Issue - meetings

Report of the Cabinet Member for Adult Care, Health, and Wellbeing is attached.

Councillor Tamoor Tariq, Cabinet Member for Adult Care, Health, and Wellbeing, presented the report which reviewed the objectives of Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) usage, adaptations, and refreshed the Housing Assistance policy.

Decision:

Cabinet:

1.    Agreed to continue delivery of minor and major adaptations for households with additional need and agree to widen use of DFG for residents with additional needs. This includes delivering:

·         Innovation Grants/ Excess Cold Grants- preventing accidents and hospital admissions

·         Repairs to adaptations- enabling people to stay in their home longer and prevent or delay the need for more costly formal care or residential placement.

·         Minor Adaptations- Fund equipment store to provide larger minor adaptations costing less that £1,000 such as external metal handrails, grab rails and stair rails and other adaptations

·         Technology Enabled Care (TEC)- allowing people to use technology to enable people to live independently at home, potentially preventing the need for adaption to properties.

·         Housing support for older people- Handy Person to assist with minor adaptations and household DIY tasks.

·         Incentivisation ‘Moving Assistance’- help move tenants into a more suitable property or moving tenant out of an adapted property who no longer needs it to alternative home.

2.    Agreed to, in close collaboration with the Business Growth and Infrastructure department and One Commissioning Organisation, remodel and refresh:

·         Bury Procurement Framework

·         Minor Aids and Adaptations model

·         Pathways and processes for people with additional needs to access adaptations to improve their quality of life.

Reasons for the decision:

·         Bury Councils Strategy- Housing for those with Additional Needs, defines what the approach needs to be for residents in Bury. Housing must focus on providing local homes for those with additional needs in Bury, both now and in the future. Increasing housing choices for our older generation and adults with specialist needs, enabling an increased number of people to live independently at home. A refreshed approach to DFG spends must align to this, promoting wider options for people with additional needs and improving quality of life of residents.

·         Refined and focused DFG investment will provide long term savings to the public purse. Stronger control and utilization of the DFG will mean more people receive what they need to support their independence and defer further institutional or home-based care provision.

Other options considered and rejected:

The alternative is to continue with the traditional delivery of the DFG and disregard the freedoms for the Local Authority to fund wider projects, so more people can receive the adaptations that they need. To keep with the same model for DFGs, it would not take advantage of the flexibilities afforded to councils to support more residents in the borough.