Anyone looking for easy answers about the future of Supporting People will not find them in today’s report from MPs on the communities and local government committee.
It’s rare to read any committee report that is so much more about dilemmas than solutions but then that’s probably true too of so many of the problems that Supporting People addresses. It’s rarer too to read a report about a programme whose funding is under threat that apparently saves £2 for every £1 spent.
On perhaps the most pressing issue, the removal of the ringfence on funding from April 2010, the MPs conclude that the upside of extra flexibility is worth the downside of potentially losing funding to other services. ‘Central government must show how much money it provides for Supporting People within each local area-based grant,’ says committee chair Phyllis Starkey. ‘Local authorities should be free to manage their own budgets, but must then be prepared to justify any decisions to redirect Supporting People funds to deliver other locally targeted services.’
This despite the fact that, as the committee acknowledges, pressure on local authority budgets poses a real threat to the future of some services and heighten the risk that currently unmet needs will not be addressed. ‘The question is how best to address that threat, recognising that it applies equally to other local authority services, and that local people should in principle be in the best position to determine how best to allocate resources,’ say the MPs.
Similarly, they reject the arguments for putting Supporting People services on a statutory basis - apart from anything else, they would be extremely difficult to define in legislation - but say that the case for that should be reconsidered later. What they leave unsaid is that this may apply especially under a new government that gives local authorities far more freedom from meeting national standards and targets.
The dilemmas do not stop at ringfencing alone. Others include how to:
- reach the greatest number of people without ignoring some
- empower and involve people using services
- get efficiency from competitive tendering without creating a short- term contract culture.
- make the most of the benefits of floating support without excluding small voluntary agencies
- maintain the balance between maintaining and attaining independence
- give people more choice through personalisation without overwhelming them with too much choice.
That’s quite an agenda and it is only scratching the surface of the report that looks in depth at the issues involved in the transition to the new system and new structures in local government.
However, one more dilemma - along with competitve tendering the most hotly disputed issues, according to the committee - is whether sheltered housing should be part of the Supporting People regime at all. On this, and the loss of wardens in favour of floating support, the MPs defer to the ministerial group currently considering the issues, though with recommendations on where it should focus.
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Readers' comments (8)
Joe Halewood | 03/11/2009 10:40 am
We will place Supporting People within a secure legal and financial framework - that comes directly from the SP consultation programme in 1998, 11 years ago.
It didnt say look to place, or may place it said it WILL, unambiguously definitive language.
The SP programme has failed to do so and failed spectactularly.
A secure legal footing is simply left alone despite this report discussing the need to do so to protect services and the massive benefits it holds for the public purse. Councils are free to simply raid SP budgets for whatever they feel is necessary - and the vulnerable people it supports are left high and dry.
A secure financial footing - as stated above councils can simply raid its budgets for whatever they like - and i make no apolgy for repeating that.
The abject failure of government (central and local) in SP can be no more obvious by the fact that even after 11 years they cant even come up with a DEFINITION of housing related support!
SP still includes sheltered housing despite sheltered housing providers and government admitting that sheltered housing is NOT supported housing. Unfortunately the dabate and discussion often falls onto sheltered housing and resident wardens in particular and more often that not completely ignores supported housing.
This trend is continued in this whitewash of a report - a report that does sit on the fence, but demonstrates the clear lack of knowledge of supported housing by our MPs - thats is shameful.
The only positive point in this report is that its the first report that mentions one of the key dynamics of the SP programme. That is the transfer of control and expertise from specialist providers to local authorities. Yes the control has transferred but the expertise clearly has not.
The decades of expertise built up by small and often specialist providers has not been (and could not be) transferred in delivering specialist support to many vulnerable 'client groups.' These small specialist providers (SSP) are in the third sector and those most at risk of withdrawal of funding and so that expertise can and will likely be lost.
These SSPs are the ones most at risk from the ease of administration approach adopted by councils to fit into neat little bands and labels such as 'client groups' or their types. They lose out to with the rush to floating support - something thisw committee says has many benefits yet fails to mention what they are and ignores the fact that this inferior delivery model costs more!
In the last week the SP outcomes report for SP showed that direct access hostels and refuges have reduced by 30 - 45% whereas floating support has increased by 66% in those fields.
It doesnt take any specialist knowledge to realise that as FS delivers less intensive support, kless responsive support at a higher per hour cost that this means support needs of every vulnerable person will not be addressed, will last longer, will intensify and cost much more.
