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Last updated: 25 January 2010
25 January 2010
The Supporting People Programme has been one of the most significant programmes to support independent living. This is particularly true for those groups identified as most at risk of social exclusion - care leavers, ex-offenders, mental health service users and adults with learning disabilities.
The third sector has worked with local authorities, Health and the Probation Service to deliver effective and innovative ways of ensuring that the most vulnerable in society receive the support they need to achieve the two core foundations of normal, everyday life – a home and a job.
The Office of the Third Sector and the Social Exclusion Task Force have examined four examples of effective partnership working to see what worked best, what has been learned so far, and where the opportunities are now that there is greater flexibility on how the money can be spent have been lifted.
We hope it will be useful to local authorities commissioning housing support services for vulnerable groups, with an eye to achieving multiple outcomes for individuals. We hope the examples it contains will inform local authorities’ thinking about provision for excluded groups, and also about their Duty to Involve, looked at as part of the Comprehensive Area Assessment.
We also hope that Supporting People providers will be able to identify ways of working and developing strategic relationships that will strengthen their connections with local authorities, as well as the wider third sector who may be able to provide complementary services, enhancing the benefits and opportunities for the service user.
1. Both the local authority and the service provider need to be rigorous when demonstrating the value of investing in these services. Evidence of the financial savings gained from preventative services will need to be gathered and communicated - using the Office of the Third Sector’s social return on investment model, CLG's Supporting People financial benefits model or a mutually agreed local version. One authority examined has commissioned the local university to build in local data to the CLG model.
2. Supporting People is about preventative services. By investing in these services, the local authority will avoid additional expenditure of greater value in the future, allowing resources to be used elsewhere. The value of investing at an early stage to save money later needs to be communicated at the highest levels of the authority and providers should be working with councillors, portfolio holders and directors of services to recognise this.
3. It is important for providers to invest in understanding and influencing the local strategic objectives behind commissioning services. They need to be actively building relationships with statutory partners to understand their needs. For small providers this may mean developing informal relationships with other providers to share information. Providers can then work in partnership to represent the each other on local strategic partnerships or other strategic boards.
4. The housing sector needs to look beyond its own ranks and engage with the wider third sector to offer holistic packages of services, whether delivered via contracts, consortium, formal partnership working or memorandum of understanding. It also needs to engage with general third sector support services as well as housing specialist ones in order to effectively position themselves strategically and take advantage of funding from all sources. In practice this could be as simple as ensuring they are on the membership or mailing list for the local CVS newsletter or a member of umbrella organisations such as SITRA, ACEVO, or NCVO.
The unringfenced Supporting People funding offers opportunities to provide more flexible services that include skills and training provision enabling people to obtain jobs alongside traditional housing support.
Case Study: Foundation Housing and Leeds City Council
Case Study: Tyneside Cyrenians and Newcastle City Council
Case study: Norwood and Redbridge Council
Case Study: St Basils and Birmingham City Council
Link Up Link In is part of the Government's work around PSA 16, which aims to increase the numbers of vulnerable people who are in stable accommodation and employment. On Link Up Link In you will find examples of best practice case studies and useful guidance on collaboration and working with vulnerable client groups.
Office of the Third Sector's social return on investment Guide
Supporting People Financial Benefits Model