Services under threat as council tries to plug £11.7 million deficit
Isle of Wight to halve supported homes cash
Funding for supported housing services on the Isle of Wight will be slashed in half if proposed budget cuts are adopted.
The council’s cabinet approved plans for a full council meeting to consider cutting the Supporting People budget from £5.54 million to £2.8 million at a meeting on 9 February. The full council meets on 24 February.
The cuts are part of proposals to plug an £11.68 million gap in the council’s overall budget for 2010/11.
A spokesperson for supported housing organisation Stonham, said it might have to close all four of its floating support services on the island if the cuts go ahead.
Nichola Goom, chief executive of care consultancy ROCC, predicted that only 10 residential projects including a domestic violence refuge would be funded from Supporting People if the budget is cut. All other Supporting People services will be paid for until their contracts expire on 30 June 2010. She said: ‘It sounds like floating support will go.’
She said the loss of services could lead to an increase in homelessness and mental health crises. The National Housing Federation has written to councillors and MPs to protest at the proposals.
An underspend of £1.7 million in the island’s Supporting People budget had already been spent on social care, for which many supported housing clients would not be eligible.
The council proposed the cuts after the government lifted the ring fence on Supporting People funding which obliged it to spend the money on supported housing services. Providers now fear other councils will make cuts in order to fund other services.
A council spokesperson confirmed the proposed cuts would mainly affect floating support, which is used by 900 people at a time but stressed all accommodation-based schemes would be funded. She said the council would map the services and work with clients to see what resources are available to meet their needs.
Have your say
You must sign in to make a comment
Readers' comments (3)
Joe Halewood | 19/02/2010 4:27 pm
This is precisely what was stated would happen by me and many others when the ringfence removal was first mooted. Who cares that its a tiny little backwater called the Isle of Wight? Well everyone in all forms of housing should and that includes tenants as well.
All councils lobbied central government to say the SP funding criteria is too rigid and inflexible and if the ringfence removed then local councils (who always state they proudly know local needs etc) would spent the SP monies more wisely.
Here is the reality.
IoW are not content with deliberately underspending money on vulnerable peoples support by 30% or so (the £1.7m) they now are seeking to swipe almost half of the existing budget for support and using it for other purposes.
So we see that councils have lied to central government in what their intentions are to the SP ringfence removal. All those wonderful leaflets IoW et al produced saying if you need support we will deliver are , well yes lies - no point beating around the bush with the euphemisms, IoW council has lied to its electorate.
It has lied to the providers who set services up according to the need found - ordinarily thats not a strong point yet read the last sentence of the article. '...the council would map the services and work with clients to see what resources are available to meet their needs."
All councils have told CLG they have already mapped services yet they are now saying they have not. Another lie from the past
The council is also saying we will rob the SP pot of 50% AND THEN see what services are available to meet need! So the council are robbing monies from vulnerable people in need of support (older persons, homeless, DV, et al) to pay for other services AND ONLY THEN AFTER THE FACT are looking to see what impact this will have!
What a great way to treat vulnerable people!
No doubt the council will not take any notice of its own localised version of the national "No Secrets" policy which would class this proposal as abuse - for again that is what this amounts to.
This proposal is not just abusive but i maintain de facto abuse under No Secrets. If any providers or service users want to challenge this decision there are many ways to do so. They should. If they want to contact me over this then plenty know where to find me
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Maria Harfitt | 19/02/2010 9:06 pm
Now it was interesting that this story appeared on the same page as another one about the TSA. No wonder the TSA is greeted by housing professionals as an irrelevance - their focus on glib promises of tenant empowerment and tough regulatory regime for housing providers misses the point.
What many tenants I am sure want and need, and what housing providers would welcome is an organisation that backs up the needs of their clients in the face of cuts by ensuring that there are no cutbacks to Supporting People funding. This would enable housing providers to do their jobs and support vulnerable clients adequately.
Would it not be better that an organisation such as the TSA concentrates on challenging the reduced funding in Supporting People budgets that other councils will be itching to implement? This surely would be empowering and serving the needs of tenants, in particular, the most vulnerable rather than the well worn concentration on such practically meaningless policyspeak as 'outcome based standards'?
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Joe Halewood | 23/02/2010 12:31 pm
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!
It seems that the IoW has not consulted properly from all reports in the media with many local groups complaining that the first tehy heard about this was a questionnaire on the councils website. The fact that the very well respected and large provider organisations are saying this tends to support that view.
I wonder if IoW embarked on this route before the recent court rulings noted on this site - the Barnet and Portsmouth cases - with their precedent on giving 'due regard' to consultation and DDA responsibilities??
Can the 900 or so vulnerable people whose services are to be taken away not have one disability between them - That would be some statistical aberration!!!
Is anyone going to challenge this ahead of the decision tomorrow or does nobody give a damn?
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment