Respite Care Scotland, 2014

2. Main points

2.1 Summary of 2013/14 respite provision

There were 203,090** overnight and daytime respite weeks provided in Scotland in 2013/14. At least a further 12,590 weeks were provided through Direct Payments***.

The carers of older people (aged 65+) benefitted from 53% of the respite care provided in 2013/14, those of adults aged 18-64 from 36% and those of young people (aged 0-17) from 11%.

** All numbers of respite weeks presented in this Release are rounded to the nearest ten.
*** Only 18 out of 32 Local Authorities were able to submit Direct Payment information, such that these totals will underestimate the true Scotland level figures. Direct Payment expenditure has been converted to an estimated number of respite weeks using a rate of £630 per week (see Section 3 for further information).

2.2 Estimates of real terms changes in respite provision 2007/08 to 2013/14

When comparing respite provision over the past seven years, only changes in recorded levels of overnight care and daytime care are considered. This is because information on respite care provided through Direct Payments; i) has only been available since 2012/13, and ii) remains incomplete in terms of national coverage.

Chart 1 shows that the total overnight and daytime respite provision recorded in 2013/14 continues to represent an estimated real terms increase of 10,650 respite weeks (6.2%) on 2007/08.

Chart 1 shows that real terms increases in total overnight and daytime respite provision are estimated for each year from 2008/09 to 2012/13. This long term pattern of increasing total respite provision arises mainly from the services provided to benefit the carers of older people (aged 65+). However, a real terms decrease of 1,990 weeks (1.0%) is estimated between 2012/13 and 2013/14. Changes in data recording associated with the roll-out of Self-Directed Support and improvements to local recording systems introduce uncertainty into this estimate. However, it is considered likely that service provision has indeed fallen in real terms over the past year (as explained in Section 6.5). At the Local Authority level, by far the largest decreases in recorded respite provision occurred in Glasgow City. The changes recorded by this one Authority are larger than the entire estimated Scotland level decrease.

Chart 1 - Estimated real terms changes in the provision of overnight and daytime respite weeks in Scotland, 2007/08 to 2013/14

Source: Audit Scotland SPI data 2007/08 - 2008/09, Scottish Government 2009/10 - 2013/14.
Note: Estimated real terms changes are based on changes in methodology between years, as explained in Section 4.