Memorandum from Byker Bridge, Brighter
Future and Tyneside Cryenians (SPP 09)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Removing the ring fence from "Supporting
People" funding within Area Based Grant places support for
the most vulnerable people in society at risk.
Without specific funding for socially excluded
groups, the two-thirds reduction in rough sleeping achieved in
the last ten years is at risk and we are unlikely to reach the
target of ending rough sleeping by 2012.
Socially Excluded, rough sleepers and those
with chaotic housing histories have little prospect of benefitting
from, or accessing personalised support, before they have first
secured emergency accommodation with support and are ready to
design their own self directed support from a stable accommodation
base.
Local Authorities had the opportunity to demonstrate
a commitment to "mainstreaming" "SP" by selecting
NI 141 or 142; however: 36% did not, 48% expect to discontinue
"SP" services in the next 12 months. Therefore
providers conclude that preventative services will not be mainstreamed,
strategically planned or jointly commissioned by LSPs.
We recommend that "SP" relating to
the Socially Excluded group be removed from ABG and given to the
Homes & Community Agency to administer via Local Authorities
and Registered Social Landlords.
This will restore and reinforce the link between
housing and support, vital for homeless people and those at risk
of homelessness.
It will also allow Local Authorities to concentrate
upon areas of expertise and statutory responsibility within the
Care with Support and Independence with Support groups.
LA's will retain the monitoring and quality
assurance role and jointly commission services with the HCA via
the LSP.
By keeping the ring-fence within HCA, there
would be no return to the pre 1997 situation of Housing Benefit
paying for extremely high support costs.
The HCA has acquired the "Places of Change"
agenda from CLG and therefore has an ideal delivery vehicle for
housing-related support to excluded groups.
The past public investment in supported housing
from the Housing Corporation and the transfer of individual housing
benefit made up SP (40% of the ABG total), would be protected
within the HCA rather than becoming at risk from competing priorities
within ABG.
"Supporting People":
Fig 1. Represents the current position
with Local Authorities receiving "Supporting People"
funding directly for housing-related support across the range
of eligible client groups.
Un-Ring fenced ABG:
Fig 2. Represents the current proposed
position under ABG with the ring fence removed. Care with Support
and Independence with support, remain relatively secure within
Local Authority priorities relating to Care in the Community and
an ageing population. The Socially Excluded group became at risk
as their priorities relate to Housing rather than Social Services.
Proposed Alternative:
Fig 3. Shows an alternative position
whereby Care with Support & Independence with Support remain
within ABG. The Socially Excluded Group are ring fenced, directly
funded by the HCA to provide housing-related accommodation based
support. "Overlapping" sections include floating support
and are available to service users as self-directed personalised
individual budgets.
1. INTRODUCTION:
1.1 For over 40 years the homeless,
isolated and vulnerable, socially excluded, chaotic and hardest
to reach within society have been able to maintain a tenuous grip
on the ladder out of exclusion and poverty via a variety of funding
streams, specifically relating to homelessness. They have included:
Board & Lodge (DHSS), General Counselling & Support (Housing
Benefit), Hostel Deficit Grant (HDG), Probation Accommodation
Grant (PAGs), Special Needs Management Allowance (SNMA/Transitional
SNMA), Supported Housing Management Grant (SHMG), Rough Sleepers
Initiative (RSI) and Transitional Housing Benefit (TH/B), culminating
in "Supporting People"(SP). That specific link to bespoke
funding for the most vulnerable in society will come to an end
once SP becomes un-ring fenced within Area Based Grant (ABG).
1.2 Phil Woolas, MP (DCLG) recognised the
risk when he told the SITRA/NHF Conference in 2006: "But
I'll tell you what we won't do—remove the ring fence. It
was ring-fenced for a reason and we won't betray vulnerable people,
unlike some".
1.3 At its height of £1.8 billion,
SP represented the largest specific fund to the 3rd sector in
Europe.
