Few in Wales on direct payments

Just 21 older people in Wales are currently receiving direct
payments, a survey by Age Concern Cymru has shown.

Fourteen out of Wales’s 22 local authorities provide direct
payments for older people, the survey reveals, but a further six
authorities are planning to develop a scheme within the next
financial year. Three councils have no plans at all to introduce
them. Social services departments in Wales have had the
discretionary power to offer direct payments to people aged 65 and
over since June 2000.

The survey also shows that no older people receive direct payments
in five of the local authorities that offer them, while just eight
of the 14 authorities providing direct payments had literature
promoting them for older people.

However, the survey concludes that direct payments do offer an
additional choice to older people but need to be actively promoted
by local authorities and made mandatory by the Welsh
assembly.

– See www.accymru.org.uk

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