To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list for each year since 1979 the number of home helps employed by local authorities.

[holding answer 6 February 1992]: The net expenditure on home helps and the numbers of home helps directly employed by social services departments in England (in whole time equivalent terms at 30 September) in each year are set out in the table.

	Net expenditure on home help services £ million	Staff numbers directly employed
1979	132·8	44,660
1980	157·1	46,637
1981	186·9	46,541
1982	205·6	47,310
1983	228·7	49,326
1984	253·6	50,561
1985	269·4	51,959
1986	296·5	53,706
1987	336·2	56,336
1988	413·1	57,004
1989	464·7	56,613
1990	519·6	55,783
	per cent.	per cent.
Percentage increase over the period	167·0	25·0
1 In real terms.

Note: Staff figures relate only to local authorities' directly employed staff.Although there is a drop in the number of home helps since 1988 the expenditure on the service has been increasing, indicating that local authorities are contracting out an increasing proportion of the service to the voluntary and private sectors.