No more support
With all the political theatrics which unfolded in Westminster this week you’d be forgiven for missing the government’s latest plans for housing benefit reform.
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Published on the day Mr Murdoch (more or less) got a pie in the face, they contained good news and bad. And, unfortunately, there was more of the latter, particularly if you happen to provide or benefit from supported housing services.
Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith wants to reduce the amount of benefit spent on supported housing. The consultation document outlining his ideas asks whether it is ‘reasonable’ for housing benefit to meet the total cost of an individual’s supported accommodation, as currently happens.
Proposed alternatives include allowing vulnerable tenants to receive regular housing benefit payments, plus a separate sum to cover support needs. The rub? The government suggests it will limit funds for this second payment and, in some circumstances, let the recipients decide how they spend it.
As with the proposed welfare changes, which Inside Housing’s What’s the Benefit? campaign argues should be made fairer, it is hard to see who wins in this scenario. The vulnerable person whose housing is no longer within their means? HM Treasury, which may see its housing benefit bill fall as a welcome side-effect, but the cost of rehousing those no longer able to afford their supported accommodation rise? Or the provider which faces either driving down costs already pared to the bone or refusing to help individuals with complex needs?
Providers are already struggling under the weight of an 11.5 per cent cut to the £6.8 billion Supporting People programme. Indeed, Tuesday was also the day Hyde Group sold a £14 million care and support business to fellow housing association Family Mosaic, admitting the subsidiary was too small to achieve the economies of scale it needed to remain viable.
Let’s take heart, then, from Tuesday’s good news. Mr Duncan Smith’s department has listened to concerns about planned cuts in housing benefit for 25 to 35-year-olds and said they will not apply to hostel residents. The DWP’s consultation on this week’s ideas ends on 9 October. You know what to do.