2. Definitions or categorisations of particular
client groups in receipt of Supporting People (SP) funding have
always proved problematic, partly because SP is largely a preventative
programme, (eg young people at risk of offending, rather than
exclusively ex-offenders). However, the three interlocking rings
model captures the predominant elements of the programme:
2.1 Care with Support includes long-term services
for people with learning disabilities, (incl: de-registered care
homes), people with enduring mental health problems, extra care
for the elderly and people requiring a combination of personal
care as well as support.
2.2 Independence with Support includes the majority
of Sheltered Housing, Community Alarm Services and longer-term
Floating Support.
2.3 The focus of this analysis is the situation
from the perspective of service users within the "Socially
Excluded" group which includes single or non-priority homelessness,
(direct access and hostels) offenders, ex-offenders and those
at risk of offending, drug & alcohol services, mental health
support, leaving care and most short-term services designed to
prepare service users for independence, and therefore does not
attempt to address the needs or aspirations of those people receiving
long-term services such as care with support or independence with
support.
3. DRIVERS FOR
CHANGE:
The reasons for abandoning 40 years of
specific funding for housing related support are varied, but they
are generally held to be:
3.1 Mainstreaming: Integration of the SP programme
within Comprehensive Area Assessments, Local Area Agreements,
Local Strategic Partnerships.
3.2 Restrictions of Eligible tasks and funding
conditions: SP eligibility criteria restricted funding to housing
related support for adults and therefore excluded work with children
and joint commissioning.
3.3 Personalisation: SP as specific housing related
support funding to providers under Block Gross (and to a lesser
extent Block Subsidy) Contracts means that SP is unavailable to
service users to include in individual budgets.
3.41 Mainstreaming: This is a difficult concept
for people who are socially excluded. Their contribution to the
SP "pot" via their entitlement to TH/B was extensive,
amounting to nearly 40% of the total ABG allocation, and yet of
the 198 performance targets within The New Performance Framework
for Local Authorities & Local Authority Partnerships: Single
Set of National Indicators upon which Local Area Agreements will
be monitored, just two (141 & 142) have a passing relevance
to housing related support.
This would not appear to be a strong steer from
Government for Local Authorities to mainstream services for the
socially excluded group.
3.5 It can be argued that the infrastructure
established to administer SP has done more to mainstream housing-related
support for the most vulnerable than the multiplicity of funding
streams we had previously. Local Authorities established SP Teams,
which, for the first time, mapped and assessed the services in
their area for people they had previously taken no responsibility
for nor considered in strategic terms. Performance was variable
around the country, but was subject to review by the Audit Commission
on strict SP criteria.
3.6 The Quality Assurance Framework (QAF) for
SP can claim enormous credit for improving the lives and quality
of service for everyone who has passed through supported housing
since 2003. QAF, the monitoring and review process, contracting
and data collection within the SP programme has produced a wealth
of information on which to take informed strategic decisions,
the process has been recognised as good practice and replicated
as a commissioning tool for a variety of social care applications.
3.7 ABG includes a very wide range of funding
streams, some with obvious connections to SP, (Working Neighbourhoods,
Young Peoples Substance Misuse, Teenage Pregnancy, Mental Health
etc.) but many have no overlap (Rural Bus Subsidy, Road Safety
Grant, Extended rights to free transport, Schools Development
grant. Preventing Violent Extremism, Local Enterprise Growth Initiative)
others are of entirely unknown origin, (Detrunking, Flexible Funding
Pot, and Aggregate Levy Sustainability Fund?). Taking these disparate
objectives together, leads to the question of what exactly "mainstreaming"
will mean for SP?
