The carer's allowance is a social assistance scheme which provides an income maintenance payment to people who are providing elderly or incapacitated pensioners or certain persons with disabilities with full-time care and attention, and whose incomes fall below certain limits.
There were 11,138 persons in receipt of carer's allowance at the end of September 1998, of whom 9,052 — 81 per cent — were in receipt of a payment at the maximum rate.
In its An Action Programme for the Millennium the Government is committed to progressively relaxing the qualifying criteria for the carer's allowance to ensure that more carers can get the benefit; and increasing the value of the allowance in real terms. In line with these commitments, an overall review of the carer's allowance was completed and launched by me last month. As I have said on a number of occasions, the Government is committed to improving the situation of carers in our society.
The report, which has been made available to Members of both Houses is comprehensive and all the proposals contained in the review are being considered in a budgetary context in the light of available resources.