Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what checks and balances are in place to ensure that the 2015–16 Disabled Facilities Grant allocation is spent in the prescribed areas.

Helping disabled people to live independently in their own homes for longer through adaptations remains a key priority for this Government. The Government will have invested just over a billion pounds into the Disabled Facilities Grant between 2011-12 and 2015-16. This has delivered around 200,000 adaptations to the homes of disabled people. The Disabled Facilities Grant is a non-ringfenced capital grant paid via the Better Care Fund to local housing authorities. Better Care Fund commissioners are required to confirm they have passed the Disabled Facilities Grant funding on to local housing authorities in their quarterly returns to NHS England. This enables local housing authorities to continue to meet their statutory duty to provide adaptations to the homes of those disabled people who qualify.