County Council Adults, Health & Community Wellbeing P O Box 297 County Hall CHELMSFORD CM1 1YS Email Address Provided: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx Our ref: ECC-016956-11/SH Date: 2 nd February 2012 Dear Ms Jones Re: Freedom of Information Request 28 th December 2011 Thank you for your request for information, which was received by County Council on 28 th December 2011. I contacted you on 5 th January 2012, to clarify question 15 to be able to respond to your request fully. I am pleased to enclose the following information, which I believe satisfies your request: 1] Please could you supply me with the total figure of funding the council receives from Government and or NHS in the form of grants or monies for Carers. From 2008 to 2011-12 [ each year if possible] or however the Government allocates this funding.ie 2010-2013? The following questions all relate to these years. All Government funding goes into the area based grant for both Adult and Children s services. No money has been specifically ring-fenced for carers from 2008 onwards. 2] Please include Grants/funds/budgets or any other descriptions of monies including concessions 3] Could also supply me with a breakdown /tables of these figures including the departments which receive the funding. The below table shows the actual spend on carer direct payments (personal budget cash payments), shown in both locality and specialism breakdowns. Direct Payments to Carers 2011-12 2010-11 2009-10 2008-09 Budget (latest) Actual Actual Actual Learning Disabilities 37,503 45,842 40,538 Mental Health 50,345 22,581 20,651 Physical & Sensory Impairments 287,278 258,767 123,911 Older People 691,233 750,221 500,786 71,256 1,066,359 1,077,411 685,886 71,256
2011-12 Direct Payment to Carers Figures by Locality Budget (latest) Mid 273562 North East 346359 South 282651 West 163787 1,066,359 For the financial years 2010/11 and 2011/12 the Department of Health identified money (as part of the NHS Operating Framework) for Primary Care Trust s to provide breaks for carers. There were conditions applied including that the Primary Care Trust s should work with Local Authorities and the Voluntary sector in order to achieve this. Monies allocated under the agreements could only be used for carers living in the specified Primary Care Trust area. Primary Care Trust Carer Break funding was received into the Carers Strategy Team budget. Please see the below table that identifies the amount identified by each Primary Care Trust area. Primary Care Trusts (PCT) - Breaks funding. South West South East North Mid West 2010/2011 NIL NIL 175K NIL NIL 2011/2012 57K 100K NIL NIL 38K 4] Could you also identify which funding is ring-fenced? No funding is ring fenced. 5] Please identify charities, service providers or any other organisation which are allocated Carers monies and show these payments. For questions 5 17, I have provided you with separate answers to the questions for Adult Social Care and Children s Social Care where appropriate. Please see the spreadsheet (Appendix 1) provided along with this request this identifies the organisations that have received funding from the carers budget. Childrens Social Care- Please see the spreadsheet (Appendix 2) provided along with this request, this identifies the organisations children s services are aware of that provide services for Carers. Monies to fund these schemes are not carer specific but provide a form of carer break. 6] How many Carers assessments were completed face to face with a social worker? The assessment type started to be recorded part way through 2008/9. We are unable to provide you figures before this period. 2008/09 = 2177 Assessments 2009/10 = 5908 Assessments 2010/11 = 8465 Assessments
2011/12 (April 2011 to Date) = 6040 Assessments Childrens Social Care Assessments in children's services address the needs of the child and their carers in the one assessment. Carers assessments are undertaken as part of the core assessments and such are not recorded separately. Young Carers- The amount of young carers assessments are as follows: 2007/08 =361 2008/09 =449 2009/10 = 671 2010/11 =935 2011/12 = 1597 7] How many Carers self assessment were completed? The assessment type started to be recorded part way through 2008/09. We are unable to provide you figures before this period. Our recording process altered in 2011/12, full figures will not show until March 2012. 2008/09 = 615 Assessments 2009/10 = 1260 Assessments 2010/11 = 661 Assessments 2011/12 (April 2011 to Date) = 79 Assessments Children Social Care Self assessments are not completed by children s services or young carers. 8] How many Carers are on personal budgets? The following information is for Carers Direct Payments. (Nb. Personal budgets cash payment is the amount of funding defined through an assessment process to meet eligible needs Direct payments are the avenue that this is paid by). 2008/09 = 87 Carers 2009/10 = 593 Carers 2010/11 = 804 Carers 2011/12 (April 2011 to Date) = 495 Carers Children Social Care Children s Social Care make direct payments to families for the agreed and assessed needs of the child and as such may include an element of short breaks for both the child and the carer. However, the budgets are not specifically for the carer. On this basis, the response is 0. Young Carers Young Carers do not receive a personal budget; they receive services through a direct support fund. From April 2007 to December 2011, we received 155 applications to the direct support fund all of which were approved.
