Supported Housing

Debate between Neil Coyle and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effect of Government proposals on supported housing.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I thank hon. Members for their attendance. I formally congratulate the Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Delivery on her newish role—this is the first chance I have had to do it publicly.

We are here to talk about the effect of Government proposals on supported housing. Once again, this is a Government targeting a significantly disadvantaged group with ill-thought-through plans that will have long-term negative cost effects and which have already had a negative effect on the provision and supply of supported accommodation. In a September 2015 Department for Work and Pensions release, the then Secretary of State stated:

“Supported housing supports hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable people across the country”.

[Interruption.]

Some of them are on crutches. The Department’s definition of vulnerable people covers older people, homeless people, people fleeing domestic violence, people struggling to overcome drug and alcohol addictions, and disabled people, including many people with mental health conditions and learning disabilities. Those are the people who use, and need, supported accommodation.

In 2010, the Department for Work and Pensions published a report that suggested that of people living in supported accommodation 25% had a learning disability, 42% had a severe disability or a physical disability, 17% were recovering from addiction, 5% had a significant mental health problem and 5% were fleeing domestic violence. We must ask ourselves why any Government would choose to make life more difficult or more uncertain for those groups of people. We are talking about a truly shabby policy on top of policies since 2010 that have significantly targeted, again and again, disabled people and other disadvantaged groups with cut upon cut. I will outline what the Government say they intend to do and why so many organisations and people have significant concerns.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I am sure that my hon. Friend will remember that only weeks ago we had a debate on homelessness in the House of Commons, and a motion was passed. I am interested to know how that motion can be implemented when there is a situation like this with regard to homelessness, particularly with capping going on. That is surely a contradiction in terms.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Coyle]

Location is important, and I will come on to discuss where needs are best met. For too many of the people directly affected, that has been in NHS accommodation, which has been inappropriate and at far greater expense, but the Government’s plans do not address that.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I do not think we should let the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) get away with what she said about passing responsibility on to local authorities. That is a cop-out. Local authorities can do the work with Government resources but if they are not given those resources all that happens is that they get the blame and the public suffer.

[Neil Coyle]

It is the individuals who need the accommodation who suffer, and also the taxpayer in the longer term, for reasons I will come on to.

I want to give some national and local statistics. It is estimated by the House of Commons Library, which I thank for the figures, that there are 651,000 supported accommodation places across the country. That is not a massive number, as accommodation goes. Across my borough of Southwark, there are 1,200 places in a range of schemes.

I want to flesh out a bit more who is affected, by citing a couple of anonymised case studies from AmicusHorizon. The first is Mrs W, who is disabled and lives on her own in sheltered accommodation. She has no close family, and has mobility problems, a visual impairment and a learning disability. That is who the Government are targeting. She lives in sheltered housing, which means that she is in an accessible and supportive community with unobtrusive support from a scheme manager who operates as a kind of warden. That support enables her to live independently. Her combined rent and applicable service charge is £123.10, which is £57.44 more than the applicable LHA rate.

The second case study is that of Mrs P, who lives in an extra care scheme. She lives on her own and does not have contact with her children. She moved to the scheme after a spell in hospital because of a fall. In the accommodation her health has improved and the staff provide support to ensure that she stays well and is able to get out more and attend social activities. Without that support she would be in residential accommodation at potentially higher cost. Her combined rent and applicable service charge is £174.71, which is £64.04 more than the applicable LHA rate. Golden Lane Housing, which is a Mencap subsidiary, provides homes for people with very complex needs in my constituency, including people with learning disabilities. I visited its accommodation in Rotherhithe, and the people being supported there do not just have severe learning disabilities; they also have communication impairment. One was deaf and could not speak, and that is who the Government are targeting with the change. The wraparound support that those people need is absolutely essential, and by its very nature it is more expensive than routine housing costs.

St Mungo’s is another brilliant local provider of emergency and supported housing in Southwark. It helps people out of homelessness, and helps people with high support needs. In its client group, as it calls them, in Southwark, 53% have slept rough; 73% have mental health needs; 44% have a significant physical health condition; and 55% have or have had a substance misuse problem. As well as providing shelter for those people, St Mungo’s runs workshops that improve life skills and help many residents to avoid more intensive NHS services and to stay out of the criminal justice system.

