Agenda item

Abigail Gallop, Senior Advisor, introduced the item which set out the current Government positon on the future funding of supported housing and outlined key questions in the consultation for the Board’s discussion.

Members noted that the Government had previously announced proposals in the 2015 Spending Review to introduce a limit on the amount of housing benefit that could be claimed for supported housing to the level of the local housing allowance (LHA) cap. Following representations from the LGA, as well as a number of other organisations, that this would present a risk, particularly to elderly residents, the Government subsequently announced that it intended to supplement the amount of funding above the LHA cap via a local top up fund to councils.

The Government had recently published a consultation on the implementation of the local top up fund and future funding for supported housing. Measures which had been announced by the Government were detailed in the report, but included a ring-fenced grant to meet costs through a commissioning model. The consultation would impact all areas of supported housing, including homelessness, domestic violence and veterans housing.

In the discussion which followed Members raised the following points:

·         Members welcomed the introduction of ring-fenced funding for supported housing, which had previously been in place in the past, but highlighted that more needed to be done to help vulnerable people from all levels of society find housing. Funding should be set at a realistic level and implemented in a person-centred way.

·         Enabling local authorities to have an advanced role in the commissioning of supported housing was also welcomed, particularly in relation to housing for vulnerable people.

·         The consultation proposes making the top-up funding available to other organisations, such as health.  Members raised concerns about any requirements to make the ring-fenced funding available to other organisations, if the responsibility for provision was with councils.  Members agreed that decisions on collaboration or joining up funding should be made at the local level.

·         It was suggested that councils should work together to find more ways to develop supported housing and house people across local authority borders.

·         Members supported the proposal to develop a national commissioning framework, which would provide transparency and value for money for residents. Officers advised that the LGA’s current view was that if the framework was useful then councils would use it, but the full consultation response was still being prepared.

·         Regarding the list of types of people who were eligible for supported housing it was explained that councils had a statutory instrument to make sure all groups of vulnerable people were covered. A broad spectrum of cover was in place and the consultation response would include information on eligible groups.

·         Members agreed that it was important that the consultation response call for local top-up funding to be implemented in an accountable way, and so should be retained by local government. Councils could also be trusted to allocate funding locally according to local need.

·         It was highlighted that some local authorities had supported housing stock and some did not, and councils were developing extra care hosing assets. It was important that the consultation response be evidence based, as there was a lot of evidence on supported housing and the subsequent need for social care.

·         Members noted that a consultation event would be held for Member councils on 11 January 2017 to help develop the LGA’s positon on the issue and inform Member councils’ concerns about the policy.

Decisions

The Community Wellbeing Board:

1)    Noted the updates and key issues on the supported housing consultation identified in the report; and

2)    Agreed that the views expressed by Members feed into the preparation of the consultation response.

Action

The Views of the CWB Board to be included in the supported housing consultation response to the Government.