Concerns arose because the 22 councils that are rated "excellent" by the CPAs will be granted greater freedom to spend their budgets. Their Supporting People budgets will no longer be ringfenced and they will no longer need to have Supporting People strategies or commissioning bodies that approve shifts of funds between services.
Bids for the government's Supporting People regime – a new fund to help councils cover the costs of providing support services for special-needs groups – were submitted last Friday. The full programme will go live in April.
One provider – housing association Novas Ouvertures Group – is so worried that it is researching the impact of the new spending regime on its services. It fears councils could divert money from services that are unpopular with the electorate, such as hostels for rough sleepers, into high-profile schemes such as care homes or mainstream healthcare.
Head of income strategy Martin D'Nello urged supported housing providers in top-rated councils to do similar risk assessments. He said: "It's still a guessing game. If you have a good relationship [with your local authority] and are part of their Supporting People strategy then you are probably OK, but I have found a lot of people aren't part of the strategies, and a lot of authorities have not produced their final strategies."
David Adams, finance director of homelessness charity St Mungo's, said it would monitor the situation.
He said: "There's the potential there for money to move away from homelessness to other areas, and we wouldn't want to see that."
However, Gwyneth Taylor, programme manager at the Local Government Association, said the new spending regime would also allow top councils to divert money from other budgets into Supporting People.
She predicted that those councils would keep their Supporting People strategies or commissioning bodies even though they are not compelled to do so under the new "freedoms and flexibilities".
Source
Housing Today
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