Health: Local Healthwatch Funding

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report from Healthwatch England that £10 million of the £43.5 million allocated for local Healthwatch in 2013–14 has not been used for its intended purpose.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)]

The Government have made no assessment. We welcome transparency in funding for local Healthwatch—something we called for in response to the Francis inquiry report—and Healthwatch England’s findings are a helpful contribution to that. We remain of the view that local authorities are best placed to decide local funding arrangements based on local needs and priorities, which is why the funding made available to them is not ring-fenced for a specific purpose.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

So the noble Earl is telling the House that £10 million—almost a quarter of the money that his department allocated for local Healthwatch—has disappeared midway through the Department for Communities and Local Government to local government and not reached local Healthwatch. Was that not predictable and predicted? Why do the Government not now recognise that providing a local voice for the users of the health service is critical to the development of the health service and ensure that the funds are channelled through Healthwatch England for it to commission local services? If they cannot do that because it would require legislation, perhaps the Government could publish an indicative statement of what each local authority ought to be spending on local Healthwatch.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I would say that it is not the role of the Government to dictate what local authorities should be doing. It is up to local authorities to make judgments about what are the needs and priorities of their areas. I would also say that there cannot really be any direct comparison between the money made available by central government and the funding provided to local Healthwatch. It is not the case that £10 million has somehow disappeared. It is, rather, that councils have made local funding decisions which mean that £33.5 million was invested in local Healthwatch last year. What matters here is the transparency. That is what we very much welcome. It enables local Healthwatch to hold local authorities to account for their funding decisions and thereby, perhaps, influence them to give them a bit more money if that is required.