Supporting People is now nearly three months old. The start of the programme did not bring cataclysmic meltdown. The things that mattered - the provision of support services to people who need them - continued to happen, although not all providers received payment in the first month, and many contracts remain unsigned due to funding disputes.

Supporting People aims to improve the effectiveness of support services by making the allocation of resources more transparent, and by introducing new quality assessment systems. The fact that housing benefit rules no longer govern who can get support means that services do not have to be attached to a particular building. They can be shaped much more closely around the service user, rather than expecting them to be thankful for a "one size fits all" service.

That's the theory, and the aim must remain that service users are placed at the centre. However, the programme can't do this by ignoring the needs of the other parties involved - specifically the support service providers and the housing associations who own the buildings. The programme was developed in a spirit of partnership; providers' expertise was highly valued during the planning stage. If the relationship slips into a purely cost-driven contractual one, then we shall all be the poorer. A "take it or leave it" attitude runs the risk that some providers will leave it.

If service providers are swamped with cash-flow problems, bureaucracy, unrealistic demands, or if their contract price is whittled away, then some will be forced out of the market while others will lose heart and leave. If small providers give up we lose diversity and choice, and might find the "one size fits all" to be the only option.

Some, but not all, support services can be delivered within people's own homes. Others require specialist buildings, either because the people prefer to live together, or because the nature of the support means the service is only cost-effective if provided on site. If housing associations judge the risks of building specialist housing to be too high, they can easily divert their attention elsewhere, into family housing for example. Without new specialist buildings, it is likely to be those with the most severe needs who miss out. Housing associations have struggled this year because of lack of co-ordination between the systems of applying to the Housing Corporation for capital and the local authority for revenue. These problems must be ironed out in time for next year's bidding round, otherwise we risk prolonged planning blight.

At the three-month mark, are service providers and housing associations still signed up? The evidence so far is mixed. Service providers' confidence was hit hard by the last-minute removal of promises they thought were secure. The government imposed an efficiency saving at the eleventh hour, flatly contradicting the undertaking that all last year's funding streams would be transferred, in full, into the Supporting People programme. Providers were, on the whole, happy to sign the standard Office of the Deputy Prime Minister-approved contract, but once every legal department in the country had suggested its own amendments, the final results were much more mixed. As expected, the amendments almost universally strengthened the position of local authorities at the expense of providers.

Those providers in "excellent" authorities have seen many of the underpinning principles of Supporting People swept away, including the ring-fence, the need for a Supporting People plan, and the commitment for neighbouring authorities to co-operate. The Supporting People team should not have to fight to keep funding they have inherited in the support system.

Supporting People brings great hopes, including freedom from buildings, freedom from outdated models of support, and freedom from service providers who are unfit, or unwilling, to provide a high quality, user-centred service. The new quality assessment framework puts users at the centre not only of day-to-day activities, but also of planning, policy and performance management.

Supporting People has great potential for improving the quality of life of people who need support. The run-up to, and early implementation of, the programme has involved a vast amount of work by commissioners and providers alike, and much has been achieved. But within these early stages, some seeds have already been sown which bode ill for service providers and housing associations.

Kathleen Boyle is a consultant and trainer.