How the assumptions in the Financial Memorandum for the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill, which reportedly show that just 10% of adult…

Short Breaks
The Financial Memorandum estimate for the cost of personalised short breaks for adult carers under the Carers Act, as amended by the National Care Service Bill, is based on the following assumptions:
1) The number of adult carers accessing personalised breaks is based on a future steady state in which 34% of all adult carers will have an adult carer support plan (ACSP). This assumption is carried over from the Carers Act Financial Memorandum.
2) The proportion of carers that have an ACSP will vary depending on the intensity of caring.
3) The proportion of carers with an ACSP that access short breaks will also vary depending on the intensity of caring.
Assumptions were also required for how the proportions in 2) and 3) vary across the carer intensity bands.
Table 1 shows the assumed profile for the proportion of carers with an ACSP across the intensity groupings; and table 2 shows the assumed profile for those with an ACSP that will access personalised breaks support under the Carers Act.
20
- 34 hours a week
35
- 49 hours a week
50 or more hours
Total
Proportion of adult carers with an ACSP
23%
40%
60%
80%
34%
Number of adult carers
624,864
59,280
29,640
125,215
839,000
Number of adult Carers with an ACSP
143,592
23,712
17,784
100,172
285,260

Table 1: Adult carers with an ACSP

20
- 34 hours a week
35
- 49 hours a week
50 or more hours
Total
Proportion of adult carers with ACSP that receive personalised break
10%
20%
40%
60%
30%
Number of adult carers receiving personalised break
14,359
4,742
7,114
60,103
86,318
Table 2: Adult carers with an ACSP that receive personalised breaks

Taking these together gives the profile for the proportion of all adult carers accessing personalised breaks support under the Carers Act, shown in table 3.
20
- 34 hours a week
35
- 49 hours a week
50 or more hours
Total
Proportion of all adult carers receiving a personalised break
2%
8%
24%
48%
10%

Table 3: Proportion of adult carers receiving a carer break

We can see that the overall proportion is 10%, but that this varies from 2% for those in the lowest intensity group to 48% in the highest.
Easy Access Support
The starting point for the estimates for the cost of non-statutory easy access support is the number of adult carers who do not receive a carer break, which is derived from the calculations above and shown in table 4 below.
20
- 34 hours a week
35
- 49 hours a week
50 or more hours
Total
Number of adult carers not receiving personalised breaks support
610,505
54,538
22,527
65,112
752,681

Table 4: Number of adult carers not accessing personalised breaks
In a similar way to the estimates for breaks under the Carers Act, the proportion of carers taking up easy access breaks is assumed to vary across the caring intensity groupings and assumptions were also required for this profile, which are shown in table 5.
20 – 34 hours a week
35 – 49 hours a week
50 or more hours
Total
Proportion of adult carers not receiving personalised breaks who take up easy access support
10%
40%
40%
40%
16%
Number of adult carrers taking up easy access support
61,051
21,815
9,011
26,045
117,921
Table 5: Adult carers not accessing personalised breaks who take up easy access support
Applying these with the total number of adult carers gives the profile for the proportion of all adult carers assumed to take up easy access support and is shown in table 6.

20
- 34 hours a week
35
- 49 hours a week
50 or more hours
Total
Proportion of adult carers who take up easy access support
10%
37%
30%
21%
14%
Table 6: Proportion of all adult carers taking easy access support
We can see that the overall proportion is 14%, but that this varies from 10% for those in the lowest intensity group to 21% in the highest. Note that the relatively small proportion in the highest intensity group reflects the relatively high pro