Memorandum from ARC (Association for Real Change) (SPP 65)

 

Summary:

People with a learning disability living the community are very dependent on SP as a source of funding. The planned changes are putting at risk many current arrangements. The loss of ring fencing for SP is of particular concern. The complexity of support based on multiple funding streams means that losing one source of funding may bring down an individual's complete funding package where others will not or cannot increase their contributions.

 

1. ARC is a UK wide umbrella charity with almost 400 member organisations providing all kinds of support to around 15,000 people with a leaning disability. Much of this support is to enable people with a learning disability to move out of care homes and institutions to live in normal housing in the community. This strategy was endorsed in the Valuing People policy document and has recently been re-affirmed in the cross government paper Valuing People Now.

 

2. It is acknowledged that the level of demand for 'housing and support' within the community at large was hopelessly underestimated at the start of SP and the size of the final initial SP pot (£1.72bn in 2006/7) and its unequal distribution has always been a source of concern. Cutting this back and trying to even out the distribution has generated a degree of instability from its beginning.

 

3. It has also been remarked that people with a learning disability appear to have taken in some areas a disproportionately large percentage of SP funding. Whilst the percentages may be correct his should be seen in the context of a situation where the only alternative was life in a care home which would be fully funded by the SSD. Since SSD's were consistently raising their eligibility criteria year on year it should not have come as a surprise that there was both a huge pent up demand within the learning disability sector for a system of funding 'housing and support' which fell short of the level of care needed in care homes. In addition this move co-incided with policy moves within DH to encourage people with learning disability to live in normal housing in the community. This now means that any changes to the SP system are likely to have a disproportionately large effect upon people with learning disabilities.

 

4. One of the tensions which has always existed within SP has been the preference for SP funding to used to enable people to 'move on' having used SP for a short period. Of course this makes no sense at all for most people with a learning disability who will have long term housing related support needs. Whilst these may vary over time it is unrealistic to expect them to disappear altogether. SP was set up as a way of enabling LAs to provide flexible support to certain groups of people living in their area. Each of those groups has a different inherent capacity and likelihood of 'moving on' and people with a learning disability are not well placed to 'move on' because there is nothing for them to move on to and they will still need support.

 

5. A further tension has been the fact that people with a learning disability are amongst the most expensive groups to care for. Their per capita SP costs have been amongst the highest for some time. Given the nature of the support required for this group of people this is hardly surprising. It contrasts with the much lower level of support (both in terms of hours provided and in the level of qualification/competence needed by support staff) which other groups might use.

 

6. Any planned cuts are likely to hit this group especially hard. Moving to an area grant basis exposes services to a risk that they will lost out to more vocal or pressing needs. The Learning Disability Coalition (www.learningdisabilitycoalition.org.uk) has already highlighted the high number of LAs who are only providing any forms of support for people with critical or substantial needs. ARC is concerned that as competition for funding at a local level increases then SP funded services may be at risk.

 

7. Members of ARC have expressed concern in the past at the levels of bureaucracy involved in SP funding. The homes of individuals have sometimes seen a procession of officials checking on different aspects of the service. In addition to formal SP monitoring these could include Housing Association staff, social services monitoring officers, CSCI inspectors plus a range of other officials covering food hygiene, health and safety, fire, assessors and verifiers for staff training purposes and other management staff from the support provider. Careful planning and collaboration can reduce this stream to a more acceptable trickle without any loss of information but this does not always happen.

8. The availability of SP funding in the past has often unlocked care situations where SP monies have made a move to normal housing possible but leaves people with sometimes quite complex packages of care with funding from one or more of the following; the LA SSD, the PCT, a private trust, Housing Benefit (at whatever level) Supporting People, ILF, Attendance Allowance, Mobility Allowance. The most common source of core support is SP monies. The reduction or withdrawal of that support can destabilise the whole support package.

 

9. Thus at present the whole of the learning disability sector is anxiously observing the impact on services of a number of matters beyond their control. One of these is the new way in which SP monies may be controlled and spent at a local level when other priorities intrude.

 

10. As a separate but related issue many services are also anxiously looking at the impact of the series of rulings (now subject to Judicial review) over higher levels of Housing Benefit by Commissioner Turnbull. Depending on the outcome of these rulings and of policy debate (to put it politely!) between DH and DWP over who should pay for what in the grey area of housing related support, it is perfectly possible that just at the moment when SP monies are being cut, used for other things, or priorities within SP critieria are shifting at a local level, SP monies might be put under more pressure by significant reductions in Housing Benefit levels.

 

11. People with learning disabilities and their families have recognised that the SP programme is a great success. It has opened doors to services and independence which many thought impossible to obtain. ARC supports this view. SP has indeed achieved many of its objectives but may have been holed below the waterline from the start once the true scale of demand was understood within Government departments. Ever since then it has seemed as if the strategy has been to cut it, to shift it, to constrain its use and now to 'lose' it in an area based grant so any notional future growth or cut will be invisible. SP will finally have been laid to rest, the responsibilities will be laid at the doors of the LAs and the embarrassment of having so grotesquely under-estimated the cost of it all and level of demand can finally be forgotten.

 

12. It is inevitable that the new system will bring about changes. it is hard to predict what they might be but all the indications are that they will not be to the benefit of people with learning disabilities trying to lead normal lives in the community. ARC would ask the Communities and Local Committee to consider looking again at how these changes have played out in two years time.

 

May 2009