§ Mr. SteelTo ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he will make new funds available to finance the additional expenditure which will be incurred by local authorities in implementing the new community care packages, whilst still retaining responsibility for funding those already within residential care as at April 1991.
§ Mr. FreemanAs we have made clear in recent statements and in our White Paper "Caring for People: Community Care in the Next Decade and Beyond" (published on 16 November) we recognise that local authorities will require adequate resources to enable them to discharge their new responsibilities. This will involve a switch of resources from social security and the aggregate amount of transferred resources will allow for the projected growth in the numbers of people needing support, taking account of demographic factors. Final decisions will be taken in the public expenditure survey in 1990, following discussions with the local authority associations which are currently underway.