Hostels and refuges may close, as cuts follow closely on slashed Supporting People funding

Supported housing providers in Wales are bracing themselves for swingeing cuts after a £3m hole was discovered in the Welsh assembly’s budget for the sector.

The Supporting People revenue grant, which funds services such as hostels for homeless people and refuges for women fleeing domestic violence, has been overspent by £3m. Services such as mental health and learning disability schemes are funded from a different Supporting People budget in Wales.

Ministers and officials at the Welsh assembly government are deciding how to recoup the money and could make an announcement in the next few days. A variety of cuts have been proposed, including cutting 10% from the funding for direct access services, such as hostels, and 5% from supported housing.

The news of the overspend comes just a few months after the assembly indicated it was likely to slash 9.7% from its Supporting People budget – far more than the 7.5% cuts made in England and 6.4% cuts in Scotland (HT 19 November 2004, page 8).

The cuts could force some organisations to close schemes. Joy Kent, director of supported housing trade body Cymorth Cymru, said the organisation was lobbying for the assembly to use some of the £120m of contingency funding it has across its whole budget to plug the gap.

She said: “We’ve already shown that supported housing makes a massive contribution to areas such as health and crime prevention, and cuts undermine that.”

Tai Hafan, a supported housing group specialising in services for women such as refuges, would be hit especially hard. Chief executive Cathy Davies said it would lose 25% to 30% of revenue if all cuts went ahead. She added: “We won’t be able to find money from other services to subsidise that extent of loss.”

The overspend is believed to have occurred because of an error in the formula used to work out demand for the fund. The error was discovered and contingency funding put in place. However, it was not sufficient to fill the gap.

No assembly representatives were available for comment.

Source

Housing Today