Liverpool, Manchester and Essex – thought to be among the six councils that received the largest increase in grant last year – will be inspected. Enfield, Nottingham and Coventry, which all have the highest Supporting People unit costs in their regions, are also down for inspection. In total, 37 councils will be inspected in 2004/5.
The move follows the release last month of a government report that found just six councils accounted for £70m of the £400m funding rise for Supporting People between February and October last year (HT 20 February, page 18).
Ian Gilders, Supporting People manager at West Berkshire, which received a 119% increase in funding to £6.2m last year – the highest percentage increase in the country – welcomed his council's inspection. He said it had high unit costs because it provided high-level care for people with learning disabilities after several local hospitals closed.
He said: "We feel we can justify our budget and we are happy to talk to inspectors as long as inspections are approached with an open mind. We have acted within the regulations."
He said the 2.5% that government has asked all councils to save would come from reviews of the funding needs of individual services.
Enfield, the council with the most expensive unit costs, welcomed the review but warned the inspectors against jumping to conclusions.
Supporting People project manager Pauline Kettless said: "The Audit Commission must not jump on authorities because it thinks we have shunted costs [from social services to Supporting People]. We have a lot of private mental health schemes. A lot of them were funded by housing benefit to quite a high cost."
An Audit Commission spokesman said the inspections for the high cost authorities would be no different from ordinary inspections, which also look at value for money.
Source
Housing Today
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