Examination of Witnesses (Questions 19-36)
30 MARCH 2004
COUNCILLOR STEPHEN
COWAN, MS
JULIE VOLLOR
AND MS
LINDA DELAHAY
Q19 Chairman: Welcome. It would be most
appreciated if you would give your names for the record, please?
Ms Vollor: I am Julie Vollor.
I am the Supporting People Manager from Derbyshire County Council.
Ms Delahay: I am Linda Delahay.
I am the Housing Policy and Services Officer at Women's Aid.
Mr Cowan: Councillor Stephen Cowan.
I am the Chair of Housing for Hammersmith and Fulham.
Q20 Chairman: Welcome. We usually give
people the opportunity to make a brief statement if they feel
there is anything they wish to add to their written submissions,
or would you be happy to go straight to questions?
Mr Cowan: I would just say that
I think it is worth recognising that we welcome the ODPM support
in confirming the £1.8 billion spend for this year and that,
certainly in Hammersmith and Fulham's case, has meant that we
have roughly similar budgets and recognise the need for reviews
to test for best value.
Q21 Chairman: Anyone else?
Ms Delahay: I would like to say
that Women's Aid is the umbrella organisation for 300 refuges
across the country, and that Supporting People has been a very
positive experience for the women and the children service users
and it has enabled the refuge services to be put on a firm financial
footing that never was previously the case. However, there are
gaps with Supporting People in the children's services, and children
comprise two-thirds of the refuge population at any given time,
in that there is no funding for children's services. Overall the
reception for Supporting People money has been a very positively
welcomed, but we do have concerns now about possible instability
given the lack of a 2.5% uplift plus an across the board cut of
perhaps 2.5% as we did at the beginning of Supporting People last
year. So that does not instil great confidence.
Q22 Mr Sanders: Can I ask a general question?
It was envisaged that between 2003 and 2006 more than 22,000 service
reviews were being taken. I can see you raising your eyebrows.
Does your joint experience indicate from reviews you have been
engaged in that anything is gained from that? That is to each
of you; so take it in turns to reply?
Ms Vollor: I think there is definitely
a lot to be gained from doing the service reviews. A lot of the
services who are now moved into Supporting People will not have
had a detailed or strict monitoring and quality regime. They will
have done it themselves if they are a small provider or linked
in with some organisations if they are a registered social landlord
through the Housing Corporation, but some of them have not, and
it is quite clear through the information we are receiving that
the quality, the monitoring, some of the standards issues are
making an impact, and it can be quite challenging for some of
the smaller providers, and certainly a concern for us is how we
provide the support to small providers to enable them to meet
the quality standards they need to meet.
Q23 Mr Sanders: Is that "challenging"
in the sense of not having the capacity to carry them out to a
certain standard?
Ms Vollor: There is a lot of information
that we need to obtain, and there is a lot of information that
the providers need to have in place. So it can be quite challenging
because of the amount, the volume, of work, but one of the issues
that we have picked up is the issue of whistle-blowing through
existing employees who are using Supporting People in a way they
probably would not have had the opportunity to do in the past,
to come to us and say, "We have got very grave concerns about
our employer which we want to raise with you", which means
we then go back to the employer, the organisation, and ask very
focused questions.
Ms Delahay: I think the scheme
reviews are definitely a positive move forward. Most of the refuges
that have been reviewed have had a positive outcome from their
scheme review. However, these have slipped seriously off track
and dates that were given for a scheme review last June have yet
to take place. We also have concerns about the scales of the reviewing
officers to undertake a scheme review of the client group. An
example of one validation officer going to a refuge in Lancashire
and stating from the outset, "I have no knowledge whatever
of domestic violence." Well, interviewing women who have
experienced domestic violence, this does not bode very well. Another
of a man, a validating officer down on the south coast, who entered
the refuge and believed he was reviewing a nursing home. Following
from the scheme review some of our refuges now have notification
of the accreditation process, and the information that they have
had to supply has filled a huge box, and they have been asked
for information on trustees who were in existence at their project
10 years ago. Is all this necessary, this continuous paper work?
And a box full! Who is going to read all of that? So there are
questions and concerns about how the scheme reviews are carried
out and the length of time it is taking for them to even start,
but when they do it is taking hours, and hours and hours of everybody's
time. Surely there must be a quicker way if people knew what they
were looking for when they are undertaking a review. I think it
highlights a training need for the validation officers. Women's
Aid, along with the ODPM, provided training on understanding
domestic violence to the whole of the Supporting People team,
Supporting People officers, in the North East of England. It was
very well received and we had hoped to roll that out across the
country, but things happened, like the Robson Rhodes report coming
in, and that sort of slipped off the agenda, but maybe we can
resurrect it because it was very, very positively received.