9] How many Carers are on regular personal budgets? Carer s direct payments (now termed Personal Budgets Cash Payments) are awarded as a one off payment up to a year period. They are not an ongoing payment. Children s Social Care Please see the answer to question 8. Young Carers Funding for the direct support fund is given via an application process. These are not ongoing payments. 10] How many Carers received a one off payment in the form of a carers grant? County Council does not provide carer grants. 11] How many Carers received more than one carers grants per year? As stated above County Council does not provide carers grants. 12] How many Carers receive regular direct payments? Please refer to the answers to question 8 and 9 13] Do Carers receive funding from monies other than allocated Carers funds eg RAS? County Council does not use a carer Resource Allocation System (RAS). Where identified needs are assessed, Carer Cash Payments- personal budgets (Direct Payments) are used. 14] How many Carers are known to the council? We can supply the data on how many carers assessed by the council in each year. The assessment type started to be recorded part way through 2008/9. We are unable to provide you figures before this period. This is information is as follows: 2008/09 = 9646 2009/10 = 10392 2010/11 = 13280 2011/12 (April 2011 to Date) = 8890 County Council Carers Strategy Team also holds a database of Carers who have asked to receive the Connecting Carers publication. This data includes both carers who have and have not been assessed. The data is live so can only be provided at its current total. 14702 carers known as at 11 January 2012 Children s Social Care For children s social care there are no independent carers assessments completed, we would be unable to provide you with a total number of Carers known to the council, as we do not hold this information in a reportable format.
Young Carers We can supply the data on how many carers assessed by the council in each year. This is information is as follows: 2007/08 361 2008/09 441 2009/10 671 2010/11 935 2011/12 (April 2011 to Date) 1597 15] How many Carers made a complaint of any description? We are unable to provide you with information for the full 5 years as information before 2010/11 was not robust because complaints from carers were not recorded under their own specific category, from 2009/10 complaints made by carer s were recorded under the contact type Carer/Foster Carer and I have provided this information below. There maybe complaints that have been made by a relative which could be a carer, however they did not identify themselves as a carer when making a complaint, therefore they were recorded on our system as a relative, we would be unable to identify if these complaints were made by a carer or a relative. 2009/10 7 2010/11 27 2011/12 (April 2011 to Date) - 4 Childrens Social Care We are unable to provide you with information for the full 5 years as information before 2010/11 were not robust because complaints from carers were not recorded under their own specific category, from 2010/11 the complaints from carers are recorded under the contact type Carer/Foster Carer. I have provided you with information for 2010/11 and 2011/12, the figures below include complaints formally logged. 2010/11-29 2011/Jan 12-19 16]How many carers are paid via direct payments or any other payment whilst living in the same house as the caree On the 5 th January you clarified this response to the following In certain circumstances family carers living in the same house as the caree can get paid direct payments to support the person in need of social care, it is up to the individual council to make this exception. County Council has not paid any carers via direct payments or any other means to provide support to the service user in regard to the service user need for social care. 17] How many carers are paid either in money or lieu of services or expenses by the council to promote new services, personalisation for instance or represent the council out of county? Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 I am not obliged to supply the information you have requested.
Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires County Council, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and (c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies. The following exemption has been applied: S12 Cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit. To provide you with all the information that you have requested this would be above the appropriate limit. In estimating whether complying with this request would exceed the appropriate limit we have take in to account the following: Determining whether we hold the information; Locating the information, or a document containing it; Retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and Extracting the information from a document containing it. To provide you with this information we would have to search each cost centre manually, I have estimated it would take 1 day (7 hours) to search each cost centre, there are 58 cost centres that we would have to search for Adult Social Care and Childrens Social Care. I have estimated that that this would take approximately 406 hours to complete. Such costs are calculated at 25 per hour per person for all authorities regardless of the actual cost or rate of pay, which means that the limit will be exceeded if these activities exceed 24 hours for central government, legislative bodies and the armed forces, and 18 hours for all other authorities. You may reuse all or part of this information free of charge in any format or medium. You must reuse it accurately and not in a misleading context. The material must be acknowledged as County Council copyright and you must give the title of the source document/publication. Please contact me if you would like further advice or assistance about your request or your right to access information held by County Council. If you are not satisfied with my response to your request, please let me know. If I am unable to resolve the issue immediately, I will explain our complaints procedure. If, after following our complaints procedure, you are still not satisfied, you are entitled to ask the Information Commissioner to review our decision. You can contact him at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, telephone 01625 545700. Yours Sincerely Stephen Hassett Informatics Officer Adult Social Care Email: asc.informationgovernancx@xxxxx.xxx.xx