I was recently contacted by a resident of sheltered housing scheme in my ward. He had been told that it was very likely that there would be stringent cuts to supporting services for people living in sheltered housing including the withdrawal of emergency pull cord systems. What is actually happening is nothing less that the removal of any distinction between those living on their own and those living in sheltered accommodation with warden supervision.

The budget for support services for sheltered housing is expected to be £1.3 million. Barnet’s Tory administration is cutting this by 75% (a whopping £950.000). This will affect 1500 tenants in 59 locations.

This expenditure pays the costs of employing sheltered housing wardens and similar staff providing support for tenants, and the costs of the alarm systems provided in sheltered housing. So you can imagine with this level of cut there won’t be much left.

The justification for this makes interesting reading. Below are the reasons from the councils briefing paper (in italics) and my response (normal type).

The Case for Change

• Expenditure on sheltered housing support services is double the amount spent by the council on support services for other older people living in Barnet, although sheltered housing tenants make up just 2% of Barnet people aged over 60.

Isn’t that the point of sheltered housing? To provide a higher level of support. Surely it’s a lot cheaper that putting people in nursing homes?

• Many people in sheltered housing have very low support needs and no particular need for a support service based where they live. The councils’ preferred system of support for people with low support needs is “floating support”, which offers visiting support wherever people are living. This system offers a more efficient and flexible way of delivering support to those who need it

If this is the case then the fault is with the selection process for choosing who gets a place in a sheltered housing scheme. Surely we should be allocating places to those who need the increased level of support but don’t require full nursing care.

• Almost all support services in sheltered housing are provided by the organisations that own and manage the housing. Housing and support are different kinds of business and it would be better to commission them separately. It is also inefficient for the Council to manage a large number of small-scale contracts for identical kinds of service for sheltered housing tenants

This should not be about making life easy for the bean counters. It is the old big is beautiful argument. The focus must be on quality of service not just how efficiently it can be procured.

• All sheltered housing tenants are liable for weekly charges for their support services whether or not they use the services. The council pays the charges for tenants who cannot afford them but 20% of tenants have to pay the charges from their personal income

People should be in sheltered housing because they need it. If they don’t need the care then why are they there?

• The Council uses two very different systems of providing financial help for people who have to pay weekly charges for alarm services. The system used for sheltered housing takes no account of people’s need for the service, unlike the system used for all other Barnet residents applying for help with alarm charges It would be fairer to operate a single system that takes account of need and ignores where the service user is living.

Note the justification for removal of the difference between sheltered housing and normal housing.

• The Council is in the position of needing to set its 2009/10 budget within a highly challenging financial context. There is no good evidence to support the present distribution of funding for support services for older people. A reduction in funding would enable other services for older people in Barnet to be maintained.

Rubbish! There are plenty of other places where cuts could be made that would not affect front line services. Not paying senior officers more that the Vice-President of the USA would be a start!

This cut is aimed at some of those least able to cope. It is also going to end up costing more in the long run as people who are unable to live independently but could live in sheltered housing will now end up in nursing homes.