Supporting People ringfence to be removed
Funding protection for housing support services will be lost from next April, although the money will still be paid as a separate grant.
The Government announced last week that Supporting People funding will be paid as an ‘unringfenced named grant’, which means it will still be provided as a separate grant for housing support, but councils will be given new freedom in how to spend the money.
Housing support providers feared that the axe could fall on housing support services, with the merging of next year’s £1.66 billion Supporting People budget into a general-use ‘area based grant’ for councils.
This change will now not happen until April 2010, but crucially, next April’s separate grant funding for housing support will come with no more funding protection than area based grants.
The Communities and Local Government department is putting together a raft of guidance to help improve councils’ understanding of the financial benefits of investing in housing support.
The changes are part of a wider government commitment that by 2010-11, £5 billion of funding will have been moved into non-ringfenced area based grants, through single monthly payments to councils.
Communities minister Baroness Andrews said the change would give councils more flexibility to direct finances to those most in need. Councils’ delivery of housing support will continue to be monitored through the new performance framework.
