Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the number of housing association tenants with disabilities or long term illness living in care home residencies while their house is adapted to meet their needs.

This Government is committed to helping older and disabled people to live independently and safely at home.

In order to comply with the Social Housing Regulator's Home Standard, housing associations need to ensure they have a prudent, planned approach to repairs and maintenance of homes, including adaptations. Registered providers must co-operate with relevant organisations to provide an adaptations service that meets tenants’ needs.

Housing associations are independent bodies and it is up to their boards to oversee business and operational matters including funding of repairs and adaptations. The board needs to ensure that their organisation is open and accountable on how it meets its objectives and must meet the standards set by the social housing regulator.

The Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) is a Government funded grant that is available to eligible tenants in housing association properties. The grant can contribute towards meeting the cost of adapting an older or disabled person’s property. The Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 states that local authorities should approve or decline an application for a DFG as soon as reasonably practicable (and not later than with six months of being made). It is expected that local authorities should complete the works in a timely manner.

Since 2012-13, the Government has invested over £1.6 billion into the DFG, providing around 250,000 adaptations by the end of the 2017-18 financial year. In the 2015 Spending Review, the DFG received year-on-year increases and will more than double from £220 million in 2015-16 to over £500 million by 2020.

Liverpool was given £6,437,470 from the original DFG budget of £431 million for 2017-18. It will also be allocated a share of funding from the additional £42 million for the grant announced in Budget 2017, which will take the total amount to over £7 million. This additional funding is going to be paid out in January 2018.