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Supporting People is about helping vulnerable people to live more independently, including getting people out of residential care and into the community. But could this lead to an influx of dependent clients into areas with a high concentration of former care homes?

About 800 care homes in England have "de-registered" with the Commission for Social Care Inspection so far in order to provide supported accommodation, says CSCI chair Denise Platt.

Kent Council, which has complained of being a dumping ground for London local authority clients, sees a potential problem if adults placed in the county choose this more independent route.


"Legally they would then become ordinarily resident in Kent and thus [our] responsibility should they later need social services support," says a report by social services director Peter Gilroy. By comparison, care home residents remain the responsibility of the placing authority.

In Hampshire, where 83 homes with a total of 700 beds have already "de-registered", social services managers are worried about future costs.

Tim Ardill, the council's contract support manager for adults, says: "If these people are now living in the community with a tenancy they are not going to return to whoever was paying for them. If their needs increase in the future, they may need residential or day care."

Home Farm Trust, which provides care for people with learning difficulties, now has 460 people in supported living and 460 in residential care.

Barry Armstrong, the trust's regional director in western England, says: "We deal with more than 100 local authorities that have clients all over the country, so it's important for us to alert councils in good time to negotiate things."

John Nawrockyi, Greenwich social services director and Association of Directors of Social Services spokesperson on Supporting People, says: "The concern is about the host authority liaising with the placing authority and taking these people back."


He says the ADSS could play a role in negotiating a protocol to ensure services do not change without a reassessment. "We need to manage it co-operatively if there are shifts of people across local authority boundaries at a time when budgets are going down and not up."

It is difficult for councils to take stock of potential problems like this. Authorities which receive placements from outside the area already complain that the funding authority fails to notify them of new placements.

And where former providers have been eager to move clients to supported living arrangements without proper assessment, the knock-on impact for social services locally could be more immediate.

"In some situations, the owner of a small registered care home has 'de-registered' the service but the reality is that the expected benefits for clients have not been delivered as successfully," says West Sussex supporting people project manager Ian Copeman. "This has usually happened because there have not been proper assessments of client need and insufficient consultation."