To ask the Minister of Health, in relation to the total sum of Direct Payments allocated by the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust to families of children and young people with disabilities in lieu of respite care provision, to detail the amount of Direct Payment funding that was returned unspent to the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust in each of the last five financial years.

The South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust currently provides 254 families with Direct Payments to deliver a variety of supports to families with children with Severe Learning Disabilities and or complex medical needs. The information management system for direct payments does not centrally capture if the Direct payments are provided in lieu of Short Break care provision. Similarly, the financial department cannot centrally extrapolate the amount of Direct Payments returned unspent. To establish this data a manual examination of hundreds of files over the past 5 years would be required.