3.8 For the socially excluded, "mainstreaming"
relates to mainstream housing, providing housing-related support
that enables and empowers service users to Obtain, Maintain and
Sustain accommodation. Nothing within the removal of the ring
fence for SP and transfer into ABG enables or ensures that service
users will have better access to mainstream housing. A 40% contribution
from SP to ABG, "buys" service users just 1% of the
targets within LAA
3.9 It is unlikely that Local Strategic Partnerships
(LSPs) are taking 40% of their membership from people with a knowledge,
understanding or interest in Supported Housing. Where LSPs have
been persuaded to adopt either 141 or 142 within their
basket of 35 priority targets within the LAA, Regional Government
Offices have often rejected their inclusion because the targets
are simply not "stretchy" enough.
3.10 Analysis by Homelesslink shows that 36%
of LSPs failed to include NI 141 and NI142, and that the
percentage of LSPs including the other NI's related to supported
housing barely reaches double figures. (Appendix 1.)
4. Restrictions of Eligible tasks and funding
conditions: The SP programme focuses on housing related support
for adults. Those service users who had their entitlement to housing
benefit, transferred to SP, knew what they were purchasing.
4.1 Department of Social Security for the inter-Departmental
Review of Funding for Supported Accommodation December 1998.
Putting people first: for the first time, funding
will be able to follow the needs and preferences of individuals;
service provision will not be restricted to certain types of tenure.
Addressing the needs of all vulnerable people:
Local Authorities will be required to plan provision for all vulnerable
groups including rough sleepers, drug users, and ex-offenders.
In England the proposals also make provision for a cross-authority
fund to deal with the particular needs of people who do not naturally
fit into any individual local authority area.
High quality services; the proposals will give
providers clarity about funding arrangements, release resources
away from the management of overlapping funding structures and
create a new framework for providing effective and efficient services;
and
A logical and transparent approach to planning:
the proposals will encourage a more rational and consistent approach
in consultation with service providers, to achieve effective and
high quality services that meet people's needs.
5. Eleven years on and these priorities
remain challenging. SP became tenure blind, SP has required Local
Authorities to plan for the provision of all vulnerable groups
and the QAF has improved the quality of services. Defined criteria
and eligibility has improved transparency and consistency.
5.1 Removing the SP ring-fence within ABG will
not contribute to any of the above objectives.
5.2 The growth of floating support and the personalisation
agenda has ensured that flexible tailored support delivery and
tenure neutrality are now embedded within housing related support,
un-ring-fencing SP within ABG will not alter this nor will it
promote or protect the concept.
5.3 However, un-ring-fencing SP within ABG will
remove any requirement upon Local Authorities to address the needs
of all vulnerable people The selection of performance targets
for Comprehensive Area Assessments places no priority on planning
or provision for vulnerable groups, especially mobile or cross
authority groups.
5.4 The protection of vulnerable people within
services and the monitoring of the quality of services becomes
unfocused, remaining within a rump of contractual monitoring with
no national standards or criteria.
5.6 "Transparency" was a major driver
for the development of SP. The multiplicity of funding streams
for supported housing were seen as barriers to joint commissioning
and planning. It is not the case that ABG will promote superior
joint planning and commissioning.
5.7 The failure of joint commissioning by Local
Authorities has little to do with the restrictions within SP and
more to do with the failure of commissioners to secure joint or
match funding from colleagues in Adult Services Children's Services
and Health. Examples of SP's incapacity to fund Children's workers
within Women's Refuges reflects the priority placed by Local Authority
Children's Services on the welfare of children within refuges,
not to any restriction on the funding of housing-related support.
5.8 A clear and transparent funding stream for
housing-related support enables and facilitates joint planning
and joint commissioning by ensuring that all parties are fully
aware of the scope and extent of their commitment:
5.8.1SP—Housing related support
5.8.2Health—Health related support/care,
5.8.3Adult Services—personal care,
5.8.4Children's Services—child welfare.
5.9 Problems only arose with this model when
Commissioners from Health and Social Services could not see that
they had a liability for a joint objective on the one hand, or
on the other, saw SP as a fund to be used for services they could
not commission from their own resources, and became frustrated
and un-co-operative when the restrictions and criteria were explained.
