In an unprecedented move, the minister sent a sternly worded letter to councils leading the way on the controversial programme telling them that they had to make it a priority or risk missing out on crucial funding.
McNulty and senior civil servant Bert Provan wrote to the 150 lead authorities to remind them that they must submit their estimates of the funding they need by 13 December.
McNulty wrote: "The time for political leadership … is now." Otherwise, he continued, there was a strong chance that the Supporting People programme would miss the deadline of 1 April imposed by the government.
In a covering letter, Provan indicated that some councils were not taking the issue as seriously as they might. He said: "There are some broad variations in the importance given to the programme among council leaders and local authority chief executives."
Supported housing providers this week confirmed that some local authorities had yet to issue their pricing schedules.
These have to be checked by providers, returned to the authorities and then sent to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister by the 13 December deadline.
Chris Hampson, head of policy and strategy at Look Ahead Housing and Care, said: "Some local authorities have not sent [the schedules] to us yet so we cannot check them. There's no way our boards will let us send off something that says how much money we will get unless they are fully checked. Bert is probably giving them a rev-up so they send them to us."
But Gwyneth Taylor, programme manager at the Local Government Association, said the "vast majority" of authorities were on target to give their information to the ODPM on time.
On the same day, the ODPM moved the cut-off point for schemes seeking pipeline funding.
Schemes that will come online by March 2006 can now bid for Supporting People pipeline funding. Previously, only schemes running by March 2004 could bid for money. The change was made a week before the deadline for pipeline funding bids on Friday.
The last-minute change was welcomed by providers but there were fears that it could be difficult to amend the bids at such short notice.
One former local authority Supporting People officer said it was last-minute changes like this that had caused local authorities to get behind schedule. She said: "The ODPM did not understand the complexity of the issue. They are making stuff up as they go along."
Source
Housing Today
No comments yet