Mr. Stephen Mulvany:

I was not aware there was such a difference in favour of the directly employed versus the for-profit or private organisations. The costs depend on the mix of hours they cover, daytime Monday to Friday versus evenings or weekends. In our public voluntary and private services, for example, nursing homes, it is not always as straightforward as saying in simple unit costs that the public is cheaper. The broad definition of value for money might make a difference to that. I do not have information that tells me that uniformly the private cost per hour for home support is higher than the public or voluntary cost.