§ Ms. Harmanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) how many applications by projects for the under-fives initiative money have been made by each of the 14 agencies; how many of each of these have been turned down; and what have been the grounds of refusal in respect of projects which have been refused;
(2) what are the criteria for allocating money for projects under the under-fives initiative;
(3) what steps he has taken to explain to specified agencies the criteria for approval of projects for the under-fives initiative money.
§ Mr. NewtonIt is difficult to specify projects refused because the proposals were worked up and presented during a process of discussion between the Department and each of the agencies during which the broad criteria were explained. It was made clear that the final selection of projects would be to reflect the balances we wanted to achieve in the programme between different kinds of care and support, and also to achieve a reasonable geographical distribution. The aim was to select schemes which would provide practical support for families with children under five, particularly those who may have special problems, such as single parents or working families on low incomes—mothers finding it difficult to cope, or disadvantaged ethnic minority families. Projects chosen covered a wide range of provision, including day-nurseries and child-minder support schemes, part-day care provision through help to playgroups, drop-in and creche facilities, and help to families through volunteer home visiting schemes, mother and toddler clubs and day centre provision. Given that there is a limit to the amount of money available to fund the initiative in each of the relevant financial years it was inevitable that a number of sound schemes relevant to the aims of the initiative could not be offered funding.
351W
§ Ms. Harmanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many of the projects which have been approved for funds from the under-fives initiative have got support from the relevant local authority; and how many of them have a commitment from the local authority either for shared funding now or to fund when the initiative money runs out in 1986.
§ Mr. NewtonThe voluntary agencies managing the projects were strongly encouraged to ensure that each project proposed for funding under the initiative had the support of the relevant local authority. Our present information is that about two-thirds of the projects have local authority participation or practical support of some kind. At this stage we do not know whether projects have a commitment from the relevant local authority to shared funding now or to funding at the end of the initiative period.
§ Ms. Harmanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) how much of the £2 million that he announced in December 1983 would be available for under-fives initiative has been allocated so far; and whether, if the full £2 million is not allocated before the end of March, it will be carried over into the following financial year;
Calderdale District Health Authority 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 Number of persons on in-patient waiting list on 31 December 1,971 2,625 2,826 1,920 2,168 1,536 1,270 1,108 1,239 In-patient discharges and deaths during the year 19,577 18,093 19,108 20,203 19,911 21,027 21,368 22,099 22,352 Day care attendances 2,362 1,909 2,250 2,903 3,159 3,145 3,379 3,422 3,822 New out-patients 26,452 19,319 23,925 24,793 24,549 24,195 24,356 24,896 24,849 Total out-patient attendances 115,464 89,447 104,183 106,620 120,824 120,088 119,907 121,522 121,893