Ms Zoe Hughes:

I do not have anything extra to add to Senator Chambers's question. Speaking about the national planning unit for care, I definitely think that is a fantastic piece of work that needs to be done. Siloing is a massive issue across sectors. I did some research a couple of years back, which I will need to refresh, looking at policies, applying, say, the national carer's strategy, the dementia strategy, the ageing strategy and all the various strategies. There are quite a few places where not only do they not complement each other, but they clash. We need to make sure those policies fit together on a macro level and complement each other because that then trickles down into the everyday experience of family carers and anybody else who is involved in care, whether the cared for person or not. It is really important to try to make sure all those policies fit together.

Regarding the statutory register for family carers, as a membership organisation, we would need to go back to our members and get their views on that as well because they will be drawn from across the sector. In some ways, I am always a bit wary of registers of people. Perhaps because I have been in a minority for a long part of my life, I always get a bit nervous when there are registers of people. It is a little thing I have. On a more practical and more professional level, there are questions we need to ask around that. It is a really good idea to have an understanding of the number of people but we would need to figure out how it would be operationalised. If opt-in, then you would perhaps face the same issues of self-definition. If you need to opt-in, then you are still facing that same issue. That is the first feedback I have on that but it is important to figure out a way of getting better numbers because without numbers, it is really hard to show the evidence base that is there.