Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260
- 279)
MONDAY 6 JULY 2009
MR MARTIN
CHEESEMAN, CLLR
DR GARETH
BARNARD, MS
SUE TALBOT
AND MR
PETER WEST
Q260 Chair: If you wanted to draw
government's attention to the fact that all those different things
which do not seem to be interrelated are going on how would you
get that view across, and to whom?
Mr West: I spoke to our sponsoring
department this morning to say I was coming here. I was a bit
surprised that this issue was not quite on their radar.
Q261 Chair: The issue of Supporting
People?
Mr West: The issue of the boundary
between Supporting People and supported housing and personal care
that must be registered with us. Each department has a big job
on its hands, so CLG is trying to regulate the whole of social
housing and bring it together. The Department of Health is looking
at how to bring together regulation of the NHS for the first time,
which is a massive task. I believe that the boundary in between
has to an extent been lost in the process.
Q262 Chair: Should not somebody in
one or other of these departments have realised there was a boundary,
or is your organisation as regulator the only one that would have
noticed it?
Mr West: Because we are closer
to it and know the implications we are ringing the bell a bit
to say to the departments that there is an issue to which it needs
to pay attention.
Q263 Chair: But you have pursued
it with your parent department, the Department of Health; you
do not have any mechanism to get into CLG and point out to them
that there is a bit of a problem?
Mr West: We might be able to flag
up some of these issues through the comprehensive area assessment
and jointly with the Audit Commission we have been doing inspections
of Supporting People, so there is a way through.
Ms Talbot: It is an indicator
of progress in a peculiar way. As arrangements have evolved up
and down the country so there are opportunities for people who
ordinarily in the past would have been in hospital or residential
care.
Q264 Chair: I am conscious that the
Committee cannot go into the practical implications of that policy
because it is not its responsibility. I am interested in it as
an example of where people on the ground may be able to perceive
the joined-up picture but it does not appear to be getting through
up top. What is more, you do not seem to have a mechanism to get
it through to the top except through one department. Is that a
fair way to describe it?
Mr West: Our primary lever is
the Department of Health.
Cllr Barnard: I agree with everything
that has been said. If we take it to the higher strategic level
in terms of the planning, funding and spending required for the
Supporting People programme, at this point we do not see joined-up
thinking at policy level between the Department of Health and
CLG for the very reasons that have been practically demonstrated
by my colleague. That has huge planning implications for the future
in terms of understanding the greater move towards independence.
We would like to see a much closer tie-up between housing, housing-related
support programmes and work on exclusion, cohesion and things
like that. At the moment it is not quite there.
Q265 Chair: But all of the particular
programmes you have just mentioned are the responsibility of local
government on the ground, are they not? Given that the proposal
for Supporting People is to remove ring-fencing to leave you to
get on with it, allowing local authorities take the lead and be
more flexible, will you not be able to sort that out? It does
not really matter what happens at government level.
Cllr Barnard: I am not yet convinced
that the kinds of policy drivers are there at a higher level.
Do not forget that a lot of the non-housing support programmes
and things like that go through the social care route via the
Department of Health. Some years into it we still do not see close
thinking between the two in terms of joining the needs of the
individual for personal social care and housing and housing-related
support. No doubt later we will explore what ring- fence removal
might actually mean.
Q266 Chair: Indeed.
Cllr Barnard: But at the moment
as a councillor in my own authority in this particular context
I do not know where that national link and driver is. I believe
that is fairly critical.
Q267 Chair: Mr Cheeseman, do you
believe that Supporting People should be put on a statutory as
opposed to a discretionary basis?
Mr Cheeseman: Marginally, I would
say it should remain on a voluntary basis, but it is arguable
both ways. The advantages of Supporting People are that it has
given the best authorities a high degree of flexibility in achieving
joined up housing, adult and social care, probation and other
services. All of that is a big advantage. In some respects having
the flexibility of a non-statutory basis helps. Against that,
with the disappearance of the ring fence all of the good work
done in Supporting People could get lost unless it is flagged
and we would be back here in five years' time reinventing Supporting
People.
Q268 Chair: Do the other three witnesses
believe that Supporting People should be put on a statutory basis?
Perhaps they would simply say yes or no.
Cllr Barnard: I agree with Martin's
comment; it is marginal.
Mr West: We are interested in
outcomes. I am not sure we are all that worried about whether
or not it is statutory.
Chair: I shall certainly be taking up
with the minister who is to come after you the issue as between
the Department of Health and the CLG. Do not think we have lost
sight of that; we shall keep it for later.
Q269 Mr Turner: You referred to ring-fencing.
Perhaps we can have your views on whether you think it is right
to lift ring-fencing at this moment.
