Blog 27th March 2017

Blog 27th March 2017

The recent budget included an additional £2billion for adult social care in England but it is becoming apparent that this is not only insufficient and temporary but will also come with ‘strings attached’. This is because the government will require the money to be spent on reducing the delays in hospital discharges rather than on other priorities. The government is expected to publish guidelines soon but it is reported in the ‘Local Government Chronicle’ that councils will be required to treat the money as their contribution to the Better Care Fund, spending it on the integration of health and care services and to make regular reports to government on how the money has been spent. The Care Quality Commission is also expected to assess social care arrangements as part of their inspections of hospitals.

However, the Local Government Association has pointed out that only a small proportion of their expenditure is on people who are leaving hospital; and that by 2019/20 the funding gap for adult social care will be £2.6billion while councils will only receive an additional £337million of funding. A major cause of increased costs is the implementation of the national living wage, that is welcomed by councils, but no additional funding to meet these costs has been provided.

We are holding seminars on ‘All You Want to Know about Local Authority Finance’ that will include consideration of adult social care funding. For more information or to make a booking, please click HERE

Last week the Welsh Government presented the ‘Abolition of the Right to Buy and Associated Rights (Wales) Bill’ at the National Assembly. This Bill provides for the abolition of the ‘Right to Buy’, ‘Preserved Right to Buy’ and ‘Right to Acquire’ throughout Wales. Carl Sargeant, the Secretary for Communities & Children at the Welsh Government said that:

“Our social housing is a valuable resource, but it is under considerable pressure… The Bill supports the Welsh Government’s wider aims of a more prosperous and fairer Wales, helping to tackle poverty by protecting our stock of social housing from further reduction.”

This approach contrasts markedly with that in England where the ‘Right to Buy’ has been ‘re-invigorated’ and is being extended to housing associations.

We are holding a seminar on ‘All You Want to Know about Welsh Social Housing Finance’. For more information or to make a booking please click HERE

Our publications cover a range of subjects related to public services including housing and local government. It is always good to receive feedback and we recently received the following from a customer in East Anglia who bought a copy of ‘All You Want to Know about Local Authority Housing Finance’:

“Thank you, just started a new job with a Local Authority and this book looks like just what I need to understand Housing.”

For more information about our publications or to buy a copy please click HERE

Our next seminar on ‘All You Want to Know about Service Charges in Social Housing’ will be held in Leeds on 17th May 2017.

Service charges are an integral part of landlords' work in financing value for money services and sustaining customer satisfaction. They have always been relatively complex but with increased financial challenges and legal and financial complexity there is an increased need to understand how service charging works. This seminar gives an introduction and overview to this important subject and is fully up to date with all developments.

As usual this seminar is proving popular but there are still some places available. For more information or to make a booking please click HERE