§ Mr. Corbynasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement about the effect of (a) rate capping and (b) joint funding for geriatric health care.
§ Mr. John PattenOnly a few, high-spending, local authorities have been designated for 1985–86 under the rates limitation powers. These authorities are all spending relatively more than other authorities providing a good standard of service, and they have scope for making the economies required of them without putting essential services at risk. The control is on total spending by each authority, and the authorities themselves will continue to decide relative priorities between their various services.
Joint funding contributions by health authorities to local authority projects can be agreed where the expenditure provides better value than would the same money spent on health services alone. Joint funding is essentially a pump-priming arrangement and the health authority contributions taper off over a period normally not exceeding seven years. Take-up of health authority allocations of these funds remains high, and should continue to have a significant impact on the development of services, including those for elderly people.
Under the "Care in the Community" programme, however, health authorities can now offer local authorities continuing payments for as long as necessary to provide for people, including elderly people, moving out of long-stay hospital into community care.
Local authority expenditure financed by health authority contributions under both schemes is entirely outside the arrangements for control of local authority expenditure. Increases in local authority contributions to jointly financed projects as the health authority contributions taper off are disregarded for the purpose of calculating holdback penalties on expenditure in excess of the Government's targets.