5.10 De-restricting SP within ABG, without any
de-restriction on the other elements of joint commissioning merely
increases the vulnerability of housing related support funding.
5.11 The cross cutting nature of housing related
support and the infrastructure of SP Commissioning Groups provide
a forum for considering joint planning and joint commissioning.
ABG will not have SP Officers to act as facilitators and co-ordinators
of joint commissioning. Mainstreaming, assumes that the LSP and
subsequent Local Authority Officers will fulfil this role.
5.12 For services relating to Care with Support
and to a lesser degree Independence with Support, this is a possibility,
but in terms of the Socially Excluded Group, it does not appear
to improve the potential for joint commissioning.
5.13 Providers of services for the Socially Excluded
Group only had a connection with the Local Authority via SP. Prior
to 2003, the Local Authorities only reference to the Socially
Excluded Group was via Housing Benefit and Mainstreaming will
not replace that connection with any co-ordinating or strategic
position of responsibility within the Local Authority. SP Teams
are already being subsumed within Social Services as Local Authorities
assess their priorities in terms of Care with Support and Independence
with support, not within Housing Departments where the Socially
Excluded would find a more natural fit. These difficulties were
predicted in the mid 1990s when the interdepartmental review into
the funding of supported housing was announced, "For goodness
sake don't give it to Local Authority Social Service Departments"
Jim Coulter at the NHF Supported Housing Conference.
6. Personalisation: Supported Housing for
the Socially Excluded Group can justifiably claim a pioneering
role within the growth and development of service user involvement,
tailored support planning, and empowerment. There is little doubt
that within long-term services for the Care with Support Group
and Independence with Support Group, the personalisation agenda
will deliver choice and integrated personalised care & support
packages designed by the service user.
6.1 For the Socially Excluded group, the brief
era of Transitional Housing Benefit provided the most transparent,
portable and personalised funding that had ever been available.
It was not tenure-neutral, it excluded owner-occupiers, however,
owner-occupiers did not feature amongst the socially excluded..
It was not exclusive to the Landlord, as many innovative floating
support schemes proved and, carefully engineered, it was possible
to include an element of "welfare", which was unrestricted.
It was also unsustainable in Government Revenue terms as the Golden
and Platinum cuts showed.
6.1.1Personalisation for the Socially Excluded
Group faces four major obstacles:
6.1.3Direct Access/Emergency Accommodation
6.2 Short-Term: The reason for introducing Block
Gross Contracts for short-term services for the Socially Excluded
within SP was the realisation that Block Subsidy models which
attached funding directly to the individual with an independent
financial & needs assessment were impractical. Charging policies
which required independent financial assessment were largely irrelevant
to the majority of welfare benefit dependent service users and
the administration of personalised entitlements for service users
moving in and out of support caused cash-flow problems for many
providers, some of whom have left the market as a result.
6.2.1Voids, vacancies and utilisation levels
are the oil within the system for short-term provision. When Supported
Housing was the province of housing professionals at the Housing
Corporation under SHMG, there was an understanding of this principle,
which included a 10% void allowance. Once Supported Housing moved
into the grey area between housing and Social Services this understanding
was lost, resulting in the guiding principle of SP to break the
link between accommodation and support. Block Gross Contracts
removed "void" cover and only pay within agreed utilisation
levels so that Authorities can guarantee that they only pay for
the "bedspaces" occupied by SP entitled service users.
Consequently, Short-term supported housing providers lost 10%
income even before SP was introduced.
6.2.2Personalisation takes that funding principle
to the extreme. There can be no "void" allowance within
personalisation, only a person can claim a personal allowance,
and that allowance must be personally defined and costed, independently
needs and support assessed and paid directly to the applicant/service
user. The philosophical principle of service users choice is not
in dispute. Without "void" cover, vacancies cannot be
funded. Personalised entitlements which vary in the levels of
support required cannot be met, as business planning would have
to change on a monthly basis, resulting in the lowest common denominator
or minimum service being provided. Cash flow and allowance recovery
within short-term services will become burdensome and deflect
resources from the frontline. Full-cost recovery calculations
by providers will show a large percentage required simply to administer
and recover cost, with resource smoothing/levelling to account
for variable income and variable payment schedules.