The Government’s plans from last year and from before that simply do not take into account the broader benefits of supported housing. First, there is the social benefit. Supported housing gives people who would otherwise struggle to live independently control and choice over their lives while allowing them to receive essential support. There is the human, personal benefit of supported housing. There is also a financial benefit. The cost of supporting people in specialist supported housing can be half the gross cost of residential care placements. Lifeways estimates that the average net saving achieved by moving from residential care to supported accommodation is at least £185 a week.

There is a clear cost saving available if we get the policy right, but the Government have failed to do that. The lack of specialist supported housing is pushing people with learning disabilities, dementia and a range of conditions into more expensive residential care, including hospitals. The National Housing Federation states that stable and certain funding for supported homes and services reduces pressure on public services such as the NHS, saving the taxpayer around £3.5 billion a year. That is the potential saving from getting this right.

I thank all the organisations that have given me briefings or meetings on the issue, including the National Housing Federation, Golden Lane Housing, Lifeways, AmicusHorizon, the London Borough of Southwark, St Mungo’s, the Salvation Army, which I think is here today, and London Councils. Their involvement and all the supported accommodation that they provide has built up in the years following the extensive shift in public policy to enable disabled people to live more independently. In particular, that shift was meant to support disabled people to live outside NHS accommodation and residential care. That reflects a demographic shift, and we need to be aware that we have an older disabled population. We should celebrate the fact that more young disabled people are surviving into adulthood, but that comes at a cost. They need more support. In Southwark, the fastest growing cost group to social services is 18-year-olds with learning disabilities. Mencap estimates that that group alone requires the provision of 1,000 new places a year in supported accommodation.

There are some worrying statistics on how things will be directly affected by the Government’s proposals. Golden Lane Housing has suggested that 82% of local authorities agree that there is a shortage of supported housing for people with a learning disability. More worryingly, 41% of current schemes could be at risk of closure if the Government do not shift their plans. Some 80% of schemes due to be built to support that group would cease and not go ahead, leaving many disadvantaged people unable to access the homes and support they need and directly undermining Government efforts to provide supported housing in the community as part of the Transforming Care programme.

All of that has been put at risk by the mess, limbo and confusion from Government on the issue. There has been a clear lack of co-ordination across Government, with a rush to continue the squeeze on budgets without thinking more strategically or for the longer term. In September, the new Secretary of State said:

“The Government values the role supported housing plays and is committed to protecting and boosting the supply of supported housing”.

However, DWP policies have put existing and planned supported accommodation at risk. For example, Golden Lane Housing had to postpone a £100 million five-year bond to provide supported housing. It would not have relied on a penny of public funding. It is also likely to have to turn down a £500,000 grant from the Homes and Communities Agency it applied for under the care and specialised support initiative to develop new homes. Accommodation has been put at risk as a direct result of the Government’s confusion on the issue.

Unable to meet higher needs, the executive director of operations at AmicusHorizon said:

“The impact of the cap will be more than £1 million of annual rent and service income being put at risk. It will also have a significant impact on our residents. None more so than those living in extra care schemes. We’ve calculated they will have to fund an average shortfall of £41.00 per week”.

The Government have said that

“from 2019/20 core rent and service charges will be funded through Housing Benefit or Universal Credit up to the level of the applicable LHA rate…For costs above the level of the LHA rate, Government will devolve in England an amount of funding for disbursement locally.”

Very little detail has been provided, and there is an ongoing consultation on the issue.

Lifeways is based in my constituency and provides accommodation for more than 5,000 people with learning disabilities across the country. It has commented on the uncertainty that the Government have created and the lack of clarity in the funding model:

“The current uncertainty about the future funding of specialist supported housing is putting at risk our ability to deliver high quality, permanent homes in local communities...The new funding model currently been consulted on needs to ensure that the money devolved is sufficient and gets passed on to the right people. People with learning disabilities must not be overlooked.”