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ITEM EX9

EXECUTIVE – 1 OCTOBER 2002

IMPLEMENTING THE SUPPORTING PEOPLE REFORMS

Report by Interim Director of Social Services

 

Introduction

  1. This report outlines the key issues in the implementation of the Supporting People Reforms for the County Council both as the Administering Authority and as a Social Services Authority. When the Executive considered the Supporting People programme, on 19 August 2002, it was to agree the arrangements for establishing, as the Administering Authority, a Commissioning Body. This report considers the main implications of the Supporting People Reforms for the County Council, and the processes for agreeing the Supporting People Shadow Strategy.

    2. Background

  2. The Supporting People Reforms will be implemented from 1 April 2003. They are, in essence, intended to ensure that people who are vulnerable in the community are able to receive adequate support services, and that the funding and the provision of the support services is separate from the funding and provision of accommodation. The main aspects of the Supporting People Reforms are given in Annex 1. The key points of the Reforms for the County Council are to:

    • increase significantly the range of support services that can be made available to vulnerable people;

    • increase the scope for support services, enabling services to be made available to people who are owner/occupiers or in privately rented accommodation;

    • allow for more focused and individual approach to the assessment of support needs;

    • give the responsibility for the management of Supporting People funds (described below) to Social Service Authorities.

  1. The funds for support services will be taken from existing funding streams and transferred to Social Services Authorities. It is estimated that Oxfordshire will receive between £7m. to £12m. but the final amount of the transfer to Oxfordshire will not be known until later this year, and will not finally be confirmed until November 2003. The transferred budget will be cash-limited and capped. It is not known at this stage what methodology would be in place to increase, or decrease, the allocating of Supporting People funds after Year 1.

  2. As administering authority Oxfordshire County Council administers the Supporting People Scheme on behalf of local government, the NHS and the Probation Service in Oxfordshire. It meets these obligations on the basis of Guidelines and Regulations issued by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), which is the responsible Government Department. The Supporting People Reforms will involve the County Council as Administering Authority in additional costs, not all of which may be covered by government grants. The Reforms also raise a number of issues for the County Council as a Social Services Authority. The issues for the Council include:

    • Development of I.T. systems;

    • Development of a range of partnership arrangements with agencies across the County;

    • A range of service issues for Social Services and other departments in the County Council;

    • The collection of charges for a new range of services;

    • The Development of a Strategic Plan for Supporting People.

Supporting People Strategy

  1. In many respects the Supporting People Reforms parallel the Community Care Reforms in principle if not in the nature of service provision, as they make the provision of Support Services the subject of assessment of needs rather than entitlement for a particular benefit or by virtue of living in a certain category of accommodation. The Administering Authority is required to oversee and support the production of a Shadow Strategy for the development of Supporting People services. An Executive Summary of the Shadow Strategy, which has been the subject of consultation with stakeholders, is attached as Annex 1 to this report. The full Shadow Strategy is available on request from the Contact Officer for this report. For the first year of the Reforms the Strategy is primarily concerned with:

    • The processes for assessing need and the supply of services;

    • Reviewing existing service provision;

    • Setting up the framework for the identification of priorities for Oxfordshire.

  1. It is the Government’s intention that, over time, the Supporting People Reforms will lead to changes in developments in support services for vulnerable people on the basis of assessed need for such services and the availability of services. Over time therefore, it is likely that in some areas there will be a process of planned change and development.

  2. However, it must be stressed that for the first year of the Reforms, from April 2003 onwards, there will be a steady state; the current rate of services and provision will be maintained, and the main focus will be on the Review Process. Once Reviews are completed and set against a Needs Analysis the areas that should be considered for change and development will be identified. The Shadow Strategy is therefore intended to set out core principles and process, not areas of service change. This will emerge from 2002 - 2004 onwards when we are required to revise the Shadow Strategy into something more concrete and definite.

