The Scottish Government

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Introduction

The purpose of this Statistics Release is to present national figures on Direct Payments made by Scottish Local Authorities.

The latest figures apply to payments made during the period 1 ^st April 2006 to 31 ^st March 2007 under section 12B of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968.

Direct Payments are for self-directed community care whereby eligible people purchase and manage for themselves some or all of the care they have been assessed as needing. They are one way of increasing the flexibility, choice, and control people have over the care they receive, so that they can live more independently in their communities.

Direct payments have been available to disabled people aged 18-64 since April 1997, and to disabled people aged 65 and over since July 2000. Since 21 December 2001 they have also been available to disabled 16 and 17 year olds and disabled parents for children's services. From 1 June 2003 it became a duty for local authorities to offer direct payments in place of providing services to all eligible disabled people aged 16 and over and to parents (or those with parental responsibility) for disabled children aged 15 and under.

The information is derived from returns made to the Scottish Government by Scottish Local Authorities. The background information note on page 6 conveys further details relating to the collection of direct payments data. Charts are shown on pages 1 to 5 of the publication and data tables are shown in the appendix. Figures may not sum due to incomplete data.

Main Points

• The number of people in receipt of direct payments has increased from 207 in 2001 to 2291 in the year to 31st March 2007.
  

Chart 1 shows the number of direct payment recipients each year.

• 1185 of the people receiving direct payments in 2007 had a physical disability. 24% of people who received direct payments were aged 65 or over, compared to only 7 per cent in 2001.

Chart 2 shows a summary of payments by age and client group.

• The value of payments has increased by almost £22.0 million, from £2.3 million in 2001 to around £24.3 million in 2007.

Chart 4, on page 2, shows the value of direct payments made each year.

• The average value of a direct payment was £17,400 per year.
• There were an average of 26 hours per week in direct payment packages.

CHART 1: Number of people receiving direct payments 2001-2007

CHART 2: Number of people receiving direct payments, 2007

Across Scotland 2291 people received direct payments in the year 2006/07, an increase of almost 462 (25 per cent) from the 2005/06 level.

More than half (52%) of these 2291 people received direct payments due to a physical disability. The number of people in this client group, has risen from 950 in 2005/06 to 1185 in 2006/07. 26 per cent of those receiving direct payments in 2006/07 were due to a learning disability.

Chart 2, above, and Table 4 in the appendix show a breakdown of the number of clients by age and client group in 2007.

CHART 3: Percentage of people receiving direct payments by age, 2001-2007

The age profile of direct payment clients has changed since 2001, with a greater proportion of recipients now aged 65 or over. In 2001 only 7 per cent of recipients were in this age group, compared to 24 per cent of clients in 2007. This proportion has, however, fallen for the third year running from a high of 34 per cent in 2004.

In the year to 31 March 2007, 1719 payments (75% of the total) were made to people aged under 65. Direct payments have been available to disabled people aged 65 and over since July 2000 and 558 people in this age group (24% of the total) received payments in the latest year. From 1 April 2005 eligibility was extended to older people aged 65 and over assessed as needing care services due to frailty or old age. Overall, however, there has been only a small increase in the number of clients aged 65 and over since 2005.

Table 3 shows the age profile of clients from 2001 to 2007.

There were slightly more females than males in receipt of direct payments in 2007, 52% compared to 48%.

CHART 4: Value of direct payments, 2001-2007

The total value of direct payments has steadily increased from 2001, and £24.3 million was spent in the year to 31 March 2007. Most of this, around £14.3 million, was spent on people with physical disabilities (59 per cent).

CHART 5: Average estimated value of a direct payment, 2001-2007

The average value of a direct payment has increased slightly for the third year running, after a decrease in the two preceding years, and stands at £10,600 (based on previous methodology to allow comparisons back to 2001, see page 9).

Table 5 shows the estimated average payment per client broken down by client group between 2001 and 2007.

CHART 6: Average value of direct payment by client group, 2007

The estimated average values in chart 5 are simply calculated by dividing the total value of direct payments for the year by the number of people who received direct payments during the year.

In 2007, we collected direct payment information individually for each client and this allows us to make a more accurate measurement of the average cost, by taking into account the length of time each client received payments during the year, see table 2b for further information.

Chart 6 shows that the average annual value of a direct payment received in 2007 was £10,600 per client. Those who received a direct payment due to a physical disability received the highest average payment (£12,200) and those with learning disabilities received the lowest (£8,300).

