Supporting People
Five Year Strategy
Cross Authority Statement
B&NES Supporting People team is committed to ensuring the
commissioning of housing related support services that is focused
on meeting local need, that said, we recognise that people may need
to move across authority boundaries. We are working in partnership
with our WoE and neighbouring partners to identify and monitor this
movement and ensure that people are able to access appropriate
services.
Approach To Cross Authority Working
The WoE group have agreed Terms of Reference which formalise
reporting into the West of England Chief Housing Officer’s
group. Meetings take place on a bi monthly basis and cover
areas such as joint reviews of providers, quality assurance for
processes, jointly agreed appeals process, commissioning joint
training for providers and supporting people teams. In
addition agreement to regularly monitor the movement of service
users to help identify potential gaps in services has been
reached.
The WoE group has agreed a work programme. In some cases the
work identified is work which may be undertaken by one authority on
behalf of all four authorities.
Short Term - within next year
- Revise Terms of Reference including improving links to Health
and Probation
- Agree cross authority CB appeals process
- Work jointly on value for money issues
- Review each other’s ‘in house’ services
- Consider shared resources management
- Review more services jointly or on behalf of each other
- Develop common approach to long term contract
- Develop a sub regional agreement for local connection
Medium Term – two to three years
- Develop joint needs assessment
- Commission more services jointly
It is recognised that the priorities are substantial during the
next year but they reflect the demands being placed on Supporting
People Teams and sharing the workload will lead to benefits for all
teams.
The WoE group also feeds into the South West Supporting People
Regional Implementation Group, which has a draft Terms of
Reference and meets quarterly. The group has jointly commissioned a
regional report on supporting people, and has commissioned work on
Value for Money and regional benchmarking.
Access to Services
Each time a new service user starts in a service a confidential
Client Record Form is completed and returned to the Scottish Centre
for Housing Research. This covers all services except for sheltered
housing and extra care. The statistical analysis shows that a total
of 4721 people accessed services in the WoE area in 2003/4. The
table below shows that 611 people accessed services from outside
the WoE area, while 578 people who previously lived in the WoE area
accessed services elsewhere.
|
|
Accessed service in own Authority Area |
Accessed service in other WoE Authority |
Accessed service in WoE but previously outside
area |
Total accessing services in WoE |
Previously living in WoE accessing services outside
area |
|
Total
|
3908
|
202
|
611
|
4721
|
578
|
This shows that overall movement into and out of the WoE area is
fairly even, however, further examination shows that this is not
the case for some groups within the Supporting People programme for
example, single homeless people, people with alcohol and drug
problems, women at risk of domestic abuse and rough
sleepers.
Details of the movements of these groups into and out of the WoE
area are shown in the two tables below.
People moving into the WoE area by service user group and
authority area
The table below shows that movements into the area are
predominantly to services in Bristol (single homeless) and North
Somerset (drug and alcohol problems) and reflects the types of
cross authority movement which has existed for some years.
The table also shows that the majority of people moving into the
Bath & North East Somerset area are rough sleepers.
|
Primary Client Group |
Bath & North East Somerset |
Bristol |
North Somerset |
South Gloucestershire |
Grand Total |
|
Alcohol Problems |
2 |
14 |
36 |
3 |
55 |
|
Drug Problems
|
2 |
57 |
111 |
4 |
174 |
|
Rough Sleepers
|
55 |
4 |
|
|
59 |
|
Single Homeless |
9 |
137 |
1 |
|
147 |
|
Domestic Violence |
12 |
15 |
61 |
16 |
104 |
|
Grand Total
|
80 |
227 |
209 |
23 |
539 |
People moving out of the WoE area by service user group and
authority area
During 20003/2004, 393 service users from the more mobile groups
have moved out of the WoE area to access services in other areas.
The most mobile groups appear to be single homeless people
(including rough sleepers), people with drug related problems and
women fleeing domestic abuse.
An examination of the types of services accessed by more mobile
groups suggests that people mainly access direct access services
such as night shelters and women’s refuges.
South Gloucestershire has the lowest levels of cross authority
movement both in and out of the area with the other three
authorities having varying degrees of movement.
|
Primary Client Group |
Local Authority Moved From
|
|
Bath & North East Somerset |
Bristol |
North Somerset |
South Gloucestershire |
Grand Total |
|
Single Homeless |
23 |
79 |
19 |
5 |
126 |
|
Alcohol Problems
|
4 |
9 |
13 |
5 |
31 |
|
Drug Problems
|
7 |
36 |
46 |
5 |
94 |
|
Domestic Violence
|
15 |
92 |
12 |
10 |
129 |
|
People with HIV/AIDS
|
|
1 |
|
|
1 |
|
Homeless Families
|
3 |
7 |
2 |
|
12 |
|
Grand Total
|
52 |
224 |
92 |
25 |
393 |
In addition to this Bath and North East Somerset had 7 service
users with mental ill health who moved out of area for services.
This is significant to B&NES as needs analysis shows a current
under provision in this area.
Approach to Joint Commissioning
Initial assessment suggests that this pattern of movement does
not highlight a need to commission a new service as a cross
authority group. The main groups of people to move out of the
area are single homeless people and those fleeing domestic abuse.
Having looked at the type of projects accessed it is concluded that
additional local provision is unlikely to affect the pattern of
movement for these service user groups.
However a number of other areas which would benefit from joint
commissioning have been identified:
- Refugees
- People living with HIV/AIDS
- Offenders or those at risk of offending
- Black and other Minority Ethnic groups
- Chaotic/Dual Diagnosis
Where a gap in service provision has been identified for one of
these service user groups, we will:
- Identify the availability of existing services within the WoE
area and where such services are available investigate the
potential for increasing the capacity of an existing service to
accommodate cross authority needs (this approach would be taken on
the basis of maximising value for money and capacity)
- Investigate provision in neighbouring authorities outside the
WoE area and consider the opportunity for developing these
services
- Investigate the opportunity to jointly commission a new service
where there is no appropriate existing provider
Cross Authority Service for Offenders
During the implementation stage of the Supporting People
Programme it was agreed that Probation Accommodation Grant linked
to the four WoE authorities would be used to commission a cross
authority high risk offenders service. Bristol City Council
have commissioning responsibility for this service, however each
member attends the service development group for this scheme to
ensure each stakeholder interests are maintained.
Access to, and the effectiveness of this cross authority service
for service users in Bath & North East Somerset has yet to be
analysed however anecdotal evidence suggests that there is some
inequity of access, an issue which has been highlighted for
investigation and action in later sections of this
strategy.
Designated Services
ODPM has issued guidance on how cross authority services should
be identified and managed and has defined certain specialised
services and services where access needs to be from outside the
“host” local authority as “designated services”. B&NES
has three designated services: one women’s refuge and two services
for people with sensory impairment. These services cannot be
decommissioned without the permission of the secretary of
state.
Approach to working with neighbouring Authorities outside of
the WoE
As well as our WoE partners, Wiltshire is also one of Bath and
North East Somerset’s neighbouring authorities and there is a
significant amount of movement of service users (particularly young
people) between the two authorities.. Seven service users have
moved from B&NES to Wiltshire and nineteen service users have
moved from Wiltshire to B&NES.
We will aim to work more closely with Wiltshire to monitor this
movement, identify gaps in local provision, and to assess and
reduce the potential impact caused by changes to service provision
or decommissioning of services. We have already started to
build links outside of the SW regional Implementation Group and
have to date conducted a joint service review. Through discussion
with Wiltshire Supporting People Team we have agreed to formalise
our working arrangements.
