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Removal of Supporting People ring-fence 'poses serious threat' to small providers.
The Supporting People programme's forthcoming merger into local authorities' general care & support funds poses a threat to many service providers, two experts have warned.
Domini Gunn-Peim, the Audit Commission's national lead for vulnerable communities, told delegates at the CIH conference that attempts to squeeze further efficiencies from the system would threaten the viability of small and third-sector providers.
The recession is putting increasing pressure on existing services, she added.
Some two-thirds of Supporting People contracts are due to end after this year, and Ms Gunn-Peim said there was a 'real risk' that these will not be renewed.
And Barbara Laing, managing director of housing services at Anchor Trust, said that 'funding for housing-related support for older people is under enormous threat after the removal of the ring-fence [from the Supporting People programme]'.
Ms Laing called for an improved commissioning process, arguing: 'The bureaucracy is completely disproportionate and creates an additional cost that we have to bear, and that's before you even consider the work done in central and local government in commissioning.'
The £1.6 billion housing-related support expenditure currently delivers some £2.4 billion savings in other government departments, according to a costbenefit analysis by Cap Gemini; Ms Gunn-Peim added that Cap Gemini's model 'has recently been revised and added another £1 billion to the benefits of housing-based support'.
A recent review of the Supporting People programme by the Audit Commission, which the Department for Communities & Local Government has not yet published, identified a number of concerns, Ms Gunn-Peim said: The one-size-fits-all approach to housing-related support 'doesn't work';
Some changes in recent years 'have been quite painful, particularly the changes in supported housing';
The increasingly popular switch from housing-based support to floating support – which has seen the removal of live-in wardens from many supported housing schemes – has 'brought benefits but also been damaging';
Value for money 'has improved but people still have difficulty in understanding what it means'.
'People have had to cut costs and sometimes identify that as value for money, whereas actually they are two different things,' Ms Gunn-Peim said.
Future housing-related care & support will be dominated by cross-tenure services, individual budgets and a personalisation agenda, with a focus on choice, Ms Gunn-Peim predicted.
Audit Commission inspections will switch from being process based to being outcome-based.