Will the Minister confirm whether the Welsh Government has a working definition of who can be considered a carer?
The Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act 2014 defines a carer as ‘a person who provides or intends to provide care for an adult or disabled child’.
The Act clarifies that a person is not a carer for the purposes of the Act if the person provides, or intends to provide care, due to a contract or as a volunteer. A local authority can regard someone as a carer if they consider the relationship between the person providing care and the person receiving the care is such that it deems it appropriate to regard the person as a carer (s3).
There is a further point of clarification that for the purposes of the Act, a person detained in prison, youth detention or living in approved premises due to a conviction cannot be considered a carer (s187(1)).
I can confirm that the definition provided by the Act serves as our working definition.