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The Social Policy Research Centre was commissioned by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services in 1995 to undertake an investigation of the impact of community support services for frail aged people who receive only a small amount of formal assistance from publicly supported agencies. The study was intended to document the outcomes of providing small amounts of basic help with housekeeping tasks amongst a group of frail older clients who wished to remain in their own home. The research relied on a retrospective methodology which enabled a comparison to be made of the outcomes of support for those people with low level service needs who had received assistance from formal community services with a similar group of elderly people who do not receive such assistance.

The Social Policy Research Centre was commissioned by the Department of Health and Family Services to investigate strategies and interventions designed to assist caregivers to obtain or remain in employment. This report presents the results of this exploratory research.The research consisted of two components: a literature review and a small scale qualitative study. Selected literature from Australia and overseas on caregiving and employment was reviewed. We then explored the issues raised in the literature further in a series of focus groups with employed and job-seeking caregivers living in New South Wales. The focus groups examined how family networks, workplace conditions and service interventions affect the ability of caregivers to work and provide care.

This is the report of a project which has been concerned: to develop principles for needs based planning for social services departments following the requirements and subsequence guidance of the NHS & Community Care Act; to review progress in the application of needs based planning in local authorities, and tools for population needs assessment; to undertake a demonstration project which would illustrate an application of these ideas, by the development of a population needs assessment model in one local authority and its application to several policy issues. The report is in two parts. Part ISection 1 is introductory. It describes the main purpose of this report is to introduce the reader to needs based planningmethods; to outline the desirable features that such systems might be expected to incorporate, to acquaint him/her with thesteps involved and the sources of information, and to illustrate various applications., Section 2 presents the background. It is argued that the new emphasis on consumerism and the purchaser-provider splitfollowing implementation of the NHS and Community Care Act, 1991, have radically changed the planning task for socialservices departments. Concerns with capital planning and labour management have reduced. Instead, planning concernsbalancing resources with the emerging pattern of client contracts that are negotiated by care managers, and managing themarket by providing incentives to providers. This planning requires information about needs. Population needs assessmentconcerns estimating levels of need in the community; individual needs assessment concerns the practice of care management with clients. Needs based planning is the process of using information from both these sources as part of strategic planning. It involves the integration of information about the states of welfare of people in the community

By separating purchasing from the traditional provider role, the new community care policy has brought about a fundamental change in the planning role of health and local authorities. The policy implies changed assumptions about what constitutes need and requires an improved understanding of local needs. The policy has not only placed a duty on local authorities to assess the needs of the population in support of their Community Care Plans, but has also brought about several changes which have by their nature encouraged many local authorities to undertake a more detailed needs assessment. The PSSRU, in conjunction with Surrey Social Service Department, has been developing a needs based planning modelwhich will assist in the equitable and efficient deployment of community care resources for elderly and physically disabled people. The model is customised to reflect local priorities and assumptions. The model synthesises local client needs assessment data with national data to provide a method of predicting numbers of the population in these target groups which can then be translated into potential resource requirements. This paper provides a background to the development of the project by discussing the place of needs based planning inpopulation needs assessment and local authority strategic planning. The final section discusses the progress anddevelopment of the methodology in Surrey.