Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport – in the Senedd at 2:35 pm on 17 May 2017.
I thank you very much for the question and for the warm welcome that you have given to our additional funding and additional investment in social care in Wales. And, just for the benefit of Members, the additional funding that I announced today did include that extra £9 million to help meet the pressures of the national living wage within the sector, but also a further £8 million to support work to prevent children from entering care and improve outcomes for those who are in care, and also £3 million to local authorities to support respite for carers, given the crucial role that we know that carers play as well. The domiciliary and residential care workforce has a crucial role in society and we have been concerned at the level of turnover within that sector, which is around 30 per cent in some areas at the moment. So, the aim of the funding is to allow local authorities to invest, and providers to invest, in their workforce—to raise the pay, obviously, that their workforce receives at the moment, but also to look at what more we can do to keep people in the sector as well. So, it’s investing in skills and investing in the individuals more widely as well, ensuring that people don’t have to pay for the clothes that they wear to undertake their role, and so on.
So, the additional funding was made because we’re able to do it because of the extra money that we had through the consequential funding, and it’s welcomed by local authorities. I’d add as well that we have written to local authorities because this is grant funding in this first year. So, we’ve set out quite clearly to local authorities what we will be expecting them to achieve for the sector through the additional funding that we’ve made available today.