§ 36. Mr. Laneasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he now proposes to take to assist the recruitment of home helps for pensioners.
§ Mr. CrossmanI met representatives of the local authority associations last week to consider the findings of the recent Government Social Survey report which made suggestions on recruitment and other measures for improving the home help service, and I shall be pursuing these matters further with them.
§ Mr. LaneThat is encouraging as far as it goes. Is it not the case that the current shortage of home helps is one of the most unfortunate results of the financial restrictions which local authorities have recently been suffering? Can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that the Government will in future give more help and encouragement to local authorities so that this service can be expanded much more rapidly?
§ Mr. CrossmanIf the hon. Gentleman studies the report he will agree with me that that is an over-simplification. There are areas of the country, as I found from the delegation which came to see me, where they have the money, but they cannot recruit the staff. It is not simply a shortage of money, and what we are looking at now is whether there are other forms of organisations, including voluntary organisations, which can fill this gap. I do not think that we should rely exclusively on the home help.