WITH EXQUISITE timing, in the same week as Inside Housing reveals that cuts in Supporting People are starting to bite, research for the government has revealed that every pound spent on it saves almost twice as much in costs elsewhere.

According to the CLG, the programme 'is more than paying for itself through the positive impact it is having on the lives of the most vulnerable people in society' and has helped '800,000 older people, 40,000 single homeless people, 36,000 people with mental health problems and 8,000 women at risk of domestic violence'.

The research, by consultant Cap Gemini,  concludes that £1.55bn of spending on Supporting People generated £2.77bn in financial benefits. While the costs and benefits varied according to the client group, 'the findings...can also be taken to indicate that, for the groups considered, the costs of supporting the individual through SP are lower than the overall costs of either withdrawing or reducing support, or of switching to a more intensive form of support offering a lower degree of independent living'.

Quite apart from the benefits to individual clients, savings include the costs of residential care, homelessness and tenancy failure as well as lower costs in the health service and from crime.

All of which rather begs the question of why the CLG would choose to cut the programme by 11% in the spending review when its own research shows that this will cost the government more.

The answer is of course obvious. The Cap Gemini research was part of its comprehensive spending review bid to the Treasury. A CLG statement on the report [download here] stresses that the savings figures are 'indicative rather than absolute' but arguing a case based on savings made across different departments was obviously an uphill struggle - even in an era of so-called joined-up government.

Or was it? It will come as little consolation to the organisations planning cuts and the staff experiencing them, but the research may have been one reason why the cuts were not quite as bad as many people feared. 

Posted by Jules Birch, Jan 18 

Posted in Supporting people

LESS SUPPORTING or fewer people: that's the apparent choice facing local authorities after yesterday's announcement of an 11% real terms cut in the Supporting People budget.

Predictably, none of this could be gleaned from the Communities and Local Government announcement of £4.9bn funding over the next three years. Funding will fall from £1.696bn in 2007/08 to £1.686bn in 2008/09, £1.666bn in 2009/10 and £1.636bn in 20010/11. As the National Housing Federation points out, that's a 10.9% cut once inflation is taken into account. And it follows a cut in the previous spending review.

Yet it's a measure of the sector's fears that the Treasury would force through even deeper cuts that SITRA [download PDF here], the main trade organisation representing service providers, appeared to almost welcome it and argued that it 'should be seen within the context of the current national climate'. Chief executive Emma Daniel explained:

'Sector analysts were very cautious in their predictions about the levels of funding going into the Supporting People programme following the rigours of CSR07. However, the cuts are not as serious as some were predicting and this demonstrates the hard work that has gone on behind the scenes in presenting evidence to the Treasury about the cashable and non-cashable benefits of this programme.'

Much of the pressure for cuts came from the government's perception of huge variations in the costs of the programme in different parts of the country. However, lobbying convinced CLG to limit the effects of a new distribution formula so that authorities can lose no more than 5% per year of their budget and gain no more than 7.5%. 

Nevertheless it's not hard to spot some siginficant winners (Newham and Redbridge) and losers (Camden and Liverpool) in the individual funding allocations [download spreadsheet here].

There is also a fear of Supporting People funding leaking into other local authority budgets once ring fencing is removed. That's where a programme dedicated to serving the needs of older and vulnerable people will always risk lose out politically.

Even if local authorities manage to avoid the unpalatable options of supporting fewer people or giving them less support, a third alternative looks inevitable: even fewer providers.

Posted by Jules Birch, Dec 7

Posted in Supporting people