6.2.3For long-term services, personalisation
is clearly focussed on maximising independence and control for
the service user, purchasing the services that they need, at the
level they need at the times they need, so that their quality
of life is improved.
6.2.4There is potential within short-term services
for personalisation to have the reverse effect. Personalisation
creates a perverse incentive for both short-term service providers
and service users.
(a)Perverse Incentive: Providers: Where cash-flows
are at the margin and there is no set criteria or restriction
on the use of personalised income or cover for voids, providers
will be under pressure to retain the service users who have an
entitlement rather than risk moving them on without a guarantee
of an assessed and equally or more "valuable" replacement.
Reviews of entitlement for people with chaotic housing histories
will always show latent risk that the service user will need to
return to the service. This is in direct contradiction of the
current situation, where the funding restrictions (Two year rule)
and criteria encourage positive risk taking to move service users
on to independence creating space for new applicants to follow.
(b)Perverse Incentive: Service Users: Perverse
incentives are nothing new for benefit dependent service users,
balancing the advantages of low paid employment against the loss
of benefit entitlement. Providers have developed person centred
support planning designed to highlight the advantages of volunteering,
training and employment. As yet it is unclear how personalisation
or an individual budget will be accounted for in terms of entitlement,
whether it will be exempt, subject to a taper or simply withdrawn
as soon as the service user accesses training or employment. However,
a Service user with a personalised entitlement to support, which
has been hard won by intrusive assessment, which is also portable
and unrestricted, will have to carefully consider their options
before relinquishing their entitlement in favour of an uncertain
future and move-on. Personalisation may well add another factor
on the minus side of the calculation when considering move-on
options.
6.3 Direct Access/Emergency Accommodation: LAC
(DH) (2008) 1 Transforming social care freely acknowledges
the contradiction between Personalisation and Emergency Access:
6.3.1"In the future, all individuals eligible
for publicly-funded adult social care will have a personal budget
(other than in circumstances where people require emergency access
to provision)
6.3.2The Circular does not make any recommendations
as to how Personalisation may be applied to Emergency Provision;
the intention is clearly to conclude that Personalisation is incompatible
with Direct Access/Emergency provision.
6.3.3Direct access has been under pressure for
some considerable time. Local Authorities Homelessness Services
and SP Teams have introduced common application forms and "Gateway"
systems to "Gatekeep" and centrally control entry into
Direct Access/emergency provision. The consequence, (whether intentional
or otherwise), has been to introduce local connections which limit
or prevent access by out-of-area applicants in similar or greater
need (see Cross Authority).
6.3.4Unless providers have considerable charitable
resources, they will be entirely unable to allow emergency access
to people who have no prior entitlement to a personalised support
package, increasing rough sleeping.
6.4 Cross Authority: The Socially Excluded are
mobile, moving to seek employment, flee violence including domestic
violence, harassment or debt, escape drug dependency, renew relations
with family or avoid contact with family or any number of other
reasons, whether rational or emotional.
6.4.1Local Authority based funding streams like
SP invariably has problems relating across boundaries. Individual
SP Officers shared the same issues and co-operated well, the problems
arose when the Local Authority Departments became involved. The
relative small scale of SP cross authority projects or strategies
could not influence Procurement and legal services to change locally
specific systems with internal approval at the highest level,
making them inflexible and unable to work with neighbouring Authorities.
6.4.2If that was the case for SP, it is difficult
to see how personalised budgets for individuals who move without
prior notice, have difficulties with engagement with statutory
agencies and have personalised budgets arranged by independent
brokers or case managers within their host authority will maintain
the support they need around the country?
