Thank you to both Cymorth Cymru and Community Housing Cymru for inviting me to co-sponsor this campaign rally for the Supporting People Programme – a programme which prevents homelessness and supports over 60,000 marginalised and at risk people in Wales to live independently in their own homes, and with dignity in their community
Over 750,000 lives have been transformed since its inception in 2004 – providing an essential, preventative service that makes a real difference to the lives of those who benefit from it, increasing their resilience and their ability to maintain a secure home, as well as reducing their demand on health and social services.
As last year’s the Supporting People data linkage feasibility study showed, Supporting People interventions reduce use of Accident and Emergency and GP surgeries, meaning fewer resources used, and greater availability of services for the general population.
Supporting People Providers have been doing all they can to cut costs and deliver effective and essential prevention services with decreasing budgets – and yesterday’s announcement that the Supporting People Programme will receive an additional £10 million in each of the next 2 years is therefore welcomed.
Even with this, however, the real terms funding reductions since 2013 will not be fully made up by 2020 – and with £4million from the additional £10 million promised each year going through the Communities Secretary’s budget it is essential that this money should be ring-fenced for housing associations and Third sector providers.
After all, when funding was transferred to local authorities, you worked to ensure that ring-fencing should be effectively secured through the creation of Regional Collaborative Communities with provider representation.
The Welsh Government has consistently highlighted the need for value for money from the Supporting People Programme, and last week’s “The Wallich – Support that Saves” Assembly event presented analysis showing that the Supporting People – funded support investigated in their report saved £2.99 for every pound spent.
We must also be conscious of the questions raised in the Wales Audit Office Report on the Supporting People Programme published this August.
This noted, for example, that although the Welsh Government’s Programme Guidance 2013 stated that its purpose was to provide “housing-related support to help vulnerable people to live as independently as possible”, none of the aims listed explicitly mentioned homelessness prevention.
It also noted that “the most common concern was, by broadening the agenda, the Welsh Government is diluting the Programme’s objectives and creating confusion about Programme priorities” - and that the revised arrangements may not fully address concerns about the Outcomes Framework.
Above all, as I asked when responding to the Draft Budget Statement in the Chamber yesterday, “how is the Welsh Government working with front-line providers and people who receive the services to ask how, by investing more in those services, it can reduce multiples more in terms of cost to statutory services?”