Housing and Supported Living

Housing Strategies

Why We Have a Strategy  

The White Paper, Valuing People 2001 raised the profile of the needs of people with learning difficulties. It emphasises the need to do more to improve the lives of people with learning difficulties and their families. Valuing People sets out a programme of change in the provision of housing within a context of reform aimed at achieving greater independence, choice and inclusion for people with learning difficulties. A major housing objective is to ‘enable people with learning disabilities and their families to have greater choice and control over where and how they live’.   Bath and North East Somerset Council, along with all other councils in England  and  Wales, was required to involve key stakeholders in developing a strategy by the end of March 2003.  Housing and support providers and carers’ groups were represented on a working group established to develop the strategy.

Key Local Issues

There is a commitment to developing a range of accommodation and support options for people with a variety of needs, from small scale care homes to supported living. However, there are a number of key local issues to be addressed:  

• Bath and North East Somerset has a higher than average number of people in residential and nursing home care and a lower than average number of people being supported to live at home than other local authorities of a similar size
• The costs of placements in both residential and nursing homes are above the average of comparator local authorities
• The commissioning pattern is focused on spot-purchasing which impedes the local authority’s ability to develop economies of scale and reduced revenue costs
• There are a number of local organisations providing good quality nursing, residential care and supported living to people with low to medium support needs. There is far less of a focus on the needs of people with challenging behaviour and complex needs, which supports a trend toward out-of-area placements for people in these groups
• The local accommodation options for people whose behaviour challenges local services are severely limited, partly due to the lack of a framework to prevent and manage crisis in services
• Particular local market issues such as high employment are affecting the recruitment and retention of social care staff
• There is a growing gap between the need for and supply of affordable housing
• The priority groups identified are young people in transition from children to adult services, people living out-of-area and people with a learning difficulty who live with older carers
• Disabled Facilities Grants are a practical solution for some people but not others, due to planning restrictions and high costs

Resources 

Resources available to help the Council and its partners deliver the Housing and Support Strategy include:  

• £785,815 generated from Supporting People Grant for Learning Difficulty services.  Despite the bid for pipeline funding for new schemes being refused, we will continue to explore the potential for further funding under Supporting People
• The initial estimated costs required to develop supported living is in the region of £6 million over a three year period. This outstrips our current residential care budget of £3million per year 
• A six-year, £18 million programme to provide 600 new units of affordable housing by March 2005 is on target. Some people’s independent living needs can be met through this. 
• We will continue to explore alternative funding streams in order to increase both capital and revenue income.

Priorities for Action  

The underlying principles and objectives of this strategy are as follows:  

• To enable people with learning disabilities and their families to have greater choice and control over where and how they live by 2004 
• To ensure that all service-users are in receipt of their full entitlement to welfare benefits by June 2004  
• To re-direct Supporting People revenue from registered care to independent living by April 2005 
• To establish a transparent approach to commissioning housing and support services by April 2004
• To maximise available funding and explore alternative streams by April 2004
• To make information on housing and support options available in appropriate accessible formats by June 2004
• To develop a short-term break or respite facility for people with challenging behaviour within Bath  and North East Somerset by 2004 
• Ensure all future provision of housing and supported living is commissioned on the basis of researched evidence of good practice by June 2005