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The government announced the cash available for the Supporting People programme this year with a review of the unexpected growth of the transitional housing benefit element of the initiative, writes Clare Jerrom.

The Supporting People programme in England has been allocated £1.8 billion of funding for 2003-4.

At the same time, the government announced an independent review of the increase in transitional housing benefit element of the programme, which has risen by £400 million more than the original estimates by local authorities announced in February.

Supporting People is a new system for allocating money to providers of supported housing announced earlier this year, which is run by local authorities.

The review will consider:

- variations between local authorities’ costs and patterns of service provision
- services previously paid out of other budgets where it is unclear how the resulting savings have been redeployed

- whether the programme is meeting its original objectives, including schemes which raise questions about compliance with grant conditions

The review will report in December in time to inform local authority budget allocations for the next financial year.