Personal Care at Home Bill

I will certainly look into ensuring that those calculations are published as far as they can be. I thought that they already had been. The ADASS survey, to which less than half of the councils responded, proposed an annual cost of £1 billion rather than £670 million. Your Lordships will not be surprised to learn that we have gone through the figures with the ADASS, and it has conceded not only that it had overestimated the effects of lost income but that it had misread the impact assessment on the likely numbers of younger adults who might be eligible for free care. Our detailed consideration of its survey therefore gives us no reason to believe that the estimates that we originally published were not correct. However, we will be focusing on this and remain committed to our review in 12 to 18 months, after the policy is introduced, rather than providing powers to review it in the Bill. I say to my noble friend Lord Lipsey that the PSSRU modelling has already been published. I will ensure that he receives a copy of it. I thought that I had read it somewhere. Amendment 17 seeks to delay the introduction of free personal care at home to those with the highest need by delaying the date when the necessary regulations may be enacted. We have been clear from the outset that we intended to introduce the provisions from 1 October. We have already made available a working draft of the regulations which will inform how this scheme is proposed to be delivered, and we intend to publish detailed guidance alongside the national assessment tool for determining eligibility for free personal care in the early summer. We know that this is a challenge for local government but, as I say, it has had plenty of notice of these proposals. It also has a highly trained workforce and the tools which will enable it to implement this if it has the will to do so. We do not believe that there is any need to delay the implementation of the regulations enabled by the Bill in this way, and as such ask the Committee not to support Amendment 17. I turn to Amendment 20, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. The policy is to provide free personal care and it is right that councils play their part in delivering it. As such, it would be inappropriate to accept this amendment, which would enable the Secretary of State to put a cap on the amount of free personal care which councils can be required to deliver. I am concerned that setting such a limit, giving local authorities the protection of an arbitrary cap on expenditure, might reduce the incentive for them to manage the costs of the policy as effectively as possible. Indeed, the Audit Commission’s report Under Pressure, released last week, said: ""There are huge financial pressures on councils in the years ahead, but redesigning services and exploiting technology can make them better, more efficient and more personal"." The report found that the longer people can stay at home, the happier they are and the less they cost the taxpayer. Innovative, personalised services mean that older people stay independent longer and save public money in the long run. Members of the Committee have conflated two issues as regards savings. Indeed, savings are to be gained in the long run by keeping people out of homes and independent; there is no question about that. However, those savings will not fund this scheme in the next two years; 4 per cent of local authority spend—which is what local authorities are committed to save through efficiencies—is 4 per cent of almost £100 billion. Therefore, it seems to me that meeting the costs of this scheme within those savings is entirely within the capabilities of local government. We cannot accept Amendment 38. The current position under Section 15 of the Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Act 2003 is that regulations made by the Secretary of State are subject to the negative resolution procedure. Despite the impassioned plea from my noble friend on this issue, we listened to what the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee had to say about the matter. On 22 January this year, the committee reported: ""There is nothing in the Bill to which we wish to draw the attention of the House"." We have made available a working draft of the regulations. If at all possible, we intend to publish the Government’s response to the consultation when the Bill reaches its next stage; in other words, at the earliest opportunity. Noble Lords will know that I will keep them informed and make that available as soon as I am able to do so. Amendment 44 would require the Secretary of State to commission an independent review of the costs of delivering personal care each year, the estimated costs of delivery in the next five years, the savings made from decreased use of residential care each year and the estimated savings in the next five years. It would require an annual report to Parliament of this information. In the impact assessment for the Bill we have committed to reviewing the implementation of free personal care within the first 12 to 18 months of the policy coming into force. After this review it will be possible to reconsider the predicted costs of delivering free personal care and the conditions for eligibility if necessary. If our costings for the first year prove to be accurate, it would seem to be an unnecessary burden on local authorities to have to produce data to enable the Secretary of State to report to Parliament annually on this matter. Such a report would require a much greater volume of data collection by local authorities than we had envisaged. Amendment 45 seeks to delay the commencement of the provisions within the Bill until a review of their affordability has been carried out and reported to Parliament. Such a report would achieve nothing because the Bill’s provisions themselves simply concern the enabling powers for regulations on free personal care, not the substantive provisions on free personal care themselves, which would include the circumstances in which free personal care is to be provided. It seems to me that the review at 12 to 18 months would deal with that issue also. Amendment 46 is another attempt to delay the coming into force of the Bill and the provision of free personal care to those who need it. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has examined the memorandum which we sent it and which reflects our views on the appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny for any secondary legislation that is to be made under Section 15 of the 2003 Act. Finally, the answer to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, is one—one of the criteria of the FACS list which she read out. As for her Amendment 47, which would require an independent review of the costs of delivering free personal care within six months of the Bill coming into force, we think that our 12 to 18 month review will be more meaningful and that we will be able to reconsider the predicted costs and how the scheme is working at that point. We think that six months is too short a period for a meaningful review to be undertaken and I ask her not to press her amendment.