Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much his Department spent on the (a) Childcare Allowance (b) Parent Learning Allowance and (c) Dependent's Allowance of the NHS Bursary; and how many people have (i) made a claim and (ii) been eligible for support under that scheme in each of the last five years.
Answered by Will Quince
Prior to 2017, the NHS Bursary was available to nursing, midwifery and allied health professions students as well as medical and dental students. Nursing, midwifery and allied health professions students starting courses after 2017 were transitioned on to the Student Finance loans system and the NHS Learning Support Fund.
The following table shows for the years 2018/19 to 2022/23 the number of students who received an element of NHS Bursary, together with the number of students who received available childcare components and their corresponding expenditure.
Financial Year | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23* |
Number of Students who Received an Element of Funding | 67,748 | 43,470 | 20,147 | 17,289 | 18,076 |
Number of Students in Receipt of Dependants Allowance | 9,178 | 5,050 | 1,096 | 357 | 247 |
Dependants Allowance Expenditure (£) | 19,053,850 | 8,344,526 | 1,599,887 | 539,752 | 363,775 |
Number of Students in Receipt of Parent Learning Allowance | 9,141 | 5,033 | 1,077 | 332 | 179 |
Parent Learning Allowance Expenditure (£) | 7,846,287 | 3,417,731 | 653,253 | 211,489 | 103,489 |
Number of Students in Receipt of Childcare Allowance | 5,031 | 2,557 | 576 | 144 | 83 |
Childcare Allowance Expenditure (£) | 16,659,222 | 7,028,750 | 1,313,955 | 399,834 | 238,972 |
Source: NHS Business Services Authority
Note: The NHS Business Services Authority moved to a new system in 2022/23. The student count is from two different IT systems with no unique identifier, with potential for duplication in the count. Financial values are unaffected.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding allocated for social care.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department regularly monitors the financial pressures facing the adult social care system and works closely with the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and HM Treasury to ensure funding meets the needs of the sector. At the Autumn Statement we made available up to £7.5 billion this year and next to support adult social care and discharge, a more than real terms increase.
We have also recently announced a further £570 million ‘Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund (MSIF) - Workforce Fund’ which will support increased adult social care capacity and improve market sustainability with a particular focus on workforce pay.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 19 July 2023 to Question 193672 on Department of Health and Social Care: Contracts, how many contracts worth more than £1 million his Department has entered into where the (a) goods and (b) services contracted for have not been received and are no longer expected to be received in the last 12 months.
Answered by Will Quince
In relation to Question 193672, there were 405 contracts which were active with a value of over £1 million on the Department’s central procurement and contract management database over the last five years. To provide an answer on whether “the goods and services contracted for have not been received and are no longer expected to be received in the last five years” we would have to consult all the individual contract managers for these contracts to obtain this type of information, which would then have to be properly collated and validated.
The contract manager would need to liaise with colleagues in the Department’s Finance directorate to find the relevant purchase orders to link spend to associated contracts and then make an assessment on whether goods and services were no longer expected to be received. We estimate that this would take a minimum of two hours per contract; multiplied by the number of contracts (405) this would total 810 hours. At a cost of £25 per hour this would equate to £20,250, which exceeds the disproportionate cost threshold of £850.
Presently, the Department has 249 contracts over £1 million which were active in the last 12 months. In a similar fashion to the above, the information requested for these contracts regarding goods and services not being received or not expected to be received is not held centrally and can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 19 July 2023 to Question 193672 on Department of Health and Social Care: Contracts, what estimate he has made of the cost of providing an answer to that Question.
Answered by Will Quince
In relation to Question 193672, there were 405 contracts which were active with a value of over £1 million on the Department’s central procurement and contract management database over the last five years. To provide an answer on whether “the goods and services contracted for have not been received and are no longer expected to be received in the last five years” we would have to consult all the individual contract managers for these contracts to obtain this type of information, which would then have to be properly collated and validated.
The contract manager would need to liaise with colleagues in the Department’s Finance directorate to find the relevant purchase orders to link spend to associated contracts and then make an assessment on whether goods and services were no longer expected to be received. We estimate that this would take a minimum of two hours per contract; multiplied by the number of contracts (405) this would total 810 hours. At a cost of £25 per hour this would equate to £20,250, which exceeds the disproportionate cost threshold of £850.
Presently, the Department has 249 contracts over £1 million which were active in the last 12 months. In a similar fashion to the above, the information requested for these contracts regarding goods and services not being received or not expected to be received is not held centrally and can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many applications for social care have been assessed for need and have been funded after having been means tested in each of the past 10 years.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Local authorities are responsible for assessing individuals’ care and support needs and, where eligible, for meeting those needs. Where individuals do not meet the eligibility threshold, they can get support from their local authorities in making their own arrangements for care services, as set out in the Care Act 2014.
Eligible needs are those which relate to, for example, maintaining personal hygiene and nutrition, and maintaining and developing relationships, and which significantly impact on the adult’s wellbeing. Full details of the eligibility requirements can be found in The Care and Support (Eligibility Criteria) Regulations 2014.
