User choice ‘threat to services’
Plans to hand over control of supported housing funding to disabled people could threaten some services, the National Housing Federation has warned.
The Office for Disability Issues proposes giving disabled people individual budgets to spend on support and services. Each recipient would choose how to spend the money with the help of a broker, advocate or advice service under the proposed ‘right to control’.
The ODI proposes to pool money from Supporting People, which pays for supported housing, Disabled Facilities Grants, which funds the adaptation of homes, and a range of other funding streams which support disabled people in work, education and living independently.
But the NHF said accommodation-based services such as hostels, refuges and extra care housing schemes, could be particularly threatened by the proposal. For example, schemes might not be able to afford to fund round-the-clock support services unless all users chose to pay for them.
The NHF’s response to the consultation, which closed on 30 September, said: ‘If market conditions are sufficiently unfavourable to providers that they cannot exist, the choices available may, ironically, be reduced by the very programme that seeks to promote user choice.’
It added that SP and Disabled Facilities Grants would cease to exist as ring-fenced funds from 2010 - so it is not clear how they could be included.
Amy Swan, policy officer at the NHF, suggested providers could get some funding for core service costs while residents could control the rest.
Caroline Ellis, joint deputy chief executive of disability charity Radar, said disabled people should control as many funding streams as possible.
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