You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Government considers separate rates for extra care and sheltered housing
The government is considering separate rates for sheltered housing and extra care, sector sources have been told, as the new funding model for supported housing begins to take shape.
The government announced last week that it plans for long-term supported housing to be funded through the benefit system, with a ‘sheltered rent’ used to set rates.
But representatives from the supported housing sector said civil servants have told them the government will consider changing the recently announced policy to include one band for sheltered housing and one for extra care.
Bruce Moore, chief executive of Housing & Care 21, told Inside Housing: “Extra care is slightly different and I think that’s what the previous work that we did with the select committee indicated, that probably two bands – one for general retirement housing, one for extra care – would be what we would contemplate.
“They initiated that comment when I spoke to them so they’re clearly contemplating that being the case.”
READ MORE
Extra care housing typically involves greater levels of support for residents, with care workers on site 24 hours a day. Sheltered housing, on the other hand, would typically be based around visiting support, meaning different costs.
Domini Gunn, a freelance consultant, made similar comments in a presentation at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s Eastern Conference in Cambourne last Thursday.
Ms Gunn told the conference: “Just from the conversations we’ve had in the past 24 hours, they’re just realising you can’t have a single financial model across sheltered and extra care, because they vary.”
She added that civil servants in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) didn’t find out about the government’s U-turn on applying the Local Housing Allowance cap to supported housing until two days before Theresa May made the announcement at Prime Minister’s Questions, suggesting Number 10 is driving the policy.
She said: “It was an absolute bolt out of the blue for the DCLG and DWP. They were gobsmacked that people under pensionable age lived in supported housing. They believed you could just put it all across to pension credit, because everybody was of pensionable age. You start to have to explain very basic things.”
Under the current proposals, the levels of rent would be regulated by the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), which would represent an expansion of the regulator’s remit. Currently, the HCA performs this role for ‘affordable rents’.
Ms Gunn told the session: “When I asked what capacity will be built within the HCA to do this, [civil servants] said, ‘It wouldn’t be particularly onerous, they’d only be looking at outliers.’”
The DWP declined to comment.
