Briefings and responses

The ability of councils to provide the support needed to all carers, is undermined by the funding to councils and the impact on social care budgets, coupled with increasing demands and increasing costs. We are calling on the Government to use the upcoming Spending Review to fund the £3.1 billion shortfall facing children’s services by 2024/25.

The LGA broadly welcomes the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill, which would make provision about the regulation of supported exempt accommodation; make provision about local authority oversight of, and enforcement powers relating to, the provision of supported exempt accommodation; and for connected purposes.

While we welcome the measures in the Bill, we have significant concerns about the capacity of councils’ housing teams to undertake all of the new responsibilities that are proposed. It will be vital for Government to fully fund the measures for them to be effective.

As we highlighted to the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, councils have been concerned for some time now that a minority of exempt accommodation providers operating across the country fall short in providing good quality, personalised support for people in vulnerable circumstances.

The LGA wants to see a locally-led fully funded oversight and enforcement regime for exempt accommodation within a strengthened national regulatory framework. This should include a requirement for all exempt accommodation providers to be Registered Providers. This will ensure that councils’ responses can be tailored to the challenges they face and the contexts of local housing markets and demand.

Councils have a responsibility to support, safeguard, care for and house vulnerable members of their community. The provision of supported housing is vital to ensuring vulnerable people live in suitable homes that meet their personal and all-round housing, health and care needs.

For the sector to survive, the emergency financial support packages currently available must not end on a ‘cliff edge’ and longer-term financial support packages suitable for this sector must be considered for the end of 2020 and running into 2021.

Councils in England currently look after 69,500 children who are unable to live with their birth parents, a figure that has increased by just under 2,500 over the past three years.

Councils share the Government’s ambition of making sure every child with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) gets the high-quality support that they need. Reforms to the SEND system, set out in the Children and Families Act 2014 have, however, failed to achieve the goal of improving provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

In our response to the original consultation we raised serious concerns that the proposals could have unintended consequences, for example affecting councils’ ability to invest in infrastructure and housing via wholly owned companies and have serious impacts on some councils’ revenue budgets.