The need for speed

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has issued the final version of the interim contract. Support providers and councils should consider it in time for the contract to be agreed by December, to ensure a smooth transition in April. It is very important that providers carefully check the financial information and specification annexed to the end of the interim contract to ensure that these correctly reflect the services and funding required. The guidance issued with the final version of the contract stresses the ODPM’s wish that the contract is not substantially amended by either party.

Get the paperwork right
The ODPM seems reluctant to advise on who should be the contracting party with the council: the registered social landlord or the support provider. Whichever route is taken, it will be necessary to review the management agreements in place between RSLs and support providers to ensure they reflect the position as it actually is.

The proposed model documents, drafted by the Financial and Legal Advisory Panel, are available at www.sitra.org.uk. It is intended that these documents become the industry standard, used wherever possible to regulate the support provider-RSL relationship.

In addition, RSLs must make sure their tenancy agreements accurately reflect the split of rent, service charge and support costs to enable the tenant to claim transitional housing benefit for the support element. Once transitional housing benefit ceases and the Supporting People grant is payable, it may be necessary for a contract to be in place between the support provider and the service user to ensure the provider has a direct contractual relationship with the user and can therefore sue the user if they do not pay.

Some RSLs may also want a permanent variation to their tenancies to reflect the fact that support is a condition of the tenancy. However, RSLs should be aware that even if this is reflected in the tenancy it is unlikely a court would give an RSL possession of a property where a tenant has not paid support charges, because the charges are personal and not directly connected to the property.

RSLs involved in supported housing must consider the implications of the financial package and ensure they can implement it

Ready, set, calculate
The financial package, issued by the ODPM in June, sets out some essential elements of the Supporting People funding framework. As well as providing useful guidance and assistance to all those involved, it also raises a number of questions. For example, it implies that where a registered care home currently receives social housing management grant and consequently may be entitled to Supporting People grant, this may not continue in the long term if the home’s main activity is the provision of care.

The package also defines a “short-term” service, which will be exempt from charge. If users in receipt of such services are not liable to pay charges, then the definition of a short-term service is vital. The status of short-term services will be examined during the service reviews. If a project can’t show that support is time-limited, it may lose exemption.

All RSLs involved in supported housing must carefully consider the implications of the financial package and ensure they are in a position to implement it next year.

Monitoring matters
The Core Monitoring and Review Group, set up to develop detailed components for the monitoring and review process of Supporting People, has issued a variety of consultation documents on the monitoring and review of contracted services. The consultation document focuses on two key elements of the monitoring and review process: the quality assessment framework and performance indicators for Supporting People.