Ms Joan Carthy:

I will go back to the question on statistics and how we view them. The census is one way of giving us some information on the percentage of people who are wheelchair users. That would not only be about housing. It could be brought to all areas of the census so we have more information on employment, transport and everything else that is covered within the census, though it is only one piece of it.

The other piece goes back to the point made previously, which is that we do not, even within the local authorities, have an understanding of how many wheelchair users are in need of housing, unless a retrospective piece of work is done. We also need local authorities to take into account future needs and a rolling stock. Once we know that a housing authority has 50 people in its area right now who need wheelchair accessible accommodation, we should also know what that figure will look like in five or ten years' time so those people are not waiting ten years for their houses. There has to be a level of rolling stock added to whatever the percentage of need is, but we need a starting point. We do not have that as yet in order to have a real understanding of the need.

Somebody else might want to add to the issue of 100% universal design, which the NDA has also spoken about it. Within that 100%, there would be a percentage of houses that are at the plus-plus stage. That goes back to what the need is and the rolling stock. All houses would have the ability to be adaptable, but a certain percentage would be ready for wheelchair liveable housing.