§ Mr. Alfred Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will assess the relationship between growth in expenditure and level of service output in local authorities providing services; and whether any particular studies are available to him in this respect.
§ Mr. NewtonThe relationship between expenditure by local authorities on the personal social services and activity indicators for those services is monitored in the programme budget prepared by the Department. Evidence has been given to the Social Services Committee on this in the current and 1981–82 sessions and comparable material was contained in "Health care and its costs"—published last month and made available to hon. Members. Work on the comparative unit costs of different services has been carried out by the personal social services research unit at the University of Kent, and on the comparative costs of providing similar services in different local authorities by that unit, by other research units and by the district audit.
§ Mr. Alfred Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he has completed his discussions with the local authority associations on charges for services; and if he will bring forward legislation to prevent authorities charging people on supplementary benefit for essential services such as a home help.
§ Mr. NewtonFollowing our discussions with the local authority associations, we have tabled a new clause to the Health and Social Services and Social Security Adjudications[Lords] Bill which is currently being considered in Standing Committee. This seeks to introduce consistency, and a common degree of flexibility in the various statutory charges for day and domiciliary services, including home helps. The new clause contains an explicit provision to ensure that nobody is prevented from receiving a service because he cannot afford to pay for it.