Section: Community Care
Supporting People Top-up Charges Criticised
A spokesperson from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has warned that charging tenants for supported housing services was 'not within the spirit of the Supporting People programme.' Local authorities were urged to take a hard line with Supporting People providers that charge vulnerable people top-up payments to meet budget shortages.
A quarterly Government report on the Supporting People programme claimed that providers from at least 67 local authority areas are charging their tenants for housing support services. The study found that the number of providers charging service users more than the subsidy paid by the commissioning council rose by 81% between 2004 and 2005.
However, the Government would find it difficult to enforce restrictions on providers because increases in rent and support costs are dictated by the tenancy agreements between associations and service users.
Health Care to Embrace Housing
The Community Health and Care Services white paper was published, making a range of proposals that include:
- Housing departments of local authorities will have to join new multi-disciplinary social care teams, which will be responsible for helping people with complex needs. These will have to be set up by 2008.
- Primary Care Trusts will have more influence in the planning system, to prevent new housing introducing unmanageable strains on health care services.
- Local authorities will have to offer tenants the chance to choose their own housing support services through individual accounts. This will need to be in place by 2009. Accounts will allow a tenant to identify the amount allocated to them and to draw against it to pay for support services.
- 3,000 people with learning disabilities will be resettled from institutionalised care to more mainstream housing.
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