Yet the baby is and has been thrown out with the bath water because funding and support should follow the person - a mantra of theory repeated parrot-fashion - that doesnt work and is a chronic waste of the public purse.
All in all this report is a whitewash that focuses on political expediency and commits supported housing and housing related support for vulnerable people to the dustbin of history. It - like SPs administration itself since 2003 - weakly attempts to understand supported housing and fails spectacturlarly leaving the mess and huge cost to the public purse to someone else in the future. It so glibly ignores the plight of vulnerable people and prefers to concentrate on the 'successes' however poor of the programme such as frameworks taht ease claimed understanding or reporting of supported housing.
This report confirms that despite looking at supporting vulnerable people since 1997 government still doesnt have a bloody clue what it is all about. SP is dead in the water and a spectactular failed experiment
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Louis Loizou | 03/11/2009 3:08 pm
As Citizens we try to live by the rules, we try to make reasonable representations, some of us engage energetically and positively with the powers that be to try to support the most vulnerable in society and to try to raise their welfare above changes in local and national government. But how does one engage with a quango that should probably not exist, except as a means to abdicate responsibility?
I can't speak for the other 12 areas of SP "responsibility", but it was clear from the evidence given by those who can "see the trees" because their noses are not tied to the wood that Sheltered Housing support charges do not in any way belong in the domain of this arrogant and unaccountable quango with a very inappropriate name, for they do not support us in Sheltered Housing, they just squeeze our budgets and ask that LAs get more blood out of a diminishing stone.
As one who gave evidence alongside Anchor Trust and Help The Aged I am disgusted at this gutless politically motivated committee.
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Joe Halewood | 03/11/2009 6:48 pm
Louis, SP and or this committee is not a quango, they are branches of government and must engage and listen. Yet the fate of SP was decided well before this committee looked at it - and in terms of sheltered housing central govt rejected the pleas of Age Concern et al that sheltered housing should not come under SP back in 1999.
What has never been put forward by the sheltered housign bodies or government is any alternative other than HB should pay for housing related support in sheltered housing. The govts argument has been why should sheltered housing benefit when other vulnerable people in supported housing not receive this benefit. [And that argument assumes that govt could do this when they cant anyway because of HB regulations and legal precedent.]
One aspect this committee failed to see very clearly - that could impact on sheltered housing - is the ringfence. The argument was and is the ringfence is inflexible because of grant conditions. The other side is the ringfence removal means money can be spent on roads or libraries or anything else. So why didnt they keep the ringfence and remove the grant conditions?
In lay terms this frees local councils to spend SP monies on 'welfare' - a catch all category rather than grant conditions on what it can be spent upon. This could for example be used to fund warden support for all services etc if so desired.
This committee actually made a very clever political trick here. To date SP has been about directives passed from central govt to local government with local govt them responsible for administering the programme. In lay terms when the proverbial hit the fan that fan was pointed at local govt. The decision to remove the ringfence was central govts and so when that proverbial hits the fan it will be pointed at central government (and rightly too.)
The clever trick is that ringfence comes off next April, the effeccts of other depts raiding this budget will not be seen until at least a few months after this - when the likely government will be of a different political make-up. The sitting on the fence title this discussion has been given fails to mention that 'clever' trick.
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Vernony | 03/11/2009 7:34 pm
We welcome, of course, the statement that 'There is a strong case for Sheltered Housing to be reconsidered' but by who and by what ? I can't help but wonder if groups such as ERoSH and the TPAS were on the on the original working groups, whose cockeyed solution of putting Sheltered Housing into the SP regime was a result ?
If so, they have reappeared on this Ministerial Working Group and I understand that the TPAS are writing a document for it. What their data base for this document and just how representative of the residents it is we have no idea, they don;t talk to us. Yet, we have the largest data base on residents wishes in the country.
ERoSH, on the other hand, are not slow to point out that they know of people (how many is unclear) who live in Sheltered Housing, yet say they do not need a Warden. Again this appears to be a concealed data base and does not appear alongside figures of those who say the do want a Warden.
However, I can advise that SHUK have carried out a survey of residents' opinions on the subject of Wardens and unsurprisingly about 100% feel that Wardens were required in Sheltered Housing.
For a news update our petition is now nearing 12,000 signatures and when it reaches 15,000 we will be handing it in to No.10 Downing Street. Forward planning indicates this may be on the 7th December, all invited !
