Demand for grants for disabled outstrips supply

DEMAND for grants to enable disabled people to continue to live in their own homes has grown so much that Monday's Rother cabinet meeting was recommended to ask the council to find another £155,000.

This year's 650,000 budget was allocated in the first three months.

Local authorities have a duty to provide Disabled Facility Grants where there has been a valid application.

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The system funds the installation of stair-lifts, level-access showers and the like.

Rother director of services Tony Leonard says the increase in demand for the grants over the last two years is due principally to an increasingly elderly population.

Measures have been taken by Rother to improve the way the grants are administered.

These include the identification of additional contractors to carry out the work, a new team managing the applications on behalf of Rother Homes and a review of procedures by the Rother team dealing with the applications.

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He says: "The above measures, together with an increase in the grant limit from 25,000 to 30,000, have resulted in the 2008-2009 original budget of 650,000 being allocated to valid applications by June 30.

"Other capital scheme budgets have been reviewed and the transfers have resulted in the DFG budgets being increased to 802,000.

"This has now also been fully allocated."

Councils have to approve applications within six month. Rother has been unable to approve applications made since July because no funds remained.

Rother needs to deal with 16 outstanding applications, worth 155,000, by next January.

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Mr Leonard warned Monday's meeting: "The delay in approving these will cause inconvenience to the applicants and utilise a significant proportion of the 2009-1010 budget in advance of the start of that year, if they are paid after April 1, 2009.

"An increasing proportion of the budget is being used to meet the requests for adaptation work from tenants of Rother Homes properties. The head of housing is in discussion with Rother Homes to emphasise the expectation of them to meet the adaptation needs of their tenants."

Until last year, the Department for Communities and Local Government met 60% of the expenditure and Rother the remaining 40%.

"In the current year, the DCLG has removed the requirement of councils to fund the 40% balance. This means that the total DFG budget could be the amount of specific grant allocated by the DCLG with no additional budget from the council.

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"The Government has indicated that this change should not have a negative effect on the service delivery.

"Current demand for mandatory DFG grants means that there is no scope to reduce the 40% contribution that Rother makes to the budget. If the current level continues, consideration should be given to increasing the programme for future years."

Rother's private sector housing manager has made a formal request to the DCLG for extra funding for this year.

"Unfortunately, it appears that there are no plans to increase the overall grant budget by the DCLG. A request has also been made for additional funding for 2009-1010 but the result of this will not be known until February 2009, and appears unlikely to be successful."

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Mr Leonard warned members that the current high demand for grant aid was likely to continue and suggested that they should consider how to sustain the level of funding without an adverse impact on other council priorities.

"The Government has effectively cut financial support to the council as previously the revenue effects of funding 40% of the costs was compensated for through additional revenue support grant.

"The approved programme for 2009-2010 onwards is 650,000 per annum and any increase in spending will have to be met from the council's own resources."

The director of services suggested that councillors could divert resources from its discretionary housing spending on housing maintenance grants to disabled facility grants in future years.

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Moving the request to council for the cash, Cllr Joy Hughes said Rother was not getting enough from Government to keep pace with demand.

"I really do feel sometimes that the general public don't realise how many things we have to do with very little money."

Council leader Cllr Carl Maynard said the increase in demand was not small.

"This is another enormous monetary amount that this council is having to find. The list gets longer and longer. And yet the Government expect us to maintain services.

"The simple word is HOW?"

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