§ Mr. HarveyTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what factors were considered in calculating the estimate of locally generated income from charges within the social services elderly domiciliary care standard spending assessment. [64577]
§ Ms ArmstrongLocal authorities have complete discretion on whether to charge for non-residential social services provided for the elderly. They are also free to set the amount of any charge. The change was made because it is not fair to assume that each local authority can raise the same amount in charges irrespective of the ability of those receiving services to contribute towards their cost. This is supported by statistical evidence which shows that, the higher the proportion of pensioners receiving Income Support in an authority, the smaller the contribution that charges make to the cost of providing such services. In examining possible statistical evidence, the following indicators were also considered: pensioners living alone, pensioners in rented accommodation, elderly with a limiting long term illness and the needs index which was used in the Other Social Services standard spending assessment formula before 1998–99.