A sweeping review of the government's £1.8bn fund for supported housing services is expected to propose today that the budget be frozen for next year.
The review, by accountant RSM Robson Rhodes, was commissioned when the budget for Supporting People rocketed from £1.4bn to £1.8bn in October after the government found that service costs were higher than expected (HT 24 October 2003, page 15).

Some housing experts suspected some of the money was going to services providing high levels of care, which were not intended to be part of the scheme and were previously funded by social services.

However it is not expected that the report will "name and shame" individual authorities.

The report is expected, though, to recommend that the fund no longer increase in line with inflation and that it could even be cut back in years to come.

Ken Davies, coordinator of the Supporting People Action Network, said: "There's real fear about potential for cost reductions or a freeze of expenditure and the impact of that on current services."

Fears of cuts were also fuelled by a separate ODPM questionnaire posted last month asking providers about the impact of withdrawing funding from services.

Davies said ODPM were planning to use the results to justify the size of the Supporting People fund, but service providers were nervous that the answers could be used to make cuts in the programme.

Source

Housing Today