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Carers

Did I say Leicestershire? Good grief; I meant Lancashire, the proud red rose county in the north-west of England. My hon. Friend chaired the county council's social services committee for a number of years. She spoke about the need for government to join up, an important matter. She referred to my predecessors, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), now the Under-Secretary of State for International Development; they took the disability and social care roles respectively. I assure my hon. Friend and the House that I and the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Phil Hope), who is responsible for social care, will continue to work closely together. Indeed, on the care and support first principles consultation, he and I attended public meetings and had a public discussion with a range of stakeholders, seeking their views on the future shape of services. Members referred also to advice and guidance, another important topic. Carers have complained to me and to the Committee—and to us as constituency MPs—about the complexity, the not knowing where to go, the being pushed from pillar to post, the form-filling and so on. I referred earlier to providing members of the Committee with a letter in order to ensure that we got it right. I regret that no fee will be involved, as we have to prioritise expenditure, but I am sure that they will give us their comments on a pro bono basis. We are attempting to improve. We are providing a new service, and the carers' support helpline will go live from April. We are putting about £2 million into it. Another service that I wanted to bring to the attention of the Committee—a little indulgence, Sir John—is the Tell Us Once pilots that we instigated, particularly for the bereaved. Earlier, we heard that if the cared-for person dies, carers may find themselves, in that bereaved state, having to deal with various agencies. We have been piloting a scheme with a number of authorities whereby people can attend a council centre and tell only one person once, and that person will take care of all their national and local benefits. The work has been done in partnership between the Department for Work and Pensions and local authorities. I have met the staff members who have been operating that service, and they were so enthusiastic about it. The feedback that they have received from customers has been really positive. I hope that we can roll that out; people such as carers will benefit from that service. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood referred to USDAW, members of which I met at a conference last year. I spoke with carers, many of whom want to work. Indeed, half of those carers not in work say that they want to enter paid employment, and we will develop services through Jobcentre Plus to provide support for them. We always need to improve the knowledge base of our Jobcentre Plus staff, who, as has been said today, must acquire a range of different skills. The hon. Member for Henley raised that point, and I recall him talking, in the main Chamber, about when he visited the Jobcentre Plus office in his constituency. He praised the staff in that office. At the moment, they are working very hard, given the current economic situation. However, we intend to develop services for carers, so that we can understand their needs and help them to find employment, because that is what they want. We do not want to pilot care vouchers, because we do not think that it is the best use of resources. They would be very poorly targeted and regressive, so we do not intend to do that, either nationally or in the Department. That returns us to the point about the carer's allowance and universality versus targeted benefits. The hon. Member for Eastbourne talked about resources, and we must make such decisions. However attractive some employers think that vouchers would be for their staff, we do not want to use them ourselves.