Shadow Communities Secretary Mark Isherwood AM has called on the First Minister to respond to concerns over the future of Supporting People funding.
The Supporting People programme prevents homelessness and supports over 60,000 marginalised and at risk people in Wales each year to live independently in their own homes, and with dignity in their community.
Questioning the First Minister in the Assembly Chamber yesterday, Mr Isherwood expressed concern over the future of the ring-fence for the programme and asked Carwyn Jones to respond.
He said:
“Housing-related support funded through the Supporting People programme and delivered through housing associations and third sector bodies has been improving lives and saving significant sums for statutory sector providers - health boards, local authorities - for many years. In your deal on the draft budget with Plaid Cymru, you agreed that you would ring-fence Supporting People funding for two years - the £124 million in 2016/17. But a letter to Local Authority Chief Executives on 24 October revealed that seven local authorities would be given 100 per cent spending flexibiliity, and the other 15 Local Authorities, 15 per cent spending flexibility across Supporting People and four other non-housing related grants. How do you respond, therefore, to concern that this effectively removes the ring fence in 2018-19, meaning that Supporting People funding is not guaranteed to be protected at 2017-18 levels, and that the lack of a distinct budget line for Supporting People gives no assurances that the funding will be protected at £124 million in 2019-20?”
The First Minister replied: “We expect local authorities, of course, to comply with the law, and in the Housing (Wales) Act 2014, it is clear that local authorities have a duty to prevent homelessness. By and large, they have performed well in implementing that legislation. Progress has not been as consistent as we would like, and of course we will continue to monitor progress to make sure that the good progress that has been made across Wales continues in the future, due to the fact that Supporting People, of course, has received the funding through the budget agreement that is necessary.”
Mr Isherwood added: “At the end of September, the Welsh Government announced that funding for the Supporting People programme would actually be increased by £10 million annually, for two years. Although this was well received by the sector, it called for an assurance that this money would be ring-fenced for housing associations and third sector providers to ensure that it will go where it needs to go. If the Welsh Government now choose to remove the funding ‘ring-fence’ and to merge the Supporting People grant with several other non-housing grants, we will no longer be able to understand how much is being spent on homelessness and housing related support services in Wales, or to hold Welsh Government Ministers to account over how much funding they allocate to Supporting People services”.