Supported housing providers fear blanket cuts to funding...

Supported housing providers fear they could face across-the-board cuts in Supporting People funding.

The government unveiled on Thursday how almost £100m of cuts to the Supporting People programme would hit each local authority area.

Now supported housing providers fear the authorities will impose blanket cuts rather than varying funding reductions according to the outcome of service reviews, which measure value for money. Many councils are behind with their service reviews.

The ODPM wrote to council chief executives, appealing to them not to make across-the-board cuts. It also announced an extra £2m in administration grant to be targeted at councils that are behind with their reviews, which have to be completed by April 2006. However, some authorities said their administration grant had been cut. Medway council in Kent said it had lost £35,000 – equal to four members of staff.

Raj Chada, executive member for housing at Camden council, said: “There has not been sufficient time to carry out service reviews that would enable us to make more reasoned, across-the-board commissioning decisions.”

Twenty-two councils were cut by more than the average of 5% but Supporting People minister Lord Jeff Rooker guaranteed that no authority would lose more than 7.5%. Some of the 22 authorities were in the group of 19 singled out for early inspection by the Audit Commission due to high costs.

Cheshire, for example, which received a ‘poor’ rating from the commission, will lose more than £1m of grant next year.

Providers in Bristol, which was also in the group receiving heavy cuts, said services might close.