Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
MONDAY 8 JUNE 2009
MR ROY
IRWIN AND
MR ALAN
MACDONALD
Q1 Chair: Good afternoon and thank
you for being here. This is the first session of our inquiry into
the Supporting People programme. What I would like to ask you
first of all is if you could tell us extremely briefly what you
believe to be the benefits that the Supporting People programme
has delivered so far.
Mr Irwin:
It brings together a range of national funding regimes (which
I think the CLG mentioned in their submission) and a number of
local investment regimes as well running in parallel so there
is an economy of scale opportunity. I think the guidance that
was developed over time with providers and users allowed that
to be applied most sensibly to get better value for money, better
services. Unfortunately this has not happened uniformly, ie not
everywhere is as good as it should be but certainly there has
been an improvement in this area which is a bit of a twilight
zone in terms of statutory services.
Mr MacDonald: I represent HMI
Probation and I think one of the great benefits of Supporting
People is the way it made offenders centre stage in looking at
the vulnerability agenda because Supporting People has been much
more about supporting vulnerable people rather than an over-concentration
on bricks and mortar. Before these arrangements probation was
in something of a silo that did not really communicate effectively
with local authorities and I think having Supporting People has
been a catalyst for probation to be working effectively in partnership
but also making sure that offenders who have multiple needs are
seen as one of the vulnerable groups.
Q2 Chair: Thank you, that is very
helpful. Obviously there is a big issue in the evidence that has
been presented to us about the decision that has now been taken
to lift the ring-fencing. Do you think the decision to lift the
ring-fence is the right one at this point?
Mr Irwin: The pre-ring-fence situation
did not guarantee good services as our inspections show. Although
people are concerned about the removal of the ring-fence, our
inspection evidence does show that, even with the presence of
all the arrangements around grant conditions, too many authorities
did not deliver good services. I think that is the first thing
to say. We are not moving from a situation where everybody is
providing good services, therefore we are not necessarily losing
as much as people would fear we are losing. In the context of
local authorities and their partners improving services as seen
under CPA (Comprehensive Performance Assessment), this is an issue
of government trusting local authorities to do the best thing
with more flexibility. I think in that context of improving local
services it is the right thing to do but it does not mean that
it is risk free.
Mr MacDonald: Mine is a slightly
less diplomatic answer. I think it was done too quickly because
when we were inspecting Supporting People the areas that did it
well should have been given longer in terms of the pilots to see
what were the implications of removing the ring-fence. I agree
with what Roy said, but I think in terms of the practical implications
that probably has not changed things very much. However, I do
think in the present economic climate there are risks in that
strategy.
Q3 Chair: If there are risks—I
think Mr Irwin at least is suggesting that for some authorities
he is fairly relaxed but for others there may be more problems—then
what alternative would there be to lifting the ring-fence (since
it appears the government is determined to do it) that would stop
the problems that you may fear might occur?
Mr Irwin: First of all, many authorities
did not have to comply with the grant conditions if they were
assessed under CPA as being excellent authorities but chose to
stick with the arrangements that were in place everywhere else.
Quite a lot of people have had flexibility as authorities to move
away from the framework that was there but chose not to. Having
said that, the economic climate has changed so the pressure on
spending is going to put people into very difficult purchasing
decisions across a whole range of sectors. I think many authorities
will probably stay with the current arrangements. You cannot have
at the same time freedom and flexibilities and then have arrangements
that compel people to do things in a certain way and you are trusting
people's judgment about their maturity. The Commission, of course,
along with HMIP and other inspectorates were looking at vulnerable
people as part of the comprehensive area assessment. That is not
an inspection per se, it is a relationship with a place
with inspections being something we may use if we feel that a
particular area of service—whether supporting people or
anything else—is failing against what might be seen as good
standards. Given that we have inspected every authority and every
place (with two exceptions because of local reorganisation) we
do know where performance has been good historically and we also
know where performance has not been good historically.
Mr MacDonald: I do not think I
have much to add to that. My only worry about CAA is obviously
it is going to be a very focussed inspection and whether it gets
into the fine detail such as the effectiveness of Supporting People
arrangements and what services are received by vulnerable groups
of people in the community is uncertain. I very much accept the
other points that have been made.