Mr Cowan: I think the Robson Rhodes
review sets the scene when you look at the difference between
the gold cut and the platinum cut and some of the conclusions
it reaches around that, but there is definitely a need for reviews.
I think another reason that it is essential is because some needs
do change and you see that with not just the social demographic
but also in changing patterns in society. In our view, we have
taken a very rigorous approach to the reviews. An example which
I would give is that we approached one of our providers who was
charging £100 per hour for HIV services. When we scrutinised
that, went through it in detail, it was very clear that that was
not necessary in terms of (a) the level of service or (b) the
charges, and that has been altered as a consequence of the review.
So I would expect to find many things like that and to see how
we can continue to utilise the money effectively.
Q24 Mr Sanders: Do administering authorities
and service providers currently possess the resources and skill
capacity to carry out service reviews? If not, do you think this
should be rectified?
Ms Vollor: I think we are . .
. certainly as an administering authority. It has been a steep
learning curve for us, because the amount of guidance and the
type of reviews are very different to the ones we would have done
in the past. So we have started off slowly and we have had lots
of training events and looking at the detail with the support
of The National Housing Federation, and we are increasing our
skills over time. I think it is difficult for some administering
authorities. Certainly we are recruiting people who are completely
new, so we will be starting from a very low base with some of
them. As I said earlier, I am concerned for some of the smaller
provider organisations about how they will have the capacity to
meet the requirements of the review programme, and I think they
do need more help and support than the potentially administering
authorities can give; but the other issue about administering
authorities and reviews is, like anything else with the Supporting
People programme, we need some stability and clarity on the guidance
that we are currently using.
Q25 Mr Sanders: You do not have to add
anything, if you do not want to. If there is anything you agree
on just say you agree?
Ms Delahay: Yes, I would agree.
Mr Cowan: I broadly agree. I think
the context is that Supporting People is still relatively new
and there has been a whole host of learning curves which I think
us and the Government are going through in how it is being implemented
on the ground. I think that certainly there is a current skill
set which does mean we are capable of carrying out the reviews
ourselves, but there will be an on-going need as to how we adapt
that. I think that is one of the challenges the administering
authorities have to meet.
Q26 Andrew Bennett: Is there a simple
place where you can get information about the Supporting People
scheme?
Mr Cowan: Well, there is your
website. The ODPM website is very useful. There is the guidance
we have from the ODPM, but it is an on-going dialogue, so I think
they are the two main sources.
Q27 Andrew Bennett: What about this website
that is called SPK. I am not sure what that stands for?
Ms Vollor: That is the ODPM Supporting
People website. SPK is the Supporting People Knowledge Website
and is at www.spkweb.org.uk
Q28 Andrew Bennett: You think that is
pretty good, do you?
Ms Vollor: Yes, I could not have
survived the last three years without it.
Ms Delahay: But it does have its
down side. Sometimes if you read a document one day, then the
next day it is gone and it has gone who knows where. It has been
a good source of information, but it does need to be made more
user-friendly definitely. That is what I would say on that.
Q29 Chairman: Do you believe that the
independent review sufficiently re-evaluated the provision and
issues for all vulnerable groups or did it just concentrate on
the "big four", if you like, that cover the 75% in total
of SP allocation?
Ms Delahay: Robson Rhodes did
mention the small vulnerable and popular groups. I take that to
include us, because we are very small in comparison to the large
main client groups.
Q30 Chairman: Rather than unpopular?
Ms Delahay: We are also unpopular—"not
very glamorous" is the phrase often used. We are only 3%
of the total. Where they mention ring-fencing for the vulnerable
groups, that is a really whacking good idea and we would support
that totally, that we do not lose yet again with money leaching
off to the bigger fish.
Mr Cowan: If you just set the
scene for the key four groups, I think Robson Rhodes does refer
to the fact that there are people who have been missed out. I
think the way to deal with that is looking at the regional variances.
In Hammersmith and Fulham 32% of our Supporting People funding
is going to single homeless, and I would not expect that figure
to be replicated across the UK, and I think there are other groups
coming in. I think most people now accept that there were issues
in the way Supporting People was introduced initially, and I think
possibly some groups have not necessarily been taken into account,
which is why I welcome the fact that it is now a single pot instead
of different funding streams. I think that is the main way that
that has been addressed.
