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Personal Care at Home Bill

Local government efficiency is in the pre-Budget report, and it is a recurring cost; but the savings are also recurring. It is about spending public money better than we do at the moment. As the Joseph Rowntree Foundation acknowledged, too many people are pushed into residential care as a result of crisis, when actually with appropriate support they could be helped to regain independence. If we help someone to regain independence at that critical moment in their life, it is good not just for that individual but for the public purse, because it means that people do not require care in a residential setting in the long term.