Supported accommodation: more regulation only part of the answer

The consultation on proposed reforms came following the revelation that children in care and care leavers had been placed in accommodation which left them vulnerable to exploitation and harm.

The central question is whether or not providers of this type of housing, designed to provide vulnerable people with the accommodation and support they need to eventually live independently, are regulated effectively.

The vast majority are not. And this lack of regulation, coupled with a lack of funding, has had disastrous consequences for some of our most vulnerable young people for too long.

Even before the consultation responses are published we already know that a lack of regulation means there are providers delivering these services out only to make a quick buck. These are private providers with very little accountability and place profit over a young person’s best interests.

So, a shake-up of the regulation for semi-independent accommodation seems inevitable.

The question really is, what else needs to change? And how has it come to pass that public money is going towards placing young people in unsuitable, even dangerous, accommodation?

Not all providers delivering ‘unregulated accommodation’ are unregulated or providing poor accommodation. ‘Unregulated’ refers to the fact that these providers are not regulated by Ofsted, but many are regulated by other agencies such as Homes England. There is also a clear distinction between charity providers who are not driven by profit, versus private providers who likely are.

And now, thanks to years of underfunding, many local authorities have become overly reliant on spot purchasing, where young people are advertised to housing providers who then bid to accommodate them. It is a system where the cheapest option usually wins that leaves some young people ending up on the other side of the country, or accommodated with a provider that the council knows very little about and can’t really monitor. This type of accommodation has its place in the sector – for example, if a specialist placement is required - but it should not be a mainstay that leaves vulnerable young people stuck in a series of unsuitable placements, dropping in and out of a system that’s designed to cut costs and save money.

The fact is that too many vulnerable young people find themselves trapped on a carousel of dangerous placements, their mental and physical wellbeing put at risk as councils struggle to balance the books.

It doesn’t have to be like this. The answer is of course more regulation – but things need to change elsewhere too.

Block contracts, where a whole supported accommodation service is commissioned and monitored by a local authority, reduce costs in the longer term and are significantly more effective - and surely easier to monitor – than a patchwork of cheap and impersonal accommodation.

We must also see an end to children under the age of 16 being placed in semi-independent accommodation; as the government has proposed. Those children must be looked after in a care setting. However, from our own experience in delivering supported housing, we have seen that young people aged 16 to 25 can thrive in these settings when the best quality support is in place.

It’s time we put vulnerable young people’s needs first and started cutting councils loose from a small group of providers who view young people as a way of lining their pockets.

In order to make block contracts worth it in the long-term we need more regulation. The government has suggested Ofsted inspections - a logistical challenge for both providers and HM Inspectorate given the complexity of the housing system.

An alternative may be a return to the Quality Assurance Framework approach that allows providers to grade their own accommodation, validated by local authority inspections. The Framework raised standards across the sector and helped to ensure young people received the quality of accommodation and support they deserved. It also placed the onus on local authorities to be accountable and truly monitor the quality of the placements where young people are.

With this consultation closing, the government finds itself at a crossroads. Ministers can either continue to leave young people to live in unregulated and potentially dangerous accommodation, or they can give councils the strategic space to put young people first and the budget to ensure they’re properly regulated. The direction of travel seems to bend towards more regulation, but greater scrutiny will be wasted if councils aren’t given the means to first improve the services under inspection.

Abigail Gill is senior policy and research manager at Centrepoint.