SPB. I can't answer the first one. I haven't got the figures with me.

WBC is planning to allocate direct payments to service users, who will then buy their own respite. This sounds crazy to me, partly because there are no private facilities. Also, while I have no knowledge of how the council intend to implement this, it sounds as though it will be wide open to abuse, without an the usual bureaucracy to check the validity of claims.

So the answer to your third question is not at present, and very doubtful that it ever will be. Overall, I do not believe that private respite care homes, even if they existed in sufficient numbers, would not offer anything like the standard of care which LA homes expected to provide.