§ Mr. WorthingtonTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress has been made by health boards and local authorities in implementing joint finance schemes for community care; how much has been spent of the projected sums; and if he will make a statement on the outcome of joint financing in Scotland.
§ Mr. Michael ForsythJoint financing is appropriate where a health board and a local authority have a long-term operational commitment to a jointly managed project providing services which both have a statutory power to promote. The terms on which NHS and local authority finance may be used for jointly planned and managed projects is, subject to the normal arrangements for meeting NHS and local authority capital expenditure, a matter for individual health boards and local authorities and detailed information on expenditure is not held centrally.
Support finance is appropriate for projects which provide services which are the statutory responsibility of local authorities but which have been identified under joint planning procedures as being likely to make a significant and cost-effective contribution to the discharge of a health board's responsibilities. From 1 May 1985 responsibility for the operation of support finance schemes was transferred to health boards. Each year the Scottish Home and Health Department indicates how much it expects each board to commit to support finance purposes. These indicative levels are neither maximum nor minimum levels and boards are free to choose their own level of funding to support such projects. The figures for the first two years of the revised arrangements are:
£ million All Health Boards 1985–86 1986–87 Indicative level 6.05 6.095 Payments towards projects 2.85 13.83 1 Provisional figure. Thus, after a slow start, there was a marked increase in Health board expenditure on support finance in 1986–87. I will continue to encourage boards to devote more resources to such schemes and to bring their expenditure up to their indicative levels.
Local authority financial returns do not identify separately the local authority's expenditure on such schemes.