  3. The Strategy must be approved by the Commissioning Body and submitted to ODPM by the end of October 2003. Processes are in place to ensure that District Councils, NHS and Probation Service across Oxfordshire are able to agree to the Strategy in accordance with this timetable. It is proposed that, to enable the County Council to participate effectively in these processes, the Council’s representative on the administering body, Councillor Don Seale, should have express authority to agree any matter relating to the finalisation of the Strategy on the Council’s behalf, subject if he thinks necessary to consultation with, for example, the Executive Member for Children & Young People and/or the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Council.

    4. Charging for Services

  4. The Supporting People Reforms will introduce charges for a range of services that up to now have been excluded. There is local discretion regarding the application of a charging system, but the Government is assuming that charges will be applied, and this will be taken into account in determining the final level of financial allocation for the Supporting People Services. The Council as Administering Authority, will be responsible for administering the charging system on behalf of the agencies involved in Supporting People. In this capacity, it will be administering a charging scheme for services that it itself does not provide. Charging represents a complex range of issues for district councils and the County Council in the implementation of Supporting People and it is likely to be the subject of considerable discussion between now and December 2002, when agencies in Oxfordshire have to finalise the charging policy that is to be applied.

    5. Implications and Opportunities for County Council Services

  5. The services that Supporting People funds will support from April 2003 are defined as "Support Services" as distinct from the "Care Services" provided under the NHS and Community Care Act by the Social Services Department. Support Services can, in broad terms, be understood as comprising advice, giving information, and offering practical assistance to people to ensure that they receive the services which they need or to which they are entitled. Support can, nonetheless, be intensive, by which it is meant that it is available to service users on a frequent and regular basis throughout the waking day, seven days a week.

  6. These services are distinct from social care and they do not include the provision of counselling, or personal care, such as assistance with medication, dressing, bathing or other personal care tasks. It is important that this distinction is kept in mind as Supporting People services are developed over the coming years and the relationship between support and care services will need to be understood and developed if the full potential of the Supporting People Reforms are going to be realised. There is, for example, considerable value in lower level support services in their own right, as well as the role that such services play in the broader strategy for preventing or arresting the development of higher level dependency needs that will require more intensive levels of intervention and support. This is critical for the modernisation of Social Services and the NHS, and is a significant component of the Social Services Department’s Core Aims and Objectives.

  7. The Supporting People Reforms have the potential to develop support services on a flexible and responsive basis. The range of needs and opportunities for such services in Oxfordshire will become evident as the Service Reviews take place between 2003 and 2005 and they will be set out in the emerging Strategy over that period. There are a range of key service issues however that are evident now and these are summarised below:

    • The development of ordinary accommodation (that is, accommodation not in a registered care home) for people with learning disability, a physical disability or those with mental health needs. This is a key component in the service strategies for Social Services in these areas.

    • The development of Supported Housing, including Very Supported Housing for Older People.

    • The development of support services not attached to any specific accommodation ("floating support"). This is one of the main areas of potential development in the Supporting People Reforms as these services will make available support for those who are eligible wherever they live – in their own tenancies or as owner/occupiers. It has considerable potential particularly for the support of older people and in Oxfordshire such services already make a contribution to people with a range of mental health and other needs.

    • The provision of services for homeless people and, through floating support services, assisting people in ‘move-on’ accommodation.

    • Provision of services for young people and children leaving the ‘Looked After System’. The Supporting People Team in Oxfordshire includes a dedicated post for the development of services for young people and their children leaving the ‘Looked After System’.

    • Offenders. People who have been involved in the criminal justice system can come in any of the above groups and they development of services for these people will be developed as part of developments across all client groups.

