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The government needs to think hard about how to protect less well-off older people, says Jane Ashcroft
“Volatile”. It’s not a word that many would associate with social housing for older people but that’s how it’s described in the latest Statistical Data Return (SDR) analysis from the Homes and Communities Agency.
A review of the data submitted through the SDR indicates that, since 2011, the stock of housing for older people owned by private registered providers (PRPs) has declined from 320,846 to 300,181.
As with any statistics, this can be interpreted in a variety of ways – in part it could reflect the reclassification of stock following reviews. However the SDR states: “Pressures on local authority funding for housing-related support services – commonly known as Supporting People Funding – has meant that many PRPs are reconfiguring their services and reducing their stock holdings in some cases. Housing for older people remains the most volatile of all the categories of social housing, recording four year-on-year decreases and four year-on-year increases since 2008.”
At the same time, social care funding is falling. According to The King’s Fund, 81% of local authorities cut their spending in real terms on social care for older people over the past five years.
Confronted with figures such as these, a visitor from another planet could be forgiven for assuming that the number of older people in the UK is declining.
A few other statistics might put our little green friend straight though.
Not least of these are the latest numbers for delayed transfers of care – what many in the media insist on calling “bed blocking” in the NHS. Figures published on 10 November show there were 196,200 total delayed days in England in September 2016, an increase from September 2015, when there were 147,700 total delayed days.
“Government policy for older people on lower incomes is lagging behind.”
The 196,200 figure is the highest since monthly data was first collected in August 2010. Such pressures demonstrate with tragic clarity the importance of funding services which can prevent people needing the NHS or help people leave it.
Yet never have such services faced greater challenges. After years of pressure on funding for housing-related support, a rent cut could now be followed by a housing benefit cap, which may or may not be fully mitigated by the allocation of additional funds to local authorities to ‘top up’ any shortfall.
Knight Frank’s latest report on older people’s housing has a rather wider definition than the SDR. Knight Frank finds there are currently around 715,000 homes loosely classed as ‘retirement housing’, ranging from age-restricted developments to close care housing. This makes up around 2.6% of total housing stock – 2% in social – while private retirement housing accounts for just 0.6%.
Not everyone will choose to move from their existing home as they age – and many will choose to stay either with or without care or support. But Knight Frank’s research showed that one in four over-55s would consider moving into purpose-built retirement housing in the future.
With a total of 7.8 million people – 18% of the population – over the age of 65, that’s a potential pool of demand of nearly two million homeowners.
The irony is that, while pressure is being felt in the state-supported sector, those able to fund themselves are increasingly seeing the benefits. Demand for Anchor’s retirement housing for sale is extremely strong.
While demand for retirement housing in the UK is following the upward trend set in countries such as the US and Australia, government policy for older people on lower incomes is lagging behind. The resulting volatility does little to support existing stock, let alone encourage the development of new stock.
As the Work and Pensions Select Committee calls for the triple lock on pensions to be scrapped, the government must think hard about how to protect the least well-off older people. Failure to do so is already impacting NHS costs and risks huge consequences for older people.
Jane Ashcroft CBE, chief executive, Anchor