CHART 7: Average hours in a direct payment by client group, 2007

On average there were 26 hours per week in a direct payment package in 2006/07. This varied slightly between client groups with an average of 21 hours per week in direct payment packages for people with learning disabilities and 29 hours per week in those for people with physical disabilities.

CHART 8: Average hours in a direct payment by age group, 2007

The average number of weekly hours in a direct payment package also varied between age groups. Clients aged under 18 had an average of 14 hours per week in their direct payments package whilst those aged over 18 had an average of 28 hours per week.

CHART 9: Distribution of length of direct payments, 2007

Of the direct payments which were ongoing on 31 March 2007, 27 per cent had been in place for a year or less. A further 23 per cent had been going for over 1 year but less than 2 years and 6 per cent of payments had been in place for over 5 years.

CHART 10: Direct payments starting and ending in 2006-07 by month

Chart 10 shows the month in which new direct payments began and in which direct payments ended. 63 per cent of new direct payments began between April and September 2006 with 91 (13 per cent) beginning in April 2006. 12 per cent of those direct payments that ended did so in July 2006.

Details of the number of new direct payments and the number that ended in 2006/07, split by local authority, are available in table 7. However, please note that figures do not tally due to missing information.

Local Authorities were asked to provide details of the type of direct payment provision (see table 8). All but one local authority was able to provide data for at least some clients. Each client could have more than 1 type of direct payment provision so percentages do not add up to 100.

59 per cent of clients received direct payments for personal care and 33 per cent received them for social, educational or recreational activities.

Similarly, 31 local authorities provided data on the type of care delivery - whether the direct payment package is delivered by personal assistants, through a contract with a service provider or a combination of both. 63 per cent of these had their package delivered by personal assistants employed directly by the service user and 28 per cent had it delivered through a contract with a service provider.

Details of the type of care delivery can be found in table 9.

Local Authority Analysis

All Local Authorities made direct payments during the year to 31 March 2007.

Fife council made the most payments (13 per cent of the Scotland total) and these payments amounted to £2.8 million. However the city of Edinburgh contributed the greatest value overall, at over £3.7 million (15 per cent of the total amount paid). Eilean Siar had the smallest number of clients with 8 receiving payments.

All but four Local Authorities made more direct payments in 2007 than in the previous year. South Ayrshire made 2 fewer and Orkney made one less, whilst Stirling and East Renfrewshire made the same number.

The average value of a payment increased in 21 of 32 Local Authorities - the Shetland Islands saw the largest increase from an average of £8,800 per client in 2006 to £15,600 in the latest year.

Chart 12 and Table 10 show that the Orkney Islands have the largest rate of direct payment clients per 10,000 of population (22.8).

Tables 1 and 2 show the number and value of direct payments made in 2001-2007 by client group and local authority.

CHART 11: Number of people receiving direct payments, 2007

CHART 12: Rates of clients per 10,000 population, 2007

Background information on the Direct Payments Survey, 2007

The Direct Payments survey began in 2001 and collects information on Direct Payments from all Local Authorities in Scotland.

The format of the survey was changed in 2006 to a person based return. This may have resulted in some inconsistency compared to previous years. The new survey asks for gender, date of birth, client group, value of direct payment throughout the year, weekly hours in the direct payment package, type of direct payment provision and type of care delivery along with a number of other variables.

The new form has allowed for more accurate calculation of average direct payment values. These are calculated by determining for how many days each person received a direct payment in 2006/07. The value of the direct payment is then divided by this number of days and the result is multiplied by 365 to estimate the value of a direct payment if the had client received it throughout the entire year. This can then be averaged to allow more accurate comparisons between, for example, client groups.

The infonote contains average direct payment values calculated using both methods to allow for the continuation of existing time series.

All 32 local authorities provided information. However, a number of Local Authorities had difficulty providing some of the data.

Some column totals in the tables in this document may not exactly equal the sum of their component parts due to the effects of rounding.

Further Information

Further details and analysis of the data presented in this Statistics Release are available on request from the address below. The Statistics Release is also available on the Internet by accessing the Scottish Executive web site ( http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats).

Contact: Steven Gillespie
Tel: 0131 244 3777
Fax: 0131 244 2371
E-mail SWstat@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

This statistics release was published on 25 ^th September 2007

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