Regards
Vernon J Yarker
Chairman
The Sheltered Housing UK Association
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Joe Halewood | 04/11/2009 12:19 pm
Vernon – to answer your question directly the original working group was known as the Inter-Departmental Review of Funding for Supported Accommodation (IDRFSA) set up in 1996 and this consisted of a DSS led committee with a whole range of other departments representing health, probation and the Womens Unit. This led to a report published in October 1998 – or at least dated then with responses due by Feb 99.
EROSH was only formed in 1997 and so even if non-government departments had been involved in the review that review had started before EROSH existed.
The consultation paper responses published later in 1999 included representations from Age Concern and Help the Aged (as well as Nat Fed for all ‘client groups’) which asked that sheltered housing not be included in SP because the cost of wardens is only about £10 pppw and therefore should continue to be met through HB.
Government rejected this and said the new funding scheme (SP) had to make all costs of providing support to all as transparent.
In digging out papers on this today I have come across something of interest to the warden issue however. This is an official minute of SSAC – Social Security Advisory Committee from early 1999 which states:
***************
Housing Benefit for Supported Housing
i) At the date of publication of our 11th Stewardship Report, one of our reports, sent to the Department in 1996, had not been published. In May 1996 the previous
Government had proposed a number of changes to the Housing Benefit regulations. These would have meant that, where service charges were included in a
claimant’s rent, they could only be covered by benefit where the charges were for services relating to the adequacy of the accommodation as a dwelling, rather than
services to the individual occupying the dwelling. The Department took the view that the amendment provided only a clarification of existing law and policy.
However, in the course of a consultation exercise, we found that this was out of line with the common understanding and practice of many local authorities, housing
associations and others working in the field of supported housing and community care for a wide variety of vulnerable people.
ii) In our report dated July 1996, we therefore recommended that:
• the proposal should not go ahead;
• steps should be taken to avoid any risk to people who had entered supported accommodation in the reasonable expectation that Housing Benefit would be
available to meet certain service charges;
• there should be an inter-departmental review establishing the boundaries of responsibility for the financial provision for services to vulnerable people in
supported accommodation;and
• any future proposals for amending regulations should ensure that there were no gaps in provision which would endanger the work of supported housing
projects.
iii) The previous Government withdrew the original proposal in July 1996 and an inter-departmental review of supported housing was set up.
iv) Normally, the Committee’s reports are only published when regulations are laid. In this case, the report was eventually published in October 1997 by the new
Government. The Secretary of State explained that,while the inter-departmental review was continuing to seek a long term, sustainable arrangement for the funding
of services in supported housing, the publication of the report would help to inform discussion on the issues.
v) Meanwhile, in July 1997 a Divisional Court ruling confirmed the Department’s policy. The effect of this would have been the removal of Housing Benefit funding for
most support services. The Committee therefore agreed regulations (The Housing Benefit (General) Amendment (No.2) Regulations 1997) which would protect
payments of Housing Benefit for claimants in existing supported accommodation as at 31 October 1998. However, we expressed our concern to the Department that
the measure would not assist tenants of new accommodation that might be in the pipeline; and that the ending of protection in the middle of a financial year would
hinder planning by local authorities.
vi) In June 1998 the Department brought another proposal for temporary regulations (The Housing Benefit (General) (Amendment) Regulations 1998) to extend the
interim protection scheme for another year. The Committee was still concerned that new accommodation schemes were not covered. Representations from voluntary
groups had revealed that there was also a problem with so-called “floating” support schemes where support for individuals was not linked to specific accommodation.
The Department suggested that there was no evidence that new schemes had failed to open because of the restriction on Housing Benefit for services and that it
would be difficult to make floating support eligible for the interim support scheme. We were assured that proposals for a long-term scheme would emerge soon and
that there would be consultation about them.
vii) The Department published its proposals for long-term funding (Supporting People: A new policy and funding framework for support services) at the end of 1998.
At the time of writing, we are preparing our response. We look forward to continuing to play a part in this important piece of work.
*******
The above covers the background in many areas and I am sure you will take note of the wording of SSACs 1996 paper that (a) • steps should be taken to avoid any risk to people who had entered supported accommodation in the reasonable expectation that Housing Benefit would be available to meet certain service charges; and (b) any future proposals for amending regulations should ensure that there were no gaps in provision which would endanger the work of supported housing projects.
