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2011/12 Disability Facilities Grant (DFG) Spending Concerns
There are early concerns being raised regarding the deployment of the DFG for Housing Adaptations at Local Authority level....
The Government, in a commendable attempt to show early support for its commitment to moving from institutional to domiciliary care, has increased the Disability Facilities Grant (DFG) given to Local Authorities from £167.3 million to just under £178.3 million (an increase of 6.6% overall).
Their rational for its dissemination is given in a recent paper published by the Department for Communities & Local Government (see document attachment). However with the rush to localism (empowering LA’s to spend their total budget allocation as they see fit to meet local needs), removal of ring fencing from the DFG fund and the removal of any obligation to provide any matched DFG funding, there is clear early evidence of Local Authorities cutting their overall budgets for housing adaptations.
The Coalition Government of course will point proudly to the above increase, however, this is offset by the fact that they have cut completely the Private Sector Housing Renewal Fund and that the additional £116 million recently announced, that has been allocated to Council Housing adaptations does not come into operation until 2012/13.
It is recognised that the recent funding levels has only catered for 10% of the actual need for home adaptations. Therefore, the new funding methods come at a time when LA’s are having their overall budgets cut by between 4 and 9% and based on the evidence to date; these cuts appear to be impacting on the number and type of adaptations that are currently being carried out.
Further concerns exist around the ability of the Government to remove barriers between primary care and stimulate early intervention which removes the need for primary care later, as the ongoing reforms to the NHS (GP Consortia and Health & Well Being Boards) can only deflect attention from the more urgent and focused needs of a very under-funded housing adaptations requirement.
We are sure many organisations focussed on the needs of those vulnerable and less able in our society will be lobbying hard at Local Authority level to try and direct funds to the front line at least to the same level as last year. Surely it cannot be acceptable for the Local Authorities to receive an increase (or at least no decrease) in their DFG grant from Government and then reduce their own spending in this most sensitive of areas?
Watch this space!
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