The carer's allowance is a social assistance payment to carers on low incomes who live with and look after certain people who need full-time care and attention.
There were 11,138 persons in receipt of the carer's allowance at the end of September 1998 at an estimated annual cost of £45 million.
In 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 by an interdepartmental committee, chaired by my Department, and was launched by me last month.
The review examined the means test and considered that it should be maintained as a way of targeting scarce public resources towards those who are most in need. The means test applied to the carer's allowance is one of the most generous means tested payments in terms of the assessment of household income.
The Government has agreed that the specific proposals in relation to the carer's allowance will be examined further in the context of the 1999 budget as will the issue of the rate of payment.