Personal Care at Home Bill

My Lords, I support this amendment, to which I have added my name. I agree entirely with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Best, has said. As noble Lords know, I am no great fan of this Bill, which I regard more as a cul-de-sac than a stepping stone or bridge to a reformed system. However, even if I supported this Bill, I would still press this amendment on the Government to save them from spoiling their own creation through poor implementation. This is not a wrecking amendment; it is simply recognition of the realities of implementing a complex new scheme of assessment alongside other existing schemes of assessment within six months. Given the vulnerability of the people involved and the need to take account of carers’ needs, it will be impossible to put into place a properly trained and prepared workforce in the time that is left between now and October across all local authority areas. The Government now seem to recognise this fact of life to some extent in the letter of 12 March from the two Ministers, but they cannot quite bring themselves to take the next sensible step of deferring implementation until they can be confident that all local authorities can implement the new scheme properly. In wilfully pressing on, the Government are choosing to ignore sound professional advice from those who have to administer the scheme. All this will do is create an administrative shambles that damages service users, carers, local authority staff and, indeed, the Government’s own reputation. This lack of preparedness has led the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services to make it crystal clear to the Government for a long time that the new system cannot be implemented in October. In replying to the Government’s consultation, on page 3 of its response, it said: ""ADASS believes that the timescales proposed by the Government are unreasonable and will lead to significant problems with the implementation of the Bill"." It reiterated that position in a letter to me of 15 March, which it has copied to Ministers, and which we have tried to make available to all Peers. The Government are simply ignoring clear advice from the people who will be held accountable for implementing the new system. This, in my judgment, is irresponsible. I hope the Government will accept this amendment.