Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what support is available for prisoners with mental health issues.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
Health services for people in prison are commissioned by NHS England.
Currently mental health services are delivered against a service specification which supports early assessment and management into treatment pathways.
People with low to medium level mental health needs can access short form talking therapies as part of services in the stepped care pathway model. Specialist and psychological services are commissioned to support people with more severe and enduring mental health need.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teacher vacancies there are in each local authority area.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The number of teacher vacancies in state funded schools in each local authority area was published on 22 June 2017 in the underlying data file of the ‘School Workforce in England: November 2016’ statistical release, available at the following web link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2016
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many businesses will benefit from the targeted support for Small Business Rate Relief measure in Budget 2017; and what the breakdown by (a) region, (b) constituency and (c) local authority of those businesses will be.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The Department estimates that 16,000 businesses will benefit from the targeted support for Small Business Rate Relief recipients measure announced at Budget 2017. The Department does not hold the data required to provide a breakdown by region, constituency or local authority.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to consult with the social care sector before publishing the social care green paper as announced in paragraph 5.6 of Spring Budget 2017.
Answered by David Mowat
The Government is committed to establishing a fairer, more sustainable basis for funding adult social care, in the face of the future demographic challenges the country faces. We will bring forward proposals in a green paper later this year to put the state funded system on a more secure long-term footing. The Secretary of State for Health, his ministerial team, and officials meet regularly with stakeholders from the social care sector. We intend to build on and continue this engagement in developing our proposals. Once published the green paper will provide further opportunity for people across the social care sector to consider and respond to our proposals.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, with reference to paragraph 3.17 of the Spring Budget 2017, if he will take steps to ensure that public houses in receipt of the proposed business rate discount do not face significant additional charges in 2018-19.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The Government has put in place a £3.6 billion package of transitional relief to help businesses facing increases following revaluation. The Budget on 8 March included a further package to support business. £100 million will be available to assist rate payers, including eligible pubs, losing small business rates relief or rural rates relief as a result of revaluation. In addition, the Government is making available a £300 million discretionary relief fund over the next four years to enable local authorities to help individual businesses that are having difficulties paying increased rates bills.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how he plans for the additional money proposed for adult social care in paragraph 5.5 of the Spring Budget 2017 to be distributed to local authorities.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The Department published the allocations for the additional funding for adult social care announced at the Spring Budget 2017 online on 9 March, together with an Explanatory Note.
This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-allocations-of-the-additional-funding-for-adult-social-care.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how he plans for the discretionary business rate relief announced in paragraph 3.16 of the Spring Budget 2017 to be distributed to local authorities.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The Government has published a consultation on the design and implementation of the locally administered business rate relief scheme.
The consultation is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/598261/Discretionary_Business_Rates_Relief_Scheme_consultation.pdf with responses requested by 7 April.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that local authorities do not commission 15-minute homecare visits for personal care in the circumstances set out as not appropriate for such a length of visit in paragraph 4.101 of the Department of Health's Care and Support Statutory Guidance.
Answered by David Mowat
The statutory guidance to the Care Act 2014 is clear that local authorities should commission services to meet the needs of individuals and that very short home care visits would not normally be compatible with high quality care.
Local authorities are responsible for commissioning decisions, accountable to their local populations through elected members. The Government does not routinely intervene in individual decisions, but both the Government and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) agree that inappropriately short home care visits are unacceptable.
The Department has worked with local government and the care sector to develop and encourage good practice in commissioning and managing local markets. A suite of guidance is now available at the online Hub that is now published on GOV.UK under market shaping and commissioning.
In particular, the guidance ‘Commissioning for Better Outcomes’ (under Resources for Commissioners) is being actively used in the sector to improve commissioning and directly asks commissioners to review how short home care visits are used.
We are working with the Local Government Association (LGA) and ADASS through a sector-led improvement approach to encourage best practice and improve local commissioning skills. Specifically, the Department funds the LGA to deliver the Care Health Improvement Programme.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the future level of demand for social care; and what steps he is taking to ensure that that level of demand can be met.
Answered by David Mowat
Social care continues to be a key priority for the Government.
The Spending Review as a whole looked at the pressures on local government over the Spending Review period and particular attention was paid to adult social care services. Spending Review decisions on social care services took into account a range of financial and economic factors, including independent academic modelling of future demand for services.
As a result of the Spending Review announced in November 2015, the Government is giving local authorities access to up to £3.5 billion of new support for social care by 2019/20. This should mean local government has access to the funding to increase social care spending in real terms by the end of the Parliament.
In addition the current Relative Needs Formula does take into account demographics and seeks to measure need for state-funded care, and thus takes into account population need, the proportion of the population who are below the income and wealth means test threshold and the level of informal care support available.
The Department has commissioned a review of the formulae that we use for the Relative Needs Formula. This review is so that we can incorporate more recent and detailed data and statistical techniques. The researchers are currently writing up the research and this will be published in due course.
Asked by: Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the funding gap in social care on the adequate provision of appropriate social care.
Answered by David Mowat
Social care continues to be a key priority for the Government.
The Spending Review as a whole looked at the pressures on local government over the Spending Review period and particular attention was paid to adult social care services. Spending Review decisions on social care services took into account a range of financial and economic factors, including independent academic modelling of future demand for services.
As a result of the Spending Review announced in November 2015, the Government is giving local authorities access to up to £3.5 billion of new support for social care by 2019/20. This should mean local government has access to the funding to increase social care spending in real terms by the end of the Parliament.
In addition the current Relative Needs Formula does take into account demographics and seeks to measure need for state-funded care, and thus takes into account population need, the proportion of the population who are below the income and wealth means test threshold and the level of informal care support available.
The Department has commissioned a review of the formulae that we use for the Relative Needs Formula. This review is so that we can incorporate more recent and detailed data and statistical techniques. The researchers are currently writing up the research and this will be published in due course.