Not necessarily foul play

The article "Government to probe Supporting People costs as it hands over an extra £400m" (24 October, page 15) infers that the (alleged) £400m increase was due to providers increasing the cost of existing schemes.

Many new schemes came online after councils estimated costs (in December 2002) at £1.4bn: this is not mentioned in the article. As the deadline for submitting claims was some 15 weeks after the estimate, perhaps the article should have questioned the logic (or motives) of the ODPM in asking for such an estimate at this time.

Additionally, the need for an £180m increase was known by the ODPM in December, but was not included in the "golden cut" figure of £1.4bn. Hence, the actual increase is only about £220m.

The £1.4bn figure was given to the ODPM by councils in December and consisted of funding agreed as of that month, plus an estimate of what would be in payment when the transitional housing benefit scheme ended in March 2003. There are many reasons why costs could have increased from December's estimate to March's actual figures.

It is not necessarily the case that something "untoward" must have happened.