Supporting People Funding: UNISON gives evidence to Select Committee

Yesterday evening I met up with two of my Group UNISON housing association stewards, Linda and Kay outside the Houses of Parliament. They are both residential Scheme Managers (wardens) of sheltered housing blocks. We were going to the Communities Local Government (CLG) select committee on Supporting People (SP) funding.

UNISON national officers Mike Short and Pete Challis were giving evidence to the select committee based on their report and responding to any questions. I was part of the working group that helped produce the original UNISON report.

The committee of MPs did seem to take their role very seriously and listened carefully to speakers and readily challenged them about their evidence.

Key issues that were brought up included the Personalisation of services in 2011 which should mean that elderly residents of sheltered blocks will be able to purchase “services” themselves directly rather than from the housing provider. So in theory each of the 68 residents of the blocks that Linda and Kay each manage will be able to “purchase” care services independently rather than communally. This could obviously mean the end of local communal wardens.

Also other vital issues were discussed such as competitive tendering on price rather than quality; residential versus floating support; the removal of ring fencing from the Supporting People budgets; the "evil" of 2 tier workforces and the inadequate size of the SP budget given what everyone wants it to do.

Linda and Kay were really impressed with the meeting. They were referred to as “concerned practitioners” by the UNISON presenting officers to the select committee and I am certain that the MP’s clocked that we were ordinary workers (and of course potential voters to them) who were disturbed about this issue.

The meeting finished about 5.45 and all the Labour MP’s went off to the meeting of the PLP to decide upon Gordon’s fate. The select committee are expected to issue their report soon and there will be a government green paper on SP funding in the near future as well.