News
Spending review 2011/15
Sitra has produced a joint submission to the Coalition's four-year spending review with Homeless Link and the National Housing Federation (NHF). The submission calls for spending on Supporting People to be maintained and also covers Homelessness Grant, Places of Change, benefit reforms, health and capital investment.
The outcome of the spending review is due to be announced on Wednesday 20 October 2010.
Read a summary of our recommendations
Download Sitra, homeless Link and NHF submission (pdf)
Halt to ISA registration
Assessing the impact of the Emergency Budget on local authority Supporting People
Sitra are consulting with members to capture any early information on how local authority funding of Supporting People services may be impacted by the Emergency Budget, which was announced on 22 June.
We are drawing this information together to support the sector in gaining a better understanding of how the Emergency Budget announcements are being interpreted and implemented.
We would value feedback from providers. Please fill in the feedback form below and return to us at post@sitra.org
Alternatively fax the form to 020 7793 4715 or send by post to Sitra, 3rd Floor, 55 Bondway, London SW8 1SJ.
Emergency Budget 2010
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, delivered the Coalition Government?s first Budget on Tuesday 22 June. The Budget set out a five year plan to rebuild the British economy and is based on the Government?s values of responsibility, freedom and fairness. Here is the summary of the key points of relevance to the housing with care and support sector:
Reductions in spending
The Budget aims to achieve spending cuts of £32 billion per year by 2014. The Comprehensive Spending Review will be presented on 20 October. An engagement programme will launch on 24 June 2010, giving public sector workers and members of the public an opportunity to feed in their ideas on how to reduce spending while protecting the quality of public services
Spending on health is ring fenced but other Government departments face an average real cut of 25 percent over four years
There will be a two year freeze in public sector pay, except for those earning less than £21,000 a year. People earning less than £21,000 will each receive a flat pay rise of £250 in each of the two years. This may also have an impact for staff outside the public sector but with pay linked to the NJC scale.
Welfare
£11 billion of welfare reform savings will form part of the spending reductions. These will include:
Adopting the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) for the indexation of benefits, tax credits and public service pensions from April 2011. The Government feels that the CPI provides a more appropriate measure of benefit and pension recipients? inflation experiences than Retail Price Index (RPI), because it excludes the majority of housing costs faced by homeowners (many low income households are subsidised separately through Housing Benefit, and the majority of pensioners own their home outright).
Housing benefit:
- Changing the percentile of market rents used to calculate Local Housing Allowance rates, and uprating these rates by CPI from 2013-14
- Capping the maximum Local Housing Allowance payable for each property size
- Time limiting the receipt of full Housing Benefit for claimants who can be expected to look for work
- Restricting Housing Benefit for working age claimants in the social rented sector who are occupying a larger property than their household size warrants.
Disability Living Allowance:
- The Government will introduce the use of objective medical assessments for all DLA claimants from 2013-14.
Tax credits and Child Benefit:
- The Government will reduce tax credit eligibility for families with household income above £40,000 from April 2011 and make further changes to this threshold in 2012-13 to focus tax credits on lower income families. The Government will also increase the rate at which tax credits are withdrawn once household incomes rise.
- Child Benefit will be frozen for three years to help fund significant increases in the Child Tax Credit
Other benefits:
- Those with their youngest child over five will be moved onto Jobseekers Allowance rather than Income Support from 2011-12
- From April 2011 the Government will restrict eligibility to the Sure Start Maternity Grant to the first child only and abolish the Health in Pregnancy Grant from January 2011.
Savings
Government contributions to Child Trust Funds will be reduced and then stopped.
Tax
The rate of VAT will increase to 20 percent in January 2011
The Government will work in partnership with local authorities in England to freeze council tax in 2011-12
Basic rate limit for income tax will be frozen in 2013-14
The personal allowance for under 65s will be increased by £1,000 in April 2011, with the gains limited to basic rate taxpayers.
Read the full Emergency Budget 2010 document
The Queen's Speech - 25 May 2010
The Queen's Speech has shown the key priorities for the Coalition Government, the laws they plan to pass over the next year. Here are the ones relevant to housing, care and support:
Decentralism and Localism Bill
This will give councils more powers over housing and planning decisions, away from regional bodies, and will begin a review of local government finance.
Welfare Reform Bill
This will create a single welfare-to-work programme, so cutting down the existing ones, and make benefit payments more conditional on claimants' willingness to accept work.
Public Bodies Bill
This will abolish or limit a number of quangos, though the exact list is still to be decided.
Health Bill
This will aim to give health professionals and patients more say over local health decisions, increase the focus on health inequalities, cut health quangos - again not yet listed and cut some central targets.
Freedom (Great Repeal) Bill
This will give better protection around the use of CCTV cameras.
Commision on social care
It was also announced that a Commission would be appointed to consider the long-term structure of social care, mainly the funding options, and report within a year.
Reducing the Government deficit
The Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Laws, today announced £6.2bn of savings in 2010-1.
Find out more at the HM Treasury website.
Programme for government
The Coalition Government has set out its plans for the next five years.
New ministers announced
CLG ministers have been announced:
The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
Grant Shapps MP, Minister for Housing and Local Government
Bob Neill MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State
Greg Clark MP, Minister for Decentralisation
Andrew Stunell OBE MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State
Baroness Hanham CBE, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State.
Other ministerial posts include:
Nick Hurd MP, Minister for Civil Society, Cabinet Office
Andrew Lansley MP, Secretary of State for Health, Department of Health
Paul Burstow MP, Minister of State for Care Services, Department of Health
Maria Miller MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Disabled People, Department for Work and Pensions
A full list of Government ministers and their areas of responsibility can be found on the Cabinet office website
Launch of the National Care Service
The White Paper Building the National Care Service was published on March 30th 2010. Information on the launch of the paper can be found on the following website.
Building the National Care Service
TSA new regulatory framework for social housing
The Tenant Services Authority TSA has now published its new regulatory framework that social housing providers in England have to meet from 1 April 2010. The six ?national standards? form the core of the framework and these headlines have not changed from the original document offered for consultation in November last year. The national standards are:
- Tenant involvement and empowerment
- Home
- Tenancy
- Neighbourhood and community
- Value for money
- Governance and financial viability.
Landlords are required to meet outcomes against each of the standards with specific expectations for each. The TSA has deliberately focused on outcomes and has not prescribed process in an attempt to allow flexibility for providers. ?Local offers?, previously local standards, have been included so that landlords? can provide services to meet local priorities; the definition of ?local? is to be defined by providers with their tenants. As with the draft framework co-regulation between landlords, tenants and the TSA ?backbone? is key to the framework; this has now been listed as the first of ten principles underpinning the TSA approach to regulation.
The deadline for annual reports has moved from 1 July to 1 October, the first being due this year. To view the new TSA standards, visit their website at www.tenantservicesauthority.org
CQC standards of care
From April 2010 new essential standards of quality and safety are being introduced gradually across all health and adult social care services in England. The Care Quality Commission (CQC), the new independent regulator of health and adult social care, will license providers if they meet essential standards and constantly monitor them as part of a new, more dynamic system of regulation which places the views and experiences of people who use services at its centre.
NHS trusts are the first to come into the new system starting 1 April this year. they will be followed in October by all providers of social care for people over 18 years of age and by providers of independent healthcare. Over the coming two years the system will include all primary care and dentists too.
For more information go to www.cqc.org.uk
QAF refresh
The QAF Refresh exercise was completed in February 2009. The new QAF documents, the Guidance, QAF, Scoring proforma and the QAF summary sheet can be found on spkweb.