  1. However, in setting out these service issues and opportunities, a cautionary note must be entered. While the Supporting People Reforms do offer opportunities, as exemplified by the service issues summarised above, it is not at all evident that sufficient resources would be made available to allow the potential to be realised to any significant extent. Expectations are therefore likely to be disappointed. A significant issue therefore for all the authorities involved in Supporting People will be the sensitive management of expectations as the Strategy for Service Development takes shape from 2003. This can only be done in the light of the final allocation of resources to Oxfordshire which, as has already been stated, will not be known until later this year, and not finally confirmed until twelve months time. The implications of working with a cash-limited and capped budget for the continuation of current services and the development of new services are clear, and will be one of the priority issues for all those involved in Supporting People.

    2. Key Issues for the County Council

  2. There are a number of issues, summarised below, that have immediate significance for the County Council both as the Administering Authority and the Social Services Authority in the Implementation of Supporting People Reforms.

    3. Maximising the Available Resources for Oxfordshire

  3. There is still scope to maximise the final level of financial allocation to the County over the next four to six months by the use of the Transitional Housing Benefit system and the establishing of ‘pipeline’ schemes. This work is receiving priority attention from the Supporting People Team but it also has to compete with other priority areas of activity, primarily concerned with the implementation of the Scheme.

    4. Development of Partnership Work

  4. The Supporting People Reforms demand high levels of partnership work across agencies in Oxfordshire as well as within agencies. Of particular significance are the partnership working for Services for Young People and Children in the Look After system, joint work with district councils as housing authorities and as authorities with responsibilities for housing benefits, and with the NHS. The work with housing benefits is particularly significant in the maximising of resources available to the County but long term joint working arrangements with housing benefit services will have to be established for the effective administration of Supporting People services.

  5. There are already structures to support joint work in Housing, and in particular in relation to Supported Housing, and these are being developed in the light of the demands of Supporting People. Partnership work with the NHS is significant and in relation to Housing will require particular attention.

  6. The newly established Joint Partnership Unit between the County Council and the NHS in Oxfordshire will have a significant role in supporting and developing partnership work , and the Supporting People Reforms will be a significant element in that Unit’s priorities.

    7. Information Technology

  7. Supporting People Reforms require robust and up-to-date information technology systems for the effective and efficient management of charging systems, payment systems and the management of circa 400 contracts for services already in place in Oxfordshire that will come within the scope of the Supporting People services. A considerable amount of work has already been done within the Social Services Department on the development of I.T. support for Supporting People and it is clear that the state of development of I.T. within Social Services is not adequate to meet the minimum requirements of Supporting People, due to funding levels in previous years. Consequently, urgent attention has been given to the Social Services Department’s Capital Programme, and there are revenue consequences that will have to be met this financial year, and will be set out in Social Services Policy and Budget proposals for the next financial year. The allocation of funds from central government to administering authorities for I.T. development is considered to be inadequate. Nonetheless the Reforms are the responsibility of the Council to implement and the additional expense cannot be avoided.

    8. Conclusions

  8. This Paper has set out the fundamental principles of the Supporting People Reforms and the Key Issues for the Council both as Administering Authority and as a Social Services authority. While the potential is considerable, the implementation of the Reforms involve sometimes highly complex technical policy and procedural issues. There are considerable concerns over the allocation of resources for the implementation of I.T. systems. There are also concerns that the resources that will become available for services will not be sufficient for the needs of the population beyond 2003/04.

  9. As administering authority, the County Council will have particular responsibilities for the administration of the Supporting People Reforms and for the preparation and submission of the Strategy.

    10. RECOMMENDATIONS

  10. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to:

          1. note the scale and complexity of the Supporting People Reforms and in particular the impact on the County Council as administering authority and as a Social Services Authority and additional costs that the Council will have to carry;

          2. authorise the Executive Member for Community Care & Health to decide on behalf of the Council any matter relating to the approval and submission of the Supporting People Strategy, in consultation (so far as he may think necessary) with other relevant Members of the Executive.

STEPHEN WILDS
Interim Director of Social Services

Background Papers: Nil

Contact officer: Nicholas Welch, Assistant Director, Social Services Tel: 01865 815714

September 2002

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