DH on rack over no show on green paper modelling

To recap:-

• The modelling - which sets out the financial assumptions and costings underpinning the government's proposals to reform adult - was not released alongside the green paper in July.
• Campaigners made repeated calls for it to be released to inform their responses to the consultation.
• Civil servants and ministers said - seemingly on a number of occasions, most recently at last month's National Children and Adult Services Conference in Harrogate - that the modelling would be published before the end of the consultation on 13 November.
• The Department of Health said today it won't be released until next year, saying the figures were currently incomplete and needed to take account of developments over the past few months.

Now leading voices from the voluntary sector and research community - including Help the Aged and Age Concern and the King's Fund - have threatened to lodge a Freedom of Information Act to force the DH to reveal the figures.

As the so-called Care and Support Alliance says: "Ministers want us to accept the 'mathematics' underpinning the green paper but don't seem to trust the figures sufficiently to publish them. People rightly want to know how much they may have to pay for care in the future and how much it will cost the taxpayer, and they want to know what care they will get in return. These are reasonable questions but we are being denied the information to reach reasonable conclusions on the green paper options."

And tomorrow MPs from the health select committee will quiz a representative from the Personal Social Services Research Unit - which is responsible for producing the modelling - on the issue.

If the DH is not careful this row will derail its plans to produce a white paper that commands wide consensus before the next general election, which is a result that no one - not even the Conservatives - should want.