Supporting People on a small scale

Preparing for Supporting People, like everyone else, we found it extremely hard to identify the items that would come under this heading because they seemed to be the sort of things that we had been providing in any case, for years, as part of the aims and ethos of our association. Difficult though it was to comply, we nevertheless did it, in as sensitive a way as possible, but it was extremely hard to put a price on this support that we had been giving free over such a long period of time.

As experienced by Marks, variations on our original submission were advised promptly but it has taken five months or so to effect reconciliations. We keep our rents low and although we cannot really afford to wait while the authority plays catch-up, we will strongly resist putting up our rents.

The performance monitoring aspect is worse still. We, too, are not geared up with the latest technology and it is taking hours and hours of time for us to get to grips with filling in a paper copy that really says very little when all is said and done. We have carefully prepared policies in place covering equal opportunities, complaints, confidentiality, health and safety, financial procedures and so on – and we are willing to make all of these available. Instead, we have to fill in these very user-unfriendly forms.

Our set-up works because caring people give their time and energies, free, in supporting our residents, our house manager and each other. The straw that breaks the back, however, is this burden of bureaucracy.

I predict that in less than 10 years' time, "small" will not be beautiful any more because people of goodwill will be worn down, and replacements may well not want to do this on a unpaid basis. Rents of course would then escalate but, more importantly, a very vital dimension will be lost – the desire to help others and support them, in friendship, will have been totally destroyed.