§ Mr. Fieldasked the Secretary of State for Social Services, in view of the Rayner committee's proposal to withdraw the collection of the information on forms SSDA 302, SSDA 303 and SSDA 305, what up-to-date alternative information is available to his Department for preparation of its programme budget in relation to the volume of services provided by the home help, meals and aids services; what alternative source of information will 207W be available to hon. Members; what is the saving of administrative costs envisaged by the Rayner report; and what consultations there have been with voluntary organisations concerned with the elderly and disabled relating to the proposed reduction in information.
§ Sir George YoungThe routine construction of the programme budget is not affected by the recommendations of the Rayner DHSS study team in respect of the forms SSDA 302, SSDA 303, and SSDA 305, although certain supporting analyses, such as an up-to-date detailed breakdown of home help cases by age and client group, will no longer be available. The recommendations of the study team have been the subject of a joint DHSS local authorities review which has recommended, for the above returns, the cessation of form SSDA 303 (home help cases), the simplification of form SSDA 302 (annual meals), and the retention of form SSDA 305 (aids for the disabled). My right hon. Friend has accepted these recommendations.
Alternative information on these services will continue to be available to hon. Members in the form of gross and net costs of each service, staff employed in the home help service in terms of numbers and whole-time equivalents—published by DHSS—and, in addition, the hours of service provided by the home help service—published by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy. A small number of voluntary organisations have made representations concerning the future availability of information about the personal social services; these have raised a variety of issues and have been dealt with individually.
The saving in DHSS costs resulting from its recommendations on the personal social services was estimated by the Rayner study team to amount to about £120,000 per annum, of which £6,000 could be attributed to changes in the SSDA 302, SSDA 303, and SSDA 305.