Independent Living Support (ILS) Supported Housing Service

We consulted on a proposal to end the funding that Adult Social Care (ASC) provides to two supported housing providers and develop a new Community Living Network (CLN) provided by the council’s Enablement Team in its place.

The funding is used to provide support services to 82 people living in 13 non-council supported housing schemes. These services support service users who have a learning difficulty and/or a mental health difficulty, who, in most cases, do not meet the council’s threshold for care and support.

As part of the consultation the council wanted to gauge the support for the proposal to end the funding to the support providers and the impact on service users and stakeholders on developing a new CLN in its place.

Council officers ensured that the service users had every opportunity to present their views via seven meetings with support workers or an advocate, completing an online survey on their own or with support and welcoming comments from their carers and anyone connected with their support.

The support providers had four meetings with the council and the five Landlords each had an individual meeting, so their views could be gauged.  The meetings were well attended, and we believe that the vast majority of affected service users put forward their views.

We received 72 responses to the survey:

• 63% were from service users living in the schemes or were completed on their behalf
• 23% were from the support provider staff
• 11% were from members of the public

Over half of the respondents were people with disabilities, with 58% identifying as having a mental health difficulty.

86% of respondents disagreed with the proposals. Most people were worried about the detrimental impact that the proposals might have on the service users’ mental health. There was some support for reducing the support hours and looking at other ways of funding the service. A petition was set up on change.org to stop the changes and representations were received from an Elected Member, the local MP and NHS professionals.

Towards the end of the consultation the two support providers offered an alternative proposal to the council. They suggested reducing the number of properties within the schemes and a reduction in the hours of support they provided. They agreed to reduce the communal charges levied on service users in some schemes and to consider the introduction of assured shorthold tenancies for all service users.

The council met with the support providers and considered their new proposals. It was agreed that they were viable. A decision to implement the alternative model of support proposed by the support providers was agreed by the Assistant City Mayor – Adult Social Care and Wellbeing on 8 March 2019, effective from 1 of April 2019

The council will monitor the efficacy of the new proposals through the contract monitoring process.