So if tenants enter sheltered housing on the basis that they had a resident warden they, according to government, did have a reasonable expectation that HB would meet the costs of this. Hence it must hold that it is reasonable for a tenant to expect the same service level and not, as it clearly the case, that service level being taken away or severely diluted from resident warden to say a visiting support worker every wet Wednesday in February.
SSAC are the government committee that introduced the THB regulations in 2002 and also signed them off on 31 March 2003 so that SP could replace these the next day.
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Louis Loizou | 04/11/2009 3:02 pm
Joe, does
"(a) • steps should be taken to avoid any risk to people who had entered supported accommodation in the reasonable expectation that Housing Benefit would be available to meet certain service charges;"
strengthen the cases being pursued under "reasonable expectation" with SH providers? A lot of what you say is too bureaucrat-speak for me to follow, but I still feel that the HB regs could be changed - surely they are not set in stone? I agree on the ringfence issue, but they completely ignored the authoritative statements made by John Belcher and Joe Oldman on the subject. I am aware that a change of administration locally could undermine the work that we have done to retain on-site Scheme Managers (Wardens are for the institutionalised, please).
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Joe Halewood | 04/11/2009 7:22 pm
Louis - I take your point about 'wardens' and will gladly use Scheme Manager (SM)
My last post was answerign Vernons point about EroSH involvement or not and then quoting the bit with asterisks above and below to use an argument for the retention of SMs or RSMs (Resident Scheme Managers).
A key argument has benn that tenants only or primarily entered sheltered housing because there was a 'resident warden' or RSM. So removing them is (a) diminishing of service they were reasonable entilted to expect, and (b) without any consultation quite offensive and unnaceptable as (c) the tenant does reasonably expect that service that they signed up for to remain.
I have no doubt that in the legal cases in the High Court will look at the concept of 'reasonable expectation' or something similar in name to this. So as the committee advising government on SP state the system they devise (that became SP) said it is a 'reasonable expectation' of HB to fund such a service, it must hold that it is reasonable for its successor (SP) to do the same.
As many resident SM schemes have seen the SM removed on cost grounds (SP cant afford it etc) then that in my view is against the advice and prescription the SP programme was developed to create.
I dont believe HB regs will or even should be changed. This would be discriminatory for sheltered housing and against all other forms or supported housing eg resident staff at hostels or refuges. And very specifically SP was only created because the Appeal Court ruled that HB was only ever intended to pay for bricks and mortar and not for support services. Hence that law would need to be changed and not just HB regulations.
The real issue is how to pay for resident SMs. And to make sure their costs of that are met in full and transparently. Simply arguing that HB should pay - as older persons lobbied did in 99 and are again doing now is just focuses on the problem - it doesnt focus on a solution to the issue of how are SMs to be funded.
But I return to 'reasonable expectation.' The second part of the quote above says "......and (b) any future proposals for amending regulations should ensure that there were no gaps in provision which would endanger the work of supported housing projects."
The SP programme said in its first paragraph that SP will create a secure legal and financial framework for supported housing. Not it may create or is seeking to create but very definitive language in that it WILL create. To me this is also a reasonable expectation for providers and for vulnerable people.
Yet SP created neither a secure legal basis (such as making HB pay or legisalting and making it a duty of councils) or a secure financial basis (as removal of the ring fence above clearly shows.
Or in very simple terms when a government says it WILL create a system that ensures vulnerable people will have the funding and the right to support then they should be made to fulfil that promise. The intention and aims of SP are very clear in that first paragraph of the SP paper that support was to be placed on a secure legal and financial footing.
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john souray | 05/11/2009 7:50 am
It is ironic that Louis Loizou complains that Joe Halewood uses "bureaucrat-speak", yet himself says he prefers the term "Scheme manager" to the supposedly institutionalised "warden". But only bureaucrats talk about "schemes", Mr Loizou. You don't hear the residents whose home it is talking about "schemes". "Oh, look how late it is. I must get back to my scheme for tea...." ; "Why not drop by some day and see me at my scheme?...". It's a bureaucratic term because the "scheme" in question is the set of administrative arrangements put in place by the people who set it up and oversee its funding; namely, the bureaucrats.
The truth is of course that you'll never find a word that everyone agrees with, and you can't even use the word "home" (which is what we're really talking about, in the sense that it's the opposite of homeless) because even that has negative connotations (as a when used to describe an institutionalised dumping ground, as in "I don't want to end up in a home"). But it's certainly no sign of progress to replace one compromised term ("warden") with another ("scheme manager").
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