Supporting People Programme (Hansard, 27 July 2000)

§ Mr. Raynsford

I will on Monday publish a further consultation paper on the Supporting People programme. This paper, "Decision Making and Working Arrangements", is published jointly by my Department, the Department of Health, and the Home Office, and sets out our proposals on how the scheme should work, following discussions with the consultative groups who are helping develop the detail of the scheme.

The paper sets out: The need to provide clear guidance to those authorities who are inexperienced in managing supported housing, in order to prevent undermining the existing good quality services; The need to involve the expert authorities and practitioners in the development of this guidance; That the Supporting People strategy will have to be agreed by a partnership group including Health, Probation, and in a county, all the districts, and that the county will be responsible for managing this process in two-tier authorities. Elected Members will approve the strategy; That sheltered housing tenants, and other tenants in long stay supported accommodation, have a legitimate expectation of security of tenure and continuity of support services; That administrative arrangements are very important. We propose a common system of information be held, and are exploring what IT support may be appropriate; A schematic project plan which authorities should use to drive the programme forward.

We are seeking responses to this paper by 15 October 2000.

I am also pleased to say that we will be providing £140 million of revenue funding over three years to enable authorities to implement the Supporting People programme. We are talking to the LGA and their partners about the detail of how these funds will be distributed, but intend to invite authorities to set out their first year preparation plans as a trigger for the first payments. The table sets out the funding for each of the next three years.

£ million
Year	Amount
2001–02	20
2002–03	55
2003–04	78