£251m Capital Allocation for Social Services can benefit Extra Care

Further to October's Comprehensive Spending Review, this week sees the release of the Department of Health's Local Authority Social Services Letter (LASSL) (2012)2 (opens new window). This spells out specific revenue and capital allocations for councils with adult social care responsibility over the next two years. £251m has been set aside over 2 years for capital purposes that support the transformation of local communities, including the scope for the further development of extra care housing and/or extending the roll out of services, such as those utilising telecare.

This money is not ring-fenced as in previous years but will be distributed to every council with adult social care responsibility on a formula basis so that they can plan how best to meet their local capital investment priorities, lever in additional resources (such as the HCA's Affordable Housing Programme) and build effective partnerships with organisations that help enhance the housing with care choices of older people and those with a long term condition. A copy of the LASSL and the amount allocated to every council is available at: www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Lettersandcirculars/Localauthoritysocialservicesletters/DH_122345

To support local authorities with developing and implementing their extra care housing strategies, the Housing LIN is refreshing its extra care housing toolkit and developing an on-line directory of 86 DH funded schemes from earlier grant rounds. Further details to follow in early 2011. In the meantime, see our Housing LIN products webpage for relevant factsheets, technical briefs and case studies, under www.housinglin.org.uk/Topics