Councils and RSLs braced to get bad news on Supporting People

The ODPM was due to announce the cuts, expected to be as high as 7.5% for some councils, on Thursday. The government is aiming to reduce the cost of the care services funding regime to £1.7bn in 2005/6.

It cost £1.8bn this year.

Neil Litherland, director of housing at Camden council, said: “If we receive large cuts we could be forced to take rash measures and cut some of the critical services that we supply.

“There is also only so much cost-effective savings that we, and our providers, can make. We would try to make cuts to non-essential services where possible but contracts could make this difficult.”

Housing associations that offer core Supporting People services such as drug rehabilitation and managing hostels are preparing for the worst.

Peter Walters, chief executive at English Churches Group, said recently that his organisation was reviewing pay increases for staff because of the impending cuts (HT 29 October, page 20).

The funding announcement was preceded by a meeting on Wednesday between regeneration minister Lord Jeff Rooker and Jim Coulter and Richard Clark of the National Housing Federation.

If we receive large cuts we could be forced to take rash measures and cut some critical services

Neil Litherland, Camden council

The NHF representatives pressed Rooker, who has ministerial responsibility for Supporting People, over uncertainty created by the delay in a detailed announcement of allocations; the review processes used by some administering authorities; and the need to secure new capital programmes.

However, a leaked report on a possible future funding framework for Supporting People caused confusion on Wednesday.

The study, carried out by research company Matrix on behalf of the ODPM, is understood to show that if funding were assessed through a needs-based formula, there could be huge variations in the sums councils receive.

For example, that Camden could face a £25.5m cut to its funding while Birmingham were given a £12.2m increase.

The government has stressed however, that the cuts for 2005/6 would be capped at 7.5%.