Scottish Government

1. Introduction

This Statistics Release presents respite care services provided or purchased by Local Authorities in Scotland. Respite Care is a service intended to benefit a carer and the person he or she cares for by providing a short break from caring tasks.

The figures used in this publication were originally collected and published by each Local Authority in Scotland. Local Authorities are required to collect and publish information on respite nights in a Care Home and respite hours provided at home as part of their Statutory Performance Indicators ( SPIs). In this publication, the information has been presented and converted into respite weeks to allow presentation of an estimate of the total number of respite weeks provided each year in Scotland.

Please note that all figures in this release are provisional, and will be subject to further validation before publication of final figures, scheduled for February 2010.

This release presents the results for the last three years to give a picture of:

• The total number of respite weeks provided by each Local Authority in Scotland
• The amount of daytime and overnight respite provided

2. Important information on the collection of the data

2.1 This data is provided to Audit Scotland by the Local Authorities as one of the Statutory Performance Indicators ( SPIs). The information is collected and published locally by each council in Scotland. Audit Scotland publishes information about the comparative performance of councils across Scotland in a compendium of all the data. This will be published later in December 2009 and will be available from www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/performance/index.php

2.2 For the purposes of this data collection respite care is defined as follows:

"Respite care is a service intended to benefit a carer and the person he or she cares for by providing a short break from caring tasks. The break is made possible though alternative care arrangements. Breaks provided to people without carers are excluded from this performance indicator which is intended to measure a key element in support for carers. This indicator only concerns respite care provided or purchased by the Council, or by Voluntary organisations funded for this purpose by the Council."

2.3 A copy of the complete Audit Scotland guidance to councils on how to complete this return is included in Annex 4 of this publication.

2.4 In order to provide an estimate of total respite provision across Scotland, respite nights and respite hours have been converted into respite weeks. In order to calculate this, seven respite nights equal one respite week and 52.5 hours equal one respite week. This standard method was agreed by CoSLA and the Scottish Government.

2.5 Initial validation checks of this data reveal that some of the increases in daytime hours of respite in 2008-09 are due to better reporting of respite care rather than a genuine increase in respite. Some of the main issues raised are:

• Local Authorities have reviewed data collection systems and identified that respite data has been omitted in previous years. This has caused undercounting within daytime services and across a number of Local Authorities.
• Creation of new services/initiatives hidden due to undercounting in previous years.
• Possible misinterpretation of guidelines which has caused double counting of provision to clients.

3. Total number of respite weeks provided: Scotland

This statistical release presents the number of respite weeks provide to all age groups within Scotland.

3.1 Respite weeks provided to all ages

Table 1 shows that the total number of respite weeks provided in Scotland has increased each year. In 2006/07, 164,000 respite weeks were provided, this increased by 6% to 174,000 in 2007/08 and by 11% to 193,000 in 2008/09. This is an overall increase of 18% from 2006/07 to 2008/09.

It should be noted that a proportion of this increase is due to improved reporting in councils and not a genuine increase in respite provision. Further work will be carried out over the next two months to try and determine how much of this increase is due to new services being provided.

Looking more closely at Table 1 and the type of respite provided it is clear that the majority of respite provided is daytime. In 2006/07 daytime respite accounted for 61% of all respite provided, this has increased each year and now accounts for 67% in 2008/09.

Table 1 also shows that the number of daytime respite weeks has increased each year. In 2006/07, 100,000 daytime respite weeks were provided, this increased by 11% to 111,000 in 2007/08 and by 17% to 130,000 in 2008/09. This is an overall increase of 30% from 2006/07 to 2008/09. At the same time, overnight respite has decreased each year, from 64,000 in 2006/07 to 63,000 in 2008/09, a reduction of less than 2%.

Further information on respite weeks provided in each Local Authority in Scotland is available in the Annexes to this publication.

Figure 1: Overnight and Daytime Respite weeks provided in Scotland, 2006/07 to 2008/09

Source: Audit Scotland SPI

Table 1: Number of respite weeks provided in Scotland, 2006/07 to 2008/09

Source: Audit Scotland SPI
¹All figures rounded to the nearest thousand.

4. Background information on the collection of the data

4.1 Data Sources

Audit Scotland

This data is provided to Audit Scotland by the Local Authorities as one of the Statutory Performance Indicators ( SPIs). The information is collected and published locally by each council in Scotland. Audit Scotland publishes information about the comparative performance of councils across Scotland in a compendium of all the data. This will be published later in December 2009 and will be available from www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/performance/index.php

4.2 Understanding the Statistics in this Report.

All information in this Statistics Release is based on a year from 1 ^st April to 31 ^st March.

As mentioned in 2.5, some Local Authorities are showing large increases in daytime respite in 2008-09. Where we have identified issues for particular councils in relation to this data these are detailed below. Further validation will take place of all councils in Scotland and revised figures will be published in 2010 which will aim to present more comparable data between 2007-08 and 2008-09.

The following issues relating to changes between 2007-08 and 2008-09 have been identified:

Angus Local Authority

• latest year includes respite provided in day centres
• have introduced new services which includes home based short breaks for older people.

East Ayrshire Local Authority

• latest year includes daycare provided to under 65's
• have increased daytime respite provision for older people by increasing investment in Homecare, Telecare, etc.

Fife Local Authority

• latest year includes respite provided in adult day centres

Inverclyde Local Authority

• have undertaken extensive work to ensure that all respite data is captured consistently
• addition of homecare services within daytime respite provision
• have introduced new services or extended services this includes the creation of a short breaks bureau to ensure a more effective use of resources.

North Lanarkshire Local Authority

• have been re-designing services towards a more community-based approach. This has caused undercounting in previous years due to accounting inaccuracy during the transition of services.

Orkney Local Authority

• latest year includes respite provided through direct payments, voluntary sector and a summer play scheme.

4.3 Further information

Further details and analysis of the data presented in this Statistics Release are available on request from the address given below. The Statistics Release is available on the Internet by accessing the Scottish Governments web site: - http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Health/Publications

Information at local authority level is shown in the annex to this Statistics Release.

Contact: Steven Gillespie
Tel: 0131 244 3777
E-mail: SWStat@scotland.gov.uk

This statistics release was published on 15 ^th December 2009.

5. ANNEX

The Annex provides more detailed information:

Annex 1 - Total respite weeks by Local Authority, 2006/07 to 2008/09.

Annex 2 - Overnight respite weeks by Local Authority, 2006/07 to 2008/09.

Annex 3 - Daytime respite weeks by Local Authority, 2006/07 to 2008/09.

Annex 4 - Audit Scotland guidance on Respite Services SPI.