Funding & Alarms in Sheltered & Extracare Housing

SELHAL

June 2013

The “funding status” of sheltered & extracare housing

Exempt Accommodation Options for funding “Reimagining” alarms Advocating the cost-benefit of preventative

services for older people

What’s This About?

Reallocating unmet costs or costs met, for example, by Supporting People into the Housing Benefit income stream

Protecting tenants, providers, local authorities & statutory services

Reducing unit costs for support/social care without reducing the budget

Protecting self-funders

What’s This About?

Some Authorities are taking the view that sheltered & extracare housing isn’t “Exempt Accommodation”.

Simultaneously, many remaining SP Administering Authorities are opting not to fund it either.

Preventative services for older people are hugely cost-effective and important to the people who use them.

This applies to scheme-based services & people in “general needs” accommodation as well

Some Key Issues

Nonprofit landlord (County Council, Registered Provider*, Voluntary Organisation or Charity)

Legal interest in accommodation (ownership or lease), which….

….accommodates vulnerable people Where the service is provided by or on behalf of the

Landlord Accommodation-based & tenancy

sustainment/floating support can be Exempt Accommodation

LAs usually recover the money they pay in enhanced HB charges.

Exempt Accommodation

Under Universal Credit tenants of Exempt Accommodation will have the housing component of their benefit administered at local level much as it is now.

This can be a significant amount of money It has helped providers to reduce

dependency on SP And subsidise support costs in tenders

Exempt Accommodation

Exempt Accommodation scenarios are a good idea: For tenants: service levels maintained Providers: income levels maintained Local Authorities: recover amounts

paid through HB from the DWP A good way of funding prevention &

taking pressure off statutory services

Exempt Accommodation

What exactly is ahms/IHM?1. Ordinary housing management functions,

i.e. lettings, tenancy sign ups that are more intensively provided due to tenant need

2. Additional housing management functions due to the nature of the tenant group and the accommodation

3. Housing Management functions linked to communal areas and the provision of systems, i.e. testing of door entry, CCTV and alarms, re-provision of furniture and equipment etc.

What are “additional housing management services”/Intensive Housing Management?

Housing Corporation defined – ‘A guide to Supported Housing’ www.supportsolutions.co.uk/docs/guide_to_supported_housing.pdf

Judge Turnbull Legal Precedent Bristol CC v AW [2009] UKUT 109 (AAC) –

satisfactory test for determining support is more than minimal is to ask whether support provided likely to make a real difference to the claimant’s ability to live in the property

What makes accommodation “Exempt”

Why refer to support when defining IHM? Judge Turnbull Legal Precedent continued;

R(H) 6/08, R(H) 4/09 – ‘Support’ involves the landlord doing more than, or different from, the exercise of its ordinary property management functions

Chorley BC v IT (HB) [2009] UKUT 107 (AAC) – support not confined to counselling, advising, encouraging etc. ‘the carrying out of repairs which clearly go beyond ordinary housing management can amount to support’

IHM can therefore be sufficient to qualify as exempt accommodation!

It’s now “additional housing management services”!

Intensive Housing Management

HB usually won’t fund alarms, SP increasingly doesn’t, neither does Health & Social Care (there are exceptions!)

Hardwired systems are expensive, often unfunded, and one size doesn’t fit all

Services of all types need to be more personalised, including alarms

Staff time needs to be better targeted to where it is most needed

Reimagining Alarms

Need to increase fundable components of “alarms”

By reinventing them as proactive communication systems

Proactive communication should be the fundable norm: emergency reaction should be the last resort (but essential for those who need it)

Tenants, landlords & Commissioners should not be financially penalised

Reimagining Alarms

Why not use a telephone line (or mobile unit) that fits with the infrastructure that people already have?

Why do we spend a fortune on “one size fits all” hardwired schemes that cost money, aren’t fundable & aren’t flexible either?

A proactive communication system establishes an Exempt Accommodation situation (provided it is needed)

It puts tenants in control & allows for better targeted use of staff resources and time

Reimagining Alarms

Services for older people are preventative & cost-effective

They take financial and operational pressure off statutory services

Have providers calculated the cost-benefit/SROI?

We should be talking to colleagues in Health about this

The Cost-Benefits of Prevention

Our Contact DetailsMedia House3 Drayton RoadBirmingham B14 7LP0845 271 3080www.supportsolutions.co.ukmichael@supportsolutions.co.ukTwitter @suppsolutions www.facebook.com/SupportSolutionsLtd?sk=wall

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