News

Up to half of all housing support services in Scotland have faced cash flow problems since the introduction of the Supporting People programme earlier this year, writes Maggie Wood.

A survey of Supporting People providers published by the Scottish Council for Single Homeless identifies a number of problems experienced by providers in the six months since implementation in April 2003.

Dr Andrew Waugh, policy officer for SCSH and author of the report, 'In Need of Support?', said: “This significant survey covered 104 providers who accounted for an estimated 11 per cent of all Supporting People spend in Scotland. Cash flow problems are clearly a major headache for some providers, and these have been caused by delayed payments or smaller than expected payments from local authorities.”

Supporting People is a new system of funding for supported housing providers. Local authorities allocate cash based on the amounts they are given by the Scottish executive.

The survey found that the four out of five providers experienced delays in payments. Forty per cent of Supporting People providers received a lower than expected grant, and whilst 69 per cent of providers had some form of contract in place at the time of the survey (August 2003), 20 per cent did not and were not in receipt of funding for the first six months.

A Scottish executive spokesperson said: "It would be a pity if the goodwill which has been established amongst all parties working towards making the Supporting People project succeed, were damaged as the result of the views of such a small, unrepresentative sample of housing support providers being given disproportionate coverage."