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£1.3m was cut from Northern Ireland Supporting People budget, documents reveal
Money reinstated to the Supporting People budget in Northern Ireland last year was later cut in half by £1.3m, Inside Housing can reveal.
The grant programme, which is used to fund support services for homeless and vulnerable people across the province, was slashed by £3m for 2017/18 by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) because of “inescapable new financial commitments”.
The housing authority later reinstated £2.6m to the pot following an uproar from the organisations affected, including housing associations and charities.
However, figures released to Inside Housing under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that another £1.3m was removed from the Supporting People budget following a “January Monitoring Round adjustment”.
Another £338,000 from the programme for 2017/18 was left unspent.
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According to the Northern Ireland Department of Finance’s website, in-year monitoring “provides a formal system for reviewing spending plans and priorities for the Northern Ireland departments in the current financial year in light of the most up to date position”.
The restored funding was only available between December and the end of March giving more than 100 service providers which rely on Supporting People a limited window in which to utilise the money.
Some providers had warned they would be forced to lay off staff and reduce services as a result of the initial budget cut.
Supporting People helps pay for more than 880 housing-related services in Northern Ireland, assisting some 20,000 vulnerable people.
Regarding the £338,000 underspend, an NIHE spokesperson said: “The noted underspend is in part associated with variable levels of eligible occupancy rates within Supporting People schemes and the revenue implications of delays to new capital build projects.”
Nicola McCrudden, director at the Chartered Institute of Housing Northern Ireland, said: “Supporting People providers need assurances around funding and there is a strong case for additional resources in future years, but certainty is essential.
“It is difficult to make best use of additional in-year allocations without providers having more of a say around how the money is spent.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Communities said: “Given the priority the department places on Supporting People, further funding was allocated to the programme in year resulting in an overall spend of £73.8million in 17/18.
“There will be variations within budgets throughout the financial year as part of the normal financial process.
“To suggest there was a reduction in budget would be misleading when in fact additional funding was allocated to Supporting People in year.”
Update: at 11.47am 07/09/18 a comment from the DfC was added to the story.
