We already have a very comprehensive adaptations programme in Wales. They do involve local government, local housing associations, and care and repair agencies across Wales. Together, our total annual spend is around £60 million. All providers are required to adhere to the housing adaptations service standards that we issued in 2019. These include target waiting times for different kinds of adaptations. We are also now reporting annually on the performance of providers, and we will shortly be issuing the report for 2019-20, which will include comparisons with previous years for the first time. 

I do want to say at this point that I do understand, of course, that the pandemic has slowed this down, as Nick said. But, just be clear, we have been encouraging people where at all possible to continue with care and repair adaptations right through the pandemic. There have, of course, been areas where somebody is self-isolating or the person hasn't been happy with the work going on in their home, but ,just to be clear, we have been encouraging the work to continue all the way through. 

We continue to refine and improve the data monitoring. I've met myself with Care & Repair a number of times around what data we capture, and, from next year, we will have sufficient data to move to a dashboard, which will clearly highlight key trends, including waiting times. 

Again, as Nick said, adaptations are mostly small. The most significant group of adaptations by value is medium-sized adaptations. These include the most common adaptations that were also mentioned—stairlifts, walk-in showers, downstairs wet rooms and large ramps, or combinations of those types of adaptation. On average, a median adaptation takes around four months to be complete.

There are only a small number of very large adaptations each year. They involve substantial alterations to the property, including extensions that require planning permission. Not surprisingly, therefore, these take longer to complete due to the complexity, and the average is about 40 weeks. For many people, this is an acceptable timescale for major changes to their home, but I can fully understand, in the case of a person diagnosed with MND, 40 weeks can be a very long time indeed. 

Most medium and large adaptations are currently provided through the mandatory disabled facilities grant, which is administered, as Nick said, by local authorities from their capital funding settlement. In 2018-19, local authorities spent around £22 million on DFGs, providing improvements to just over 4,000 properties. In over 90 per cent of cases, the grant fully covered the cost of the works. DFGs in Wales are more generous than in the rest of the UK. In Wales, the upper limit that the local authority is required to fund is £36,000. This compares with £30,000 in other parts of the UK. If the adaptation costs more than £36,000, local authorities already have the discretion to provide a top-up from their own funds. In 2018-19, two thirds of them did so, spending over £2 million. Local authorities can also make top-ups from the Welsh Government Enable grant, which gives them an additional £4 million of flexibility each year.

The most complex and costly cases can be the most pressing and urgent, such as building an extension to enable someone with MND to continue to live independently. However, due to the large sums of money involved and the financial pressures on families in need, this can also be difficult and time-consuming to resolve. As Nick rightly said, this is against what we're all trying to achieve. So, because of that, I amended the guidance for the integrated care fund capital programme for 2021-22, which I issued in January. The regional partnership boards are now able to use their discretion to meet the additional costs of adaptations that cost more than £36,000.

I will be monitoring how much use is made of this flexibility as we go forward but, as we all know, DFGs don't always run as smoothly as they might, and this has been a matter of ongoing concern. For example, we know the means test can lead to delays, even though only 307 out of over 4,000 DFGs in 2018-19 led to the householder making any contribution. This begs the question whether there is justification for conducting a means test in the vast majority of cases. So, I have recently received the research that I commissioned on the means test and disabled facilities grant that Nick also mentioned. The research will be published very shortly, and I hope to make an announcement in the very near future about steps we can take as a result of that research to address that issue. 

Planning is also said to be another cause of delay, but planning permission is only required for the largest adaptations that are not covered by permitted development rights. For the majority of large adaptations, planning should normally be granted within eight weeks, but we know it can take longer and some councils perform better than others. So, if people who are suffering from NMD are currently experiencing particular problems with planning, I would really welcome further information on that. So, Nick, if you do have any information on cases of that sort, please do let me know immediately and we will see whether we can shift them for the specific cases in point. The guidance, you're right, to local authorities on DFGs has not been updated for some time, and I will consult on revised guidance shortly to ensure it deals with the issues that you've raised for the future, going forward.

Can I just finish by saying that I am very grateful indeed to Nick for bringing, once again, this important subject to the floor of the Senedd? I would like to send my best wishes to all the people in Wales who have motor neurone disease and to their families, and to say that we are very grateful to have had this raised this evening, and we fully intend to make sure that people with MND can live out their lives in comfort and security with the best adaptation that we can manage. So, diolch yn fawr iawn.