We do not currently hold data on how many applications for social care have been assessed for need. Through a new data collection, Client Level Data, we are beginning to collect event-level information from local authorities on adult social care activity. This will include records of assessment of eligible needs and the funding status of local authority-commissioned services.
To assess means, local authorities must follow The Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulations 2014 and have regard to the Care and Support Statutory (CASS) guidance. The responsibility for interpreting and applying the Regulations and the CASS guidance rests with local authorities.
Whether or not a person qualifies for any financial support towards their care costs depends on their capital assets as follows: anyone who has above the upper capital limit of £23,250 is expected to meet the full cost of their care; anyone who has below the lower capital limit of £14,250 pays what they can afford from income only; and anyone between the above two limits pays what they can afford from income plus a contribution from their assets.
A means-tested contribution from assets is determined by tariff income, which assumes that a person can afford to pay £1 per week for every £250 of assets between the limits. In 2021/22 there were almost 1,978,550 requests for support from new clients received by local authorities. Data on the funding of means testing done in the past 10 years is not held centrally.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if his Department will take steps to help support the development of hospital staff key worker accommodation on NHS Property Services land.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The National Planning Policy Framework makes clear that local authorities should assess the housing need of different groups in their communities, and support delivery of affordable housing to help meet those needs. Government is on target to build around 250,000 affordable homes through the Affordable Homes Programme 2016-23, with around 244,000 new housing starts by March 2023, and a further 5,000 homes granted an extension to start before March 2024. The Affordable Homes Programme will deliver a large number of social rented homes.
Our First Homes scheme will provide homes for first-time buyers at a minimum 30% discount. First Homes must be prioritised for first-time buyers (defined in paragraph 6, schedule 6ZA of the Finance Act 2003) and not sold to any household with a combined annual income over £80,000 (£90,000 in Greater London). Local and Neighbourhood Plans will be able to apply additional criteria.
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave to Question UIN 192375 on 12 July 2023.
Asked by: Lord Jones (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take, if any, to increase funding for social care.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has already provided a historic increase in funding for social care. The Government announced at the Autumn Statement that up to £7.5 billion of additional funding would be available for Adult Social Care and discharge over the next two years. This historic funding boost should put the adult social care system on a stronger financial footing and help local authorities address waiting lists, low fee rates, and workforce pressures in the sector. We will keep working closely with local authorities and the adult social care sector to understand current pressures on service delivery and budgets.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the (a) children's services budget for social care and (b) population was of (i) the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, (ii) Birmingham City Council, (iii) Blackpool Council, (iv) Blackburn with Darwen Council, (v) the City of Bradford Metropolitan Borough Council (vi) the London Borough of Hackney, (vii) Hartlepool Borough Council, (viii) the London Borough of Islington, (ix) Knowsley Council, (x) Hull City Council, (xi) Liverpool City Council, (xii) Leicester City Council, (xiii) Manchester City Council, (xiv) Middlesbrough Borough Council, (xv) Newham London Borough Council, (xvi) Nottingham City Council, (xvii) Oldham Council, (xviii) Rochdale Borough Council, (xix) Salford City Council, (xx) Sandwell Council, (xxi) South Tyneside Council, (xxii) Stoke-on-Trent City Council, (xxiii) Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, (xxiv) Tower Hamlets London Borough Council and (xxv) the City of Wolverhampton Council in (A) 2018-19, (B) 2019-20, (C) 2020-21, (D) 2021-22 and (E) 2022-23.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Information on the budget for children’s social care by individual local authorities is collected as part of the Section 251 Budget return. Information is then published in the statistical publication, ‘Planned LA and School Finance’, which is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/planned-la-and-school-expenditure.
The total budget for children’s social care for the years 2018/19, 2019/20, 2021/22 and 2022/23 for each local authority is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/64266413-c584-419c-9d84-08db63516a24.
Section 251 Budget was not collected for 2020/21 in order to reduce burdens on local authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Information on populations is available from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/populationestimatesforukenglandandwalesscotlandandnorthernireland.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the Social Care Grant.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Government is committed to ensuring tax payers money is spent effectively. All departmental expenditure is made in line with the principles set out in Managing Public Money and the Green Book, and we regularly consider the performance of programmes to ensure they are delivering for communities across the country.
Also, in November 2022, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities published its first evaluation strategy, which sets out our commitment to undertake and learn from evaluation activity across our policy areas. It outlines evaluation activity that is already underway and future plans. The annexes provide a list of ongoing and planned work, as well as a list of published evaluations. In addition, we are listing all new commissioned research projects, from January 2023 on gov.uk website, and aim to publish completed research outputs promptly on gov.uk.
Asked by: Barbara Keeley (Labour - Worsley and Eccles South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of an underspend in the primary dentistry budget on the availability of dentistry services.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
We have assessed the utilisation of underspends in National Health Service dentistry budgets on NHS dentistry services. NHS England has provided guidance for integrated care boards (ICBs) that requires dental funding to be ringfenced, with any unused resources re-directed to improve NHS dental access in the first instance. A schedule setting out the dental ringfence has been issued to ICBs. NHS England’s 2023/24 revenue finance and contracting guidance, which provides more detail, is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/2023-24-revenue-finance-and-contracting-guidance/