” paid by families for relatives’ care, the LGO explained the confusion faced by people looking to place a relative in a home.

It gave examples of cases where councils provided confusing or incorrect advice, did not offer potential residents a genuine choice of affordable care homes or did not even have any affordable homes available.

Sometimes when a family member had been settled in a home and all costs agreed, providers tried to charge their own top-up fees without the local authority’s consent, the report found.