---

Dementia Services

The hon. Gentleman will no doubt have to answer to his right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside for introducing a party political element in his intervention. Clearly, what matters is that we should recognise that local services reflect the national priorities that have been set. If a national priority is for a dementia strategy delivered through actions on the ground rather than words, no doubt that would be more persuasive to a local council as it reached its decisions. The National Audit Office raised four main criticisms of the dementia strategy. First, will the Secretary of State make clear just how much of the £60 million of dementia strategy funding for 2010-11 will be spent on additional dementia services? Does he have any plans to undertake a baseline assessment to see from what starting point those services are being run? We need only look at the recent carers strategy to see how urgently this assessment is needed. It emerged before Christmas that the £50 million disbursed for emergency respite care this year never reached the front line; instead it got soaked up in local primary care trust bureaucracy. Not only does that leave dementia sufferers with little hope of benefiting from resources, but it seems particularly disingenuous for the Government to take the plaudits for pledging taxpayers' money without the funds ever reaching the front line. On the second criticism, will the Secretary of State tell the House what the source of funding is for meeting the £1.9 billion cost of implementing the strategy over its 10-year lifespan? To date, the Government's impact assessment has identified only £533 million of efficiency savings over 10 years, which leaves nearly three quarters—