Memorandum from Retirement Security Ltd and the Association of Retirement Housing Manager (SPP 109)

 

 

1. Before SUPPORTING PEOPLE was introduced in April 2003, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) consulted with the Association of Retirement Managers as to whether Leasehold Sheltered Housing should be included within SUPPORTING PEOPLE. The advice of the ARHM was strongly that it should not, on the grounds that it was such a small and specialist area of housing that its particular needs would be likely to be overlooked in the future and that it would be the only element of SUPPORTING PEOPLE which would not have a 'Provider', who would have the responsibility for mediating between the SUPPORTING PEOPLE authorities and individual Leaseholders. As a result, Leaseholders of Sheltered Housing would be the only potential recipients of SUPPORTING PEOPLE payments who would have to deal on an individual basis with the SUPPORTING PEOPLE authorities, which means that they would have no one in the SUPPORTING PEOPLE hierarchy, or the consultative forums, to argue their case.

 

2. In the event, the advice not to include Leasehold Sheltered Housing was rejected, although a Government Circular was published in September 2002, of which a copy is attached as Appendix 1, which purported to recognise the special features of Leasehold Sheltered Housing and purported to offer a number of safeguards, which in the event have been so narrowly interpreted that unless they were completely unambiguous they have subsequently been abandoned.

 

3. No precise total of Leasehold Sheltered Housing is available, but the ARHM, whose membership includes both the private and voluntary (Housing Association) sectors, estimates that there are approximately 100,000 units. However, it is only those Leaseholders in receipt of Guarantee Pension Credit who could claim SUPPORTING PEOPLE grants for the support elements of their Service Charge. There is no reliable estimate of their number, but an informed guess would be about 15,000, which is a small figure in the universe of SUPPORTING PEOPLE.

 

4. The basis of the SUPPORTING PEOPLE settlement with relation to Service Charges in Leasehold sheltered housing was to distinguish between 'support' and 'housing' costs. In traditional sheltered housing, where there is little 'support', the support costs would amount to no more than about £5 out of a total Service Charge of, say, £40 a week. This may not seem much, but it is a significant sum to someone who has to live on Pension Credit.

 

 

 

5. However, the position is quite different for Leaseholders of Extra-Care Sheltered Housing where the Service Charge is typically £80-£100 a week. Again there are no precise statistics, but the Elderly Accommodation Counsel (EAC) estimates a total of about 9,000 units of Leasehold Extra-Care Sheltered housing but has no reliable information about how many of them are in receipt of Guarantee Pension Credit, which is the only door to SUPPORTING PEOPLE payments. However, anecdotal evidence would seem to suggest that they are about 15% of the total, i.e. not more that about 1,500, so that they are an even smaller player in the world of SUPPORTING PEOPLE, but their treatment has been disgraceful.

 

6. Retirement Security Ltd is the largest Manager of Leasehold Extra-care Sheltered Housing in the private sector and keeps very precise statistics. Out of a total of 1,503 Leaseholders, 223 are in receipt of Guarantee Pension Credit which accords with the general assumption about all Leaseholders of Extra-care sheltered housing.

 

7. Without exception, they are all so severely disabled as to qualify for Attendance Allowance, and their average age is 85 years, which fairly describes the vast majority of all those leaseholders in Extra-Care Sheltered Housing who are in receipt of Guarantee Pension Credit.

 

8. Apart from making the general point about separating 'Housing' and 'Support' costs, with 'Housing costs' to be met from Pension Credit and 'Support Costs' by the new SUPPORTING PEOPLE authorities, the regulations introducing SUPPORTING PEOPLE gave no precise guidance on how individual Service Charges were to be apportioned. In the event, an entirely arbitrary amount was chosen to be deducted from the Pension Credit budget and allocated to the SUPPORTING PEOPLE authorities. However, individual recipients were left to agree the 'Housing Costs' of their Service Charge with the Pension Service and claim the 'Support Costs' from the new SUPPORTING PEOPLE AUTHORITIES, who were specifically ordered by the ODPM in the September 2002 Government Circular, not to question the division.

 

9. The result was chaos for the first two years, which was only partly resolved by a number of appeals which went eventually to the Social Security Commissioner, whose Decisions, which have the force of law, were so complex that they could not possibly have been understood by a group of people who were all severely disabled and whose average age was 85 years.