Q4 Chair: One of the issues, particularly
if we are having a more difficult economic climate—which
we clearly are—would be whether the lifting of the ring-fence
would jeopardise the savings which have been made by other public
services as a result of the Supporting People programme (that
is other than the councils).
Mr Irwin: The fact that the current
regime allows Supporting People savings to be reinvested has been
very helpful in some quarters. Part of the risk is that future
savings might well go in different directions locally. This is
a partnership arrangement so this is not just local authorities
acting in isolation. One of the strengths of Supporting People—in
fact probably it is the predecessor of some more effective local
and strategic partnerships—is that there has been the kind
of joint arrangements which means that local authorities are accountable
to their partners on this matter. So, although they will be under
pressure—as will other people—the discussion around
how to deal with resources will be a partnership discussion, not
just a local authority deciding to hive off things.
Q5 Chair: Ultimately councils are
accountable to their voters. Is it not the concern that some of
these groups that benefit from the Supporting People programme
may themselves not vote terribly often and may not be valued tremendously
highly by the majority of voters, to put it bluntly.
Mr Irwin: It is true that some
services are not best served still by Supporting People but local
authorities are accountable to their users and their voters and
also accountable to the legislation around dealing with diversity
and needs in their areas, so it is not that they have a free rein
on everything to do with these. A number of the issues that touch
on Supporting People are around authorities' housing responsibilities
and many of them are backed ultimately in statute around homelessness
and housing need issues. Yes, they have some flexibility but it
is not to zero-ise things and other bodies that they will be working
with are equally accountable to the various groups. I do not think
that we see that local authorities will instantly run away from
this agenda and what we are interested in is making sure that
those who are the biggest risk areas both by locality and client
group are the ones we focus our attention on.
Mr MacDonald: In terms of the
probation side there is an opportunity and threat for probation
areas. I think they need to get much more centre stage with local
authorities in the way you have described because I do not think
offenders realistically are going to be pushing in terms of services
because they do not know what they are not getting anyway. I think
the National Offender Management Service spends an awful lot of
time assessing offenders' needs and I think they have a rich source
of evidence about the problems offenders face, such as homelessness,
substance misuse, mental health problems, drug addiction et
cetera, to feed directly into this agenda. What probation
needs to do strategically through local strategic partnerships
is to make sure it is actually central at the table. In a sense
that is what Supporting People has done with its commissioning
bodies and core strategy arrangements. I think the worry is not
so much that the ring-fence goes, but that similar governance
arrangements are maintained so that there can be a continuing
dialogue between the relevant partner agencies in an area.
Q6 Emily Thornberry: The whole discussion
so far reminds me of a particular case. I remember when I was
standing for election there was a man on the doorstep who was
very angry and was shouting at me asking me why he should vote,
why should he have anything to do with politics. I talked to him
for some time and said to him, "What is your problem? Tell
me what the problem really is." Eventually it transpired
that his son was in prison and his son clearly had had a severe
mental breakdown at some stage, was in prison for a very serious
matter but should not still be in prison, should definitely be
on the mental health wing. Eventually, after about three years,
he got the right sort of help and last Thursday for some reason
I was on doorsteps talking to people again and I met the young
man. He had been given accommodation near to the prison but he
felt he had been given very little support and so did the family.
So now he has moved to Islington to live with his father. His
father has a range of his own health problems and the two of them
felt that there was very little support for them. They did not
know how to access support or where the help was or what it was.
The young man did not have a job, he continues to have mental
health problems, he has a father who cannot cope, he has been
offered accommodation but it is not appropriate because it is
not in the area where there is any family support and there seems
to be no accommodation on offer with Islington. My question is,
are these changes that I hear you talking about actually going
to make access to services any easier?
Mr Macdonald: I think obviously
it depends on the detail which we do not have time for, but one
of the problems is that some short-term prisoners are released
without license conditions they are not necessarily supervised
by the probation service and hence may not get the help they require.
I agree there needs to be an access route to services. Supporting
People has been very successful but people have to get into that
system first. The Third Sector is very important in providing
services and bodies such as Nacro and various other after care
bodies supplement the help provided by probation areas. Probation
in turn has an important role in informing its local authority
partners about areas of unmet need for offenders.
