‘Why I’m determined to break the silos between housing and social care’ – an interview with the new president of ADASS

Housing association Bromford probably summed up the status quo best in a blog in which it bemoaned that housing and social care professionals (along with those working in health and education) “go about their business largely in isolation – they congregate at conferences (separately), they lobby politicians (separately), they communicate their ‘message’ (separately)”.

While there are some isolated examples of good practice, by and large this silo approach has been the norm – prompting little more than exasperated hand-wringing at housing conferences.

All that, however, might be about to change. Step forward Julie Ogley, who earlier this year took over one of the most high-profile roles in social care as president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS).

From the get-go she has positioned herself as a silo buster, stating clearly that she wants to increase joint working between social care and housing professionals – perhaps prompted by her own job, which straddles both disciplines, as director of social care, health and housing at Central Bedfordshire Council.

After all, in her inaugural speech at ADASS’ spring seminar, Ms Ogley told colleagues that she thinks the relationship with housing is as important as connections with the health service.

In the absence of the long-delayed Social Care Green Paper, she said: “I would encourage colleagues nationally and locally to focus on housing and accommodation – lifetime homes, homes for people with care and support needs and their carers or PAs, a safe home for people who have been in an abusive relationship, or just a roof over their head for some people.”

She stated that people working in social care should play an active role in making sure that “councils in their local plans are focusing on the right type of housing for their current and future populations”.

“It takes time and evidence to influence local plans, but if we could have a better offer for older people so that they moved from their large houses – think about the impact this would have,” she added.

On the back of this early mission statement, Inside Housing meets Ms Ogley at ADASS’ Westminster office to find out why she is so driven to join the dots – and what is likely to happen as a result.

Ms Ogley’s background is in social work but right at the start of her career she realised the importance of housing. Originally from Barnsley, she did a social work degree at the University of Hull and then got a job as a social worker with the council. A two-tier authority, social services sat in the county council and housing with the city council.

Ms Ogley worked in an office “in the middle of a set of terrible maisonettes that were in awful condition”.

“They would move all the ladies who had separated from their husbands with young children [into the homes],” she says. “And lo and behold, about half a mile away, across a busy road, was some fairly run-down Victorian housing and that was where probation would house people who had come out of prison for assaulting children. It is looking back that it seems so obvious a problem. But we didn’t think in that systemic way in those days.”

In her early career she worked in county councils – but it was when she moved to Wirral Council in 2000 as an assistant director for older people’s services that she says she got the chance “to know housing colleagues and began to think of ways we could work across that divide”.

For the past 10 years, Ms Ogley has worked at Central Bedfordshire Council with responsibility for both housing and social care. “I deliberately went there because of that housing interface,” she says.

At Central Bedfordshire, her thinking process moved beyond simply connecting frontline housing professionals and social workers. “In my role I have been in the public subsidy or support area of housing, but actually what I have learned from my planning colleagues is that you need to understand how the whole housing market works.”

A study by Central Bedfordshire Council into the delivery of housing for older people provides an example of why social care professionals might benefit from working more closely with housing and planning colleagues. The report predicts that the number of people over 65 will rise from 17.2% of the population in 2015 to 23.3% in 2035 (with those over 85 in Central Bedfordshire jumping from 5,400 in 2015 to 13,700 by 2035).

“In my role I have been in the public subsidy or support area of housing, but actually what I have learned from my planning colleagues is that you need to understand how the whole housing market works”

It adds that suitable housing can “mitigate the effects of some of the health problems associated with ageing – this can also reduce cost pressures on public services like health and social care”.

As a result of its predictions, Central Bedfordshire intervened directly in the market, building a number of extra care housing schemes.

“The council understands that, actually, if you get people living in the right sort of accommodation they are happier and healthier but it is also less [pressure] on the adult social care budget and frees up family housing,” Ms Ogley explains.

And it is not just specialist housing that is important to deliver improvements in social care, she adds. “Quite often people think I am just going to talk about specialist housing, so extra care schemes or housing for adults with a learning disability. Actually, I’m as interested in [delivering] housing that people can afford – so [housing for] careworkers, other sorts of public sector workers that are not paid an awful lot.”

This, she says, has an impact on the ability to deliver social care – or at least for staff and carers to live locally.

“I know in Central Bedfordshire in one town there was only something like three private rented sector properties that became available within the Local Housing Allowance. So where do we expect care workers to live? We have to think about affordable housing.”