Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's policy paper People at the Heart of Care: adult social care reform, published on 1 December 2021, for what reason the Disabled Facilities Grants consultations on (a) increasing the amount that a grant can pay for an individual adaptation, (b) the way that such Grant funding is allocated to local authorities, and (c) reforming the means test underpinning those Grants were not undertaken in 2022..

The priorities for this Government are making sure that people have access to the right care, in the right place, at the right time. This has meant a need to review certain policy areas to focus on these priorities. Next Steps to put People at the Heart of Care announced a further £102 million, £50 million in 2023/24 and £52 million in 2024/25, for housing adaptation support. This is in addition to the £573 million per year which is already available for the Disabled Facilities Grant. This increase will enable local areas to fund supplementary services that are agile and help people stay independent, support hospital discharge, and make minor adaptations.

Local areas already have discretion on how they manage the grant, for example, they can increase the cap on a case-by-case basis or in line with a locally published housing assistance policy. They can also choose to waive the means test for grants costing under a certain amount. As with all aspects of the Disabled Facilities Grants, Government will continue to keep these reforms under review.