Q7 Chair: Does the Audit Commission
have a role in making sure that some local authorities do not
basically use the money from Supporting People to fill in gaps
elsewhere?
Mr Irwin: If authorities are now
being given authority to spend the money without conditions then
it may be appropriate for the Commission to report where that
is happening; to me that is a matter of public knowledge in case
it is not. It might be the Commission's role, along with other
inspectorates, to point out what the impact of that decision might
be on a whole range of different client groups. However, I do
not think that necessarily means that we have the authority to
tell them that they made the wrong decision given that they were
given the power to make that decision in the first place.
Mr MacDonald: I think floating
support is very cost-effective and it a lot cheaper than funding
capital projects. Providing a worker to come in and help somebody
with some basic problems can be quite a cheap way of keeping people
in independent living conditions which ultimately provides a saving
to the community and benefits to the individual concerned.
Q8 Emily Thornberry: What can be
done to guard against losing the positive impact the Supporting
People governance and operating frameworks have had?
Mr Irwin: First of all the places
that have been good at it recognise the successes that they have
made so in some sense there has been tremendous local learning
in those places that have made it work effectively. You cannot
guarantee that they will stick with what they know works, but
it does seem to me that there has been a lot of experience across
a wide range of authorities and a wide range of partners in localities.
As I said earlier, in some places it is the early local partnerships
arrangements they are now mimicking for local strategic partnerships.
I cannot guarantee they will go on and, as Alan has said, one
of the successes has been how they have arranged themselves in
many places. I think my experience would be that people know that
they have something that works well. It does take time to dismantle
it and you are against a lot of opposition if you are trying to
dismantle something that works really well.
Q9 Emily Thornberry: What about the
impact that any opportunity users might have to have any sort
of control over how services are—
Mr Irwin: One of the strengths
of Supporting People where it has been well managed is the user
input both at a personal level for their own support but also
in terms of commissioning good services. I think Alan mentioned
that the probation services and accommodation needs are far better
served than they were although, based on your case, it is not
perfect. I think it has opened up services to users of what were
otherwise quite invisible kind of needs that were neither strategic
nor statutory and apart from turning a messy kind of arrangement
into a more formal but quite open arrangement I think that is
very powerful and I think authorities would be stupid to give
that up with their partners. If it works why would you want to
do that? It is a more cost effective way of actually providing
support to people with increasing needs.
Q10 Emily Thornberry: So you do not
think there is any risk of it being diluted then?
Mr Irwin: Not for those authorities
that have made a success of it; I think that is a very limited
risk. I think where the risk would be is for those who have not
quite made lift-off yet, in other words they have been working
with an arrangement that is not quite gelled properly. It may
have improved things but not to the point where they are with
the best. Our risk would be to see how they perform given their
experience is around collective benefit both for users and the
organisations has not been so great.
Mr MacDonald: Perhaps people could
be brave as well. In a sense it is a very effective problem solving
forum. When I used to be a probation officer on a Friday night
if you could not place somebody and you had all these problems,
you would have cried out for some sort of Supporting People arrangement
where, in a planned way, you could instead sort out accommodation
needs before there were these crises. People are beginning to
realise that agencies help each other's agendas. People from the
Care Quality Commission are dependent on the work of other inspectorates,
Housing and Social Services and others. The users of Supporting
People services are the same citizens known to a range of statutory
and voluntary agencies. Supporting People enables their diverse
needs and problems to be addressed in a strategic, economic and
joined up way rather than be tackled in an ad-hoc and piecemeal
fashion.
Q11 John Cummings: How confident
are you in the abilities of local authorities and their partners
to deliver the Supporting People services following a reduction
in central government direction and guidance?
Mr Irwin: As I said earlier on,
first of all authorities are not starting from the same position
so they are not all as good as each other either with their partners.
They have different deficiencies in different places. On that
basis you are not starting on a level playing field. I think my
confidence, if you want a score between none and ten, around maintaining
services I think I would go for seven because in the better places—better
run in terms of Supporting People—there is that recognition
of value for money that these are relatively cheap services and
under financial pressure they are now actually better at recognising
the efficiency and the effectiveness that they can get by preventing
things rather than having expensive arrangements after something
has gone badly wrong. I think my confidence would be seven out
of ten that they would protect the services at their current level
overall, but some authorities still would not be good enough,
whereas some authorities would be excellent.