 

10. The eventual outcome, which was often only obtained after a further series of individual appeals, was that the Service Charge in Leasehold Extra-Care Sheltered Housing was divided, very roughly, 50-50 between 'Housing' and 'Care'. However, the important factor was that while the 'Housing' costs are a legal entitlement from Pension Credit, the 'Support Costs', which had previously been a legal entitlement, became a matter for discretion by the new SUPPORTING PEOPLE authorities, except that Leaseholders who had been in receipt of Pension Credit in March 2003, had an on-going protected right to the same amount of SUPORTING GRANT as they had previously received from Pension Credit, but with no guarantee of inflation increases or anything for new Leaseholders.

 

11. Some local authorities, such as Seton Borough Council on Merseyside immediately resolved not to pay any new leaseholders and to freeze the amounts paid to those who were protected. The twin effects of inflation and mortality on a group of severely disabled people meant that the actual amount spent by Sefton and like-minded authorities on Leasehold Extra-care sheltered housing has been drastically reduced in monetary terms and even more when the effects of inflation are taken into account. Accordingly, these authorities have made a 'profit' which is increasing year by year, at the expense of a group of severely disabled and very elderly Leaseholders, who are dependant on Pension Credit, and who have lost about £50 a week, compared with their position before April 2003.

 

12. The Government's position is set out in the Rules which it makes from time to time to regulate the expenditure of 'SUPPORTING PEOPLE' grant. The present position with regard to Leaseholders is that the Rules state that the local authority must publish its policy and establish an appeal procedure but give no guidance on what that policy should be, so that neighbouring authorities have diametrically opposed policies.

 

13. In view of the general pressure which there is on SUPPORTING PEOPLE grant, it is hardly surprising that a number of authorities, such as Knowsley and East Sussex have followed the example of Sefton by refusing new applicants and have also effectively negated the appeal mechanism by insisting that anyone seeking to appeal must first undergo a 'Community Care Assessment' which involves further comprehensive means-testing and capability testing, when, by definition the people concerned have already undergone the rigours of applying for Pension Credit and Attendance Allowance. Setting up so many hurdles to a successful application for a Supporting People payment contribution to the Service Charge is reminiscent of the 'means test' so universally detested between the World Wars. The fact that it is suffered by only a small minority who are too elderly and disabled to make an effective protest makes it no more acceptable.

 

14. It cannot be right that Liverpool City, the former Cheshire County and Brighton and Hove Councils have continued the pre-April 2003 arrangements of paying the Service Charge in full while Sefton and East Sussex etc are so negative.

 

15. The other major issue concerning the payment (or non-payment) of SUPPORTING PEOPLE grant to Leaseholders of Extra-Care Sheltered Housing is the incongruity of the laissez-faire attitude of DCLOG with the detailed statement of government policy set out by Stephen Ladyman when he was a Minister at the Department of Health, In a Speech to the Laing and Buisson Conference on Extra-care sheltered housing in 2005, Dr Ladyman ended his address by saying.

 

'Once again, let me repeat. I think extra care housing will be the dominant model for accommodation for older people over the next generation. If we can create innovative schemes with flexible support on tap then people will choose Extra Care in preference to sheltered accommodation because they will know that when their needs change they can be catered for without having to move again.

 

That doesn't mean there won't be a role for traditional care homes or sheltered accommodation in the future but tomorrow's older people will have clear ideas about what they want and they are already telling us load and clear what the future will look like.

 

Our plans cannot turn our backs on that reality. Your businesses and organisations will flourish if you respond to the challenge, but swim against the tide and you will drown.

Extra Care is here to stay. I hope you'll all be part of making it grow.'

 

16. There is now clear evidence that Extra-care leasehold sheltered housing promotes such key government policies as enabling disabled elderly people to spend less time in hospital and significantly reduces the need for them to admitted to Care Homes, quite apart from such intangibles as improving the quality of their lives. Either the Government sees the development of Leasehold Extra-Care Sheltered Housing as an important plank in its strategy for frail elderly people, or it does not. At present, the conflict of evidence as represented by its current SUPPORTING PEOPLE lack of policy makes it not possible to know.

 

Bob Bessell

For Retirement Security Ltd and the Association of Retirement Housing Managers

May 2009