Cllr Barnard: To go back a little,
the concerns were about the impact of removing the ring fence
on groups that were viewed as being more unpopular to support:
homeless people, adult offenders, people with mental health and
substance misuse problems and, linked to that, cross-boundary-type
services for travellers and victims of domestic violence. It was
always felt that those groups would not be the ones that would
receive support if the ring fence was removed. Having said that,
about 15 pilot pathfinder projects have been running for about
a year. The evidence from it is inconclusive, in part because
of the length of people's contracts, the sort of service and the
time it takes to commission services. Overall, the LGA is fairly
relaxed about the prospect of removing the ring fence because,
given the way the project is now imbedded, the desire to support
the most vulnerable and the fact there is a lot of invest to save
and therefore invest to promote in the programmes that are there,
it would probably be reasonably sound going forward not to have
the ring fence in place because of what it means further down
the line. Having said that, if the ring fence is removed there
is always the risk that funding will go elsewhere, but in general
terms we are now more relaxed than we were about the consequences
of removing the ring fence.
Q270 Mr Turner: Perhaps we can have
the views of each of you on the vulnerable people you mentioned.
How do you see local authorities protecting those with the removal
of the ring fence?
Mr Cheeseman: I chair one of the
commissioning groups in Brent. We established that group and brought
in not just ourselves but probation, health and all parts of the
authority. To an extent that guaranteed that those minority groups
had a voice, and it is important that that continues when the
ring fence is removed. Whilst I agree with Cllr Barnard about
not having the ring fence, since it has been removed the pressure
on local authorities has become greater with the recession and
the much harder spending rounds that are anticipated. Putting
on my adult social care hat, the advantage that Supporting People
has given is that it has provided to those people services that
otherwise we would not have provided. The value of that in the
prevention agenda has been considerable. It is important that
that is not lost and we need mechanisms, probably via the CAA,
to measure authorities so they continue to do that work without
the removal of the ring fence. There must still be transparency
within the area-based grant so it is clear to outsiders what money
government is giving us for what previously would have been spent
on Supporting People.
Anne Main: You used the word "prevention".
I should like to tease that out somewhat. In previous evidence
sessions prevention has been talked about as being something in
which you believe but is hard to demonstrate. It may be that prevention
is in a department other than your own. You might be preventing
crime, poor health outcomes and so on. How will you still make
that argument when it is hard to demonstrate it? By its nature
prevention means that something does not happen.
Q271 Chair: Perhaps we can ask that
of Cllr Barnard because I suspect the difficulty lies in councillors
being able to justify to their electorate why they are spending
money on these groups as opposed to emptying dustbins or whatever.
Cllr Barnard: From a councillor's
perspective, removing the ring fence means that a good council
will have flexibility to invest in preventative programmes. I
see more and more evidence of it. We refer to it as inverting
the triangle of need in a whole range of areas. We are saying
that by early intervention we can demonstrate two to three years
down the line a reduction in crime and emergency referrals, homelessness
and things like that.
Q272 Anne Main: But these are future
budgets and budgets are tight now.
Cllr Barnard: You say that, but
I see strong evidence even in the current budget round of councils
taking that longer-term view in investing in these programmes.
The equality programme is imbedded. What Supporting People has
done is mature quite nicely not just in terms of councils but
strategic partnerships and other bodies and it is seen as a core
delivery vehicle for local area agreements and things like that.
When you start to look at those longer-term agreements you can
demonstrate the point you make that by investing now you will
reap those rewards down the line in terms of both the award of
grants but, more importantly, stable outcomes for a number of
groups of people. Specifically, there is still a lot of talk and
understanding that Supporting People has closed the loop and finished
the work that something like Care in the Community started for
some groups, that is, to provide housing stability whereby you
can deliver some of these outcomes in the communities. I do not
see any evidence at this point of councils shirking their responsibility
there; indeed, removing the ring fence means you can bring these
projects into the broader arena rather than highlight individual
groups. Often in the public perception there has been highlighting
of an individual group.
Q273 Anne Main: Perhaps you would
flesh that out. When you refer to "highlighting" do
you mean an unpopular group in the sense people ask why ex-offenders
are being given social housing or whatever it is? Does this mean
that you do not have to be so specific and it is easier to do?
Cllr Barnard: You can tackle it
from the other perspective. You can roll it up as a programme
of work to reduce the impact of crime, substance abuse or other
things in the community by demonstrating clearly that you are
providing housing support, floating support and other support
to a particularly vulnerable group of people, the consequence
of which is to improve outcomes in that particular area. There
are some specific issues elsewhere in terms of how you provide
the housing, planning and things like that, but that is not for
today. In general terms prevention is now very well imbedded.
The CPA and CAA are very much looked to by councils.
