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23.02.07
12 Deputy L.J. Farnham of the Minister for Health and Social Services regarding
support for care workers during the pandemic (OQ.14/2023)
I think the Minister partially answered this in her response to my final supplementary of the last question but will the Minister indicate what proportion of the approximately £700,000 allocated to support the care sector during the height of the pandemic in 2021 was utilised and in what way; and further advise how many carers were recruited as a result of this funding and what proportion of the remaining funds were reallocated to support the care sector going forward?
Deputy K. Wilson (The Minister for Health and Social Services):
Firstly, I would just like to clarify that it was not £700,000 that was allocated, it was less than that. It was £621,500 and this came from the Fiscal Stimulus Fund for a project known as the Domiciliary Care Market Stimulation. Of that funding, £195,548, equivalent to 31.5 per cent of the fund, was used as described by the project. All unspent funds were returned to the Treasury at the end of the financial year. The project was set up to provide targeted, temporary and timely support to encourage skills development and new employees into the domiciliary care market. In total 33 new staff were recruited into the sector and 55 existing employees were upskilled as part of the training programme that was offered.
4.12.1 Deputy L.J. Farnham :
I thank the Minister for correcting me. I knew it was approximately £700,000 but I could not quite remember and it is good to hear that 33 carers were recruited. I am presuming the balance remained with the Fiscal Stimulus Fund, which is fine, but I think the Minister, she gave a commitment previously to investigate further funding for the domiciliary care market, so I will hold her to that and wish her well with her endeavours. Thank you. After all of that, I am not asking a supplementary, I do apologise.
The Bailiff :
Well that is probably a rather long way of giving a speech during the course of question time, Deputy , so perhaps we will avoid that going forward, if we may. Thank you very much.
Deputy K. Wilson :
Sorry, can I just correct what the Deputy said about commitment to domiciliary care. I think what I said …
The Bailiff :
It was not a question; there is nothing to answer. Very well, that ends questions with notice. We come to questions without notice. The first period is for the Minister for Home Affairs. Connétable of Trinity .