6.5 Supervision: Within the "The New Performance
Framework for Local Authorities & Local Authority Partnerships:
Single Set of National Indicators" it was widely promoted
that there were only two indicators that directly related to SP:
NI 141 Number of vulnerable people achieving
independent living CLG DSO
NI 142 Number of vulnerable people who are
supported to maintain independent living PSA 16
6.5.1Taking the SP programme as a whole, including
long-term services for people receiving Care with Support and
Independence with Support, cross referenced to outcomes generated
by "Every Child Matters" and factoring in the rise of
the Personalisation Agenda, it is clear that 141 & 142 are
the key indicators for the preservation of the SP programme within
ABG (LAA).
6.5.2However, for short-term services, developed
using Probation Accommodation Grant Funding (PAGs) and aspects
of Mental Health funding; the number of Indicators to which Short-Term
Services contributes increases significantly: (Appendix 2.)
6.5.3This relates to Providers expertise and
experience in providing positive and pro-active "supervision"
of service users.
6.5.4In the absence of an identical control group,
outside supported housing, it is difficult to prove that supervision
is a factor in risk reduction. However recidivism rates for offenders
who receive no support on leaving prison are higher than those
in supported housing.
Hospital admissions for people with mental health
problems from supported housing are less likely to be crisis or
emergency and are of reduced duration. Levels of medication are
also lower.
6.5.5Research by Capgemini (Jan 2008) into the
benefits of the SP Programme put the total benefit at £2.77 billion,
of which
£24.9 million related to Offenders,
£96.3 million people with drug misuse
problems
£487 million to people with Mental
Health problems.
6.5.6The methodology used to assess these benefits
relied on the cost of alternative services, usually crisis intervention
or custody and hospitalisation. This is attributable in no small
part to the supervision of service users.
6.5.7Risk reduction, minimisation, management
and coping strategies are all key aspects of supervision. Support
planning for the socially excluded group seeks to create a change
equation whereby, service users can recognise their desire for
change, assess their dissatisfaction with their quality of life,
assess the cost of change, whether financial or emotional, and
be supported to equip themselves with the tools to effect successful
change. Risk management and supervision are key aspects of the
service users progress to independence.
6.5.8Service users within Short-Term supported
housing receive support that is tailored to ensure that they have
the self-efficacy for change and are equipped to make changes
in their life making them ready for personalisation and taking
control of their support, or moving on without the need for further
direct support.
6.5.9Supported Housing is not an exact science,
generalisations are dangerous, but in principle, personalisation
tends to work best for people who want support and would appear
to be less applicable for people who need support and supervision
due to the choices they have made in the past.
6.5.10In order to test this thesis, it would
worth investigating how many offenders would choose to pay for
their Drug Treatment & Testing Order (DTTO), Community Rehabilitation
Order (CRO), Home Detention Curfew (HDC) or Intensive Control
& Change Programme (ICCP) from a personalised budget without
restrictions?
6.5.11This in no way should be taken to suggest
that providers of short-term services are not fully committed
to personalised services for socially excluded service users.
QAF and the resulting improvements in support planning have encouraged
the sector to deliver person-centred support plans that are tailored
to address the needs of individual service users. Providers business
planning has also taken evidence from support planning into account
in developing new services and improving existing ones.
6.5.12The "Three Ring" model (see para
2 above) takes a whole systems view of support and shows
areas of overlapping provision. Personalisation for the socially
excluded group will have a significant impact within these areas
of overlap. Once support providers have equipped service users
with the skills and confidence to design self-directed support
packages they enable them to engage effectively within Independence
with Support.
7. A FUNDING
MODEL FOR
THE SOCIALLY
EXCLUDED AND
SHORT-TERM
SUPPORTED HOUSING:
7.1 Socially Excluded: We believe that removing
the ring fence from SP and transferring funding without criteria
or restriction to ABG fails to mainstream services for the socially
excluded, does not improve joint commissioning or planning, places
short-term supported accommodation at risk (whilst also removing
emergency access and withdrawing funding for supervision), personalisation
is impractical, bureaucratic and creates perverse incentives and
that an alternative model is required.