Q274 Mr Turner: What are your views
on whether or not it is right now that the programme is being
subsumed and we should still have the formula? Should that formula
still be identified as such within overall funding through local
government?
Mr Cheeseman: Obviously, the formula
has been open to a lot of debate and discussion and it is by no
means perfect. If you asked 150 local authorities all would disagree
on that. In respect of transparency it would be useful still to
have it. If we are to understand where we get benefits sometimes
we need to know what the formula is. If we get benefits that are
not just of another part of the authority but another agency such
as health then having a formula to understand that will be useful.
That is a roundabout way of answering your question.
Mr West: We are interested in
outcomes. Our very long experience of performance assessment of
councils and inspections—because we partner the Audit Commission
in all the Supporting People service inspections—is that
there is no correlation between how finances are targeted and
structures and so on. People who perform well can do so despite
the structures and restrictions and there is no golden rule, and
because we are focused on how outcomes for people are being achieved
we are pretty agnostic about things in the background. We are
not shy about coming forward to say we believe outcomes are poor
and tracking back to see the reason for it. For us as regulator
we always start with whether people are getting a good service.
Plenty of places have got small budgets that do incredibly well
and other places with big budgets that do not do so well, so there
is no guarantee of correlation.
Cllr Barnard: Needless to say,
from the LGA's perspective we do not comment on the fairness of
the distribution, but there are some authorities that believe
the funding formula does not work for them at the moment. Without
disagreeing with the point just made, our concern is that if it
is subsumed into the area-based grant there will not be an opportunity
for those councils to seek redress to get what they believe to
be a more appropriate amount of funding. If that is the case going
forward there should still be some transitional relief and support.
There are a number of authorities, some in the north of England
but particularly a large number in the South East, that believe
the formula has not quite worked for them at this time.
Q275 Dr Pugh: Is bureaucracy particularly
bad in strategic areas or just bad generally in regard to this
programme? Is more bureaucracy required to administer it?
Mr Cheeseman: I think it is more
difficult in two-tier authorities than in unitary authorities.
As a unitary authority where you have adult social care, Supporting
People and housing all in one area I have found the quality assessment
framework, the returns et cetera very useful bits of information.
It has certainly assisted us in developing and understanding it.
For two-tier authorities that is much more difficult. There you
have the county basically running Supporting People with 10 or
12 housing authorities. That is an added complexity. Certainly,
some of our members have found that an unreasonable burden and
have looked at how it can be simplified.
Q276 Dr Pugh: What provoked my question
was a representation I received from a small local housing association
with a number of different facilities. It has a small amount of
money from Supporting People. It complained about the amount of
form-filling it had to do, in this case for a one-tier local authority.
It also showed me some forms that went out to clients as part
of the quality assessment framework. In some cases the clients
are very elderly people or confused. They are being asked, for
example, whether they support the personalisation agenda and what
is their view of the procurement policy. I have the form somewhere.
I did not understand what half these questions were getting at,
so what on earth would the clients think of them? Is that an unusual
scenario? Are my constituents particularly unfortunate, or is
that generally what is done?
Mr Cheeseman: Certainly, it would
not be unusual to ask for specific feedback from the clients as
to how they rate the service and what they think about the provider's
performance et cetera. I would hope those forms are intelligible
and easy to fill in; if not, they will not be completed. It is
as simple as that.
Q277 Dr Pugh: Or they will be filled
in by one of the staff on their behalf.
Mr Cheeseman: Exactly—which
totally defeats the object. If the provider is filling out the
forms for the receiver of the service you do not get an independent
view.
Q278 Dr Pugh: Is there good practice
that people should emulate and clearly Sefton does not follow?
Mr Cheeseman: There is good practice
and certainly the inspection regime of the Audit Commission and
CQC will pick up where there is good consultation.
Q279 Dr Pugh: I took the view that
somebody somewhere just needed to get the paperwork done without
making it meaningful and having an interchange with the client.
For example, one question is whether you agree with Supporting
People's personalisation agenda. Genuinely, nobody who received
it knew there was a personalisation agenda, and a great number
of people outside this room are unaware of it.
Cllr Barnard: From my perspective
a lot of local authorities use quite imaginative ways to seek
feedback on programmes such as Supporting People because the language
is somewhat abstract and alien to those who receive the service.
It can be done working with all groups. It follows best practice.
I do not like using the word "consultation", but in
terms of engagement with groups putting out a six or seven-page
form would not be the way that my and many other local authorities
would do it. But because there is a pretty clear quality audit
in terms of what the service covers under Supporting People you
have to try to ask questions in specific areas to tease out what
is linked to housing-related support. In the early days there
were some fairly cumbersome mechanisms, but from my perspective
the review of feedback is pretty straightforward.
| 