Q31 Chairman: Do you agree?
Ms Vollor: I agree. I would only
add that I think of necessity, given the timescales they had,
they had to focus it down on some areas but that the additional
work that is going to go through on value for money through the
Audit Commission inspections and the survey of 100 services would,
I hope, I anticipate, give the wider more rounded picture, including
other services.
Q32 Mr Betts: One of the providers in
the written submission to the review that took place said that
it was no surprise that the cost escalated dramatically and anyone
could have foreseen it. Do you think that is true?
Mr Cowan: Who knows; it is an
historical analysis. It is always easy to say that after the event,
is it not? Certainly the guidelines that initially came out made
it very clear that there was extra funding to be given. I think
when you look at the vision for the Supporting People programme
when it came out, saying that it wanted to reach out and bring
in a new strategy reaching all vulnerable groups, then I think
there were possible issues around how that could have increased
funding, but on the whole I think this is an amazing scheme. There
is no scheme like it where the funding from the Government goes
direct to end-users, and I think that is what has managed to be
produced and it certainly has produced outcomes that have made
vulnerable people a lot safer in the communities that they live
in.
Q33 Mr Betts: It is true, is it not,
it is not very often the Treasury says, "Here is a cheque;
put your own figures in" without judging too closely cost-wise
where you spend the money?
Mr Cowan: I am not sure that was
ever said by the Treasury or by the ODPM. I think what was said
was, "Let's look at the need out there" There was a
very specific government agenda to create a fairer society and
address those needs and that obviously costs money. Part of the
mechanism for Supporting People did mean that the service provision
was rapidly increased. There are people out there in my borough
who I know are being helped and looked after to have independent
lives in the community. That was not happening before this occurred
to the extent it is now, so I am very grateful to this funding
and I think it is very foresightful. I always put people before
funding.
Q34 Mr Betts: One of the providers in
evidence to the review also said that if you want to deal with
the issue of the level of allocations, then there has to be a
bearing down on cost and the way to do that would be to give an
individualised budget to each authority?
Mr Cowan: Sorry?
Q35 Mr Betts: To give an individualised
budget to each authority—this was the suggestion by one
of the providers—and bear down on the issue in that way.
Would you support that approach?
Mr Cowan: I think there is certainly
a need for reviews to take place and I welcome the Audit Commission
reviews that are going on in 30 authorities and certainly we welcome
Robson Rhodes' review. I think it is important that we get the
mechanisms right for delivering funding because we are talking
about real people here, and again that could be done on a regional
basis or a sub-regional basis. The way forward, and what we would
argue for, is that the Government has a duty to get value for
money and that there needs to be reviews that show how that is
being delivered. The funding mechanisms that come after that need
to take into account diversity in the different communities, they
need to take into account mobility in the different communities
and it needs to be wide-reaching enough that it addresses the
needs of the neighbourhoods and communities we serve.
Q36 Mr Betts: Any comments? Do you basically
agree with that?
Ms Delahay: I would like to say
there has been a growth of floating support as a result of the
Supporting People budget, and it has certainly enabled improvement
in the lives of women and children re-housed from refuges, or
even those that do not even come into a refuge, and it has been
of incredible benefit to women fleeing domestic violence. The
only group that I can see that is not really benefiting terribly
well is the black minority ethnic groups where their lack of capacity
to develop their services as more mainstream organisations has
left them lagging behind the rest of us.
Ms Vollor: I think in terms of
the growth, we would expect there would be growth because part
of the reasons for the transitional housing benefit was to increase
quality and sustainability of services. Certainly I know of services,
women's refuges in Derbyshire which were surviving on one paid
worker and lots of volunteers, and without the THB they may well
have gone under because they just could not sustain that; and
therefore that has enabled them to carry on functioning in the
future. The other thing is that it did coincide with other strategic
developments like Valuing People, Teenage Parents. The Drug and
Alcohol National Strategy suggests there should be a 10% growth
in accommodation funded through Supporting People1. So there are
a whole range of other strategies that coincided with the Supporting
People development. Therefore, and I agree with what my two colleagues
have said, that means they were enabled to be funded. They would
not have been funded otherwise.
Chairman: Thank you very much for your
evidence.
1 DAAT Target—"to increase accommodation
available for drug misusers locally through Supporting People
by 10% annually by 2003-04 (Updated Drug Strategy 2002 page 48
Action in Communities).
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