7.2 Care with Support: There is no dispute
that through SP, Local Authorities have acquired a great deal
of experience and expertise in providing services for the Care
with Support Group, service users within this group were often
well known to the Authority prior to SP and mainstreaming, joint
commissioning/planning and personalisation will progress to the
benefit of service users.
7.3 Independence with Support: People receiving
support in the form of Sheltered Housing, Community Alarms and
most types of Floating Support within the Independence with Support
Group may well have issues with the ways in which SP has affected
their services and may as a consequence derive benefit from the
growth in personalisation.
7.4 Therefore, a new funding stream for
the Socially Excluded group which; allows services to be strategically
planned and part of the mainstream, creates incentives for sustainable
move-on, preserves and promotes the good practice within short-term
supported housing, encourages development of new services and
is housing related is required, outside the remit of ABG.
7.5 Homes & Community Agency: The most
appropriate delivery vehicle for a funding stream specifically
aimed at housing related support for the homeless and socially
excluded is the Homes & Community Agency (HCA) which has a
retained capacity to revenue fund. Expertise from the Housing
Corporation SHMG regime is still available, but more significantly,
the HCA has acquired the Hostel Capital Improvement Programme
(HCIP) and the "Places of Change Team" from Communities
& Local Government (CLG) who are already working successfully
with Local Authority commissioners to improve services and jointly
commission new and innovative schemes including social enterprise
to address "worklessness" volunteering education and
training and access to work. The "Places of Change"
agenda is revitalising and improving services nationally and building
on innovation. Spark Challenge is also delivering and rewarding
innovative schemes designed to improve the quality of life for
homeless and socially excluded people.
7.6 Housing Related Support Grant: The HCA
would administer a housing related support grant in much the same
way as "Places of Change"; inviting Local Authorities
(LSP's) and RSLs (with voluntary agencies where appropriate) to
bid for funding jointly, thereby embedding partnership working
and joint commissioning and ensuring that both National and Local
priorities are independently assessed. Successful bids would then
be monitored by the Local Authority, retaining the recently reviewed
and excellent Quality Assessment Framework, reporting outcomes
to the HCA. As a national body with a clear agenda and eligibility
criteria, the HCA would also have more leverage than a LA in accessing
joint funding from other agencies such as Health, by committing
revenue funding only where a specific need for match funding has
been identified and secured.
7.7 The mainstream need for service users
in short-term supported housing is, housing and the HCA is the
best-placed agency to ensure delivery, integration planning and
co-ordination, especially in regeneration areas.
7.8 Over 12% of Housing Association (RSL)
stock is supported housing, excluding those receiving floating
support in their own tenancy. The HCA has more responsibility
for the protection of this considerable public investment than
the Local Authority.
7.9 The socially excluded group are often
referred to as the "unpopular" group. By placing responsibility
with the HCA, the Local Authority no longer has to make or avoid
making unpopular decisions about new provision.
7.10 SP broke the link between accommodation
and support, for many this was liberating, but for the socially
excluded and homeless, it has meant that there has been no significant
development in accommodation-based services (excluding extra care
schemes) since 2003. The HCA can restore this link where it is
most needed; integrating development in supported housing within
general needs development and regeneration.
7.11 Monitoring & Review: Robson Rhodes
and the Audit Commission identified areas where Local Authorities
had a conflict of interest in decommissioning or addressing the
levels of "personal" care within Local Authority provided
services. By separating the commissioning role and the review
and monitoring role between the HCA and the Local Authority this
conflict is resolved as it has been by the separation of the HCA
and the Tenants Service Authority.
7.12 The QAF provides a benchmarking system
and nationally recognised standard measure, which has improved
the quality of support within the sector, by adding the "Places
of Change" agenda, a comprehensive standard and benchmark
is created.
April 2009
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