Q12 John Cummings: What about their
partners?
Mr Irwin: I think this is a partnership
delivery. Although local authorities are accountable to their
electorate, other people feel very strong accountabilities as
well so I think collectively that would be my view rather than
it just being about the local authorities.
Q13 John Cummings: In view of what
you said, who should be supporting local authorities to deliver
housing related support?
Mr Irwin: First of all each other;
there should be some peer arrangements. Some authorities and partners
are very good at explaining to others how well they have done.
In that sense the IBA (Indicator-Based Assessment) has responsibilities
as the improvement agency for local authorities. There are some
other local regional investment and improvement agencies funded
by government and no doubt the inspectorates have a role in making
sure that good practice that we find in one place is communicated
to those who need it elsewhere.
Q14 John Cummings: So you do believe
it is working.
Mr Irwin: I do believe it is working,
yes.
Mr MacDonald: I think it is as
well. I think—this is one of the things that is mentioned
in the submission—that if there is a careful look at policies
and practices by local authorities, whether they were ring-fenced
or not, that is going to be terribly important because one of
the things in the probation world that people battle with is social
exclusion. Housing authorities often say, "You do not have
a geographical relationship with this area" so somebody coming
out of prison would find it very difficult to resettle in another
area. Sometimes that can be terribly important for example if
you have high risk offenders that cannot go back to their own
locality. I think what people need to do is look at their policies
for how services are delivered and to ask if there are unintended
consequences. I think it really is a diversity issue in terms
of making sure that people are not improperly excluded from their
rights as citizens.
Q15 John Cummings: Do you think there
is a case for giving Supporting People a statutory basis?
Mr Irwin: Having worked in local
government there are advantages sometimes played out locally about
something having a statutory label attached to it but very few
statutory provisions explain in detail what that might mean. You
could make it a statutory basis but it would be very difficult
to specify exactly what that might mean in a wide variety of places.
It might be something that the government of the day might want
to look at in the context of the experience of what happens over
the next two or three years because if things do deteriorate and
that is seen to be the wrong thing to happen, then that might
be an alternative to consider. However, I think at this stage
it would be my view that local partnerships should be trusted
to do a good job first and then only have it on a statutory basis
as a rod of iron afterwards.
Q16 John Cummings: Are you of the
same opinion, Mr MacDonald?
Mr MacDonald: I would agree with
that, yes.
Q17 David Wright: Mr Irwin, can you
give me a clearer picture of how you assess service provision?
I understand it is this Comprehensive Area Assessment process
so there is an analysis of what is going on within an area and
then you step in and you have a look at whether that is good quality
in terms of what is happening in a locality. Do you think the
process is robust at the moment? Do you think it is fit for purpose?
Mr Irwin: As we only started this
on the first of April this year I think it would be premature
for me to say.
Q18 David Wright: You must have had
an input into designing the process.
Mr Irwin: Obviously design is
a real challenge but implementation is ten times harder.
Q19 David Wright: Absolutely.
Mr Irwin: We started this as a
process of continuous engagement. Rather than inspection which
is more of an episodic visit—powerful though that may be—we
are trying to get a handle with our joint inspectorate approach
about how places are functioning with all public service providers.
As I say, we only started two months ago and it would be premature
to say that we have got it sorted, but having started to pick
up the messages it is quite clear that this continuous engagement
changes the tone of the relationship both with the place and the
different agencies, We do not have to announce that we are coming
along to take part in or listen to a strategic partnership debate
et cetera so you quite quickly get to the heart of exactly
how they do business and what business they are doing. We see
this as a continuous process and although we intend to report
in November the process runs right up to November and carries
on the day after so in some senses our ability to react very quickly
to our evidence base and what we find is present or absent gives
us far more flexibility. We do not have to work on the basis of
looking just at set areas of concern. It could be around looking
at how several neighbourhoods function or it could be around how
a number of adjacent authorities are dealing with their partnerships
around transport issues between several places.
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