12/01/2009 11:39 am
If as central government maintain the 200,000 fall in vulnerable people support is largely due to ineligible care, then surely they have a record of what happened to these vulnerable people. If not do central government care about vulnerable people needing care?
Of course, this 'reason' given by central government is total nonsense and beggars belief.
Were 110,000 older persons for example ineligible due to care reasons? Absolute tosh.
The legacy of SP is a simple one - it failed. Its aim as stated in its opening paragraph to the programme was to place supported housing on a secure legal and secure financial footing.
It has no legal footing at all and it financial position is most certainly not secure, rather it is extremely precarious.
The SP programme is more titled correctly the SP experiment. For thats what it was - an experiment to find ways of funding vulnerable people who need housing related support. It has failed abysmally in that as the massive 16% fall in figures reveal.
The simple question is this - Are vulnerable people better provide for than pre 2003?
Yes, SP has had some good successes in providers being assessed very rigorously and the huge emphasis on service delivery has increased the focus upon service quality.
Yet, 200,000 less people being supported is a massive negative. The apparent fact that no-one knows who and where these vulnerable people are now is a disgrace. The "You dont qualify so go away" approach is the reason given here in lay terms and apart from being nonsense is also outrageous.
But, the biggest failings are in not making funding and service delivery (a) on a legal footing and (b) the secure financial footing that the SP programme promised to do as its primary stated aims.
The SP experiment has highlighted the need for support services and the governments own figures show that every £1 spent on them saves the public purse £1.70. So, if they are so cost-effective why reduce the funding?
The SP experiment has also seen the move from accommodation-based support to floating or visitin support services. The ongoing removal of resident wardens highlighting this issue. Yet, if floating support is more cost-effetive as is claimed, why are there 200,000 less vulnerable people being supported?
Within the SP experiment the floating support experiment reveals that (a)FS costs more, (b) it is a less qualitative service to vulnerable people, and (c) it is far less responsive than an AB service.
In short, services of lesser quality. reduced responsiveness, less economy have replaced the better quality and better economy of before. All in the superficial theoretical nonsense that 'funding should follow the person'. When in fact ALL the figures show is that the FS experiment has failed and less service and of a lesser quality is now being delivered.
To experiment with theory with the needs of vulnerable people is amoral. Yet that has been the reality of the SP experiment.
