Autumn Statement and housing, health and care
This week's news was dominated by the government's delayed autumn statement. With inflation running at over 11% and interest rates at their highest for years, it set out the government's plans to address the cost of living crisis and financial markets' turmoil, significantly impacted by its September mini-budget.
Of particular items of interest for the housing and care sectors and also affecting household budgets of many people in supported and specialist housing is the decision to exempt rent caps for supported housing (including sheltered and extra care housing) from the 7% cap announced for general social housing provision.
The NHF responded:
"We are very pleased that the government has announced an exemption from the rent cap for supported housing providers, which will ensure the future viability of care and support for some of the most vulnerable people in the country. The overwhelming majority of tenants who use these specialist services will have their rent increase met in full by housing benefits or Universal Credit."
For homebuyers, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that £250k Stamp Duty freeze will end in early 2025 along with the First Time Buyer threshold of £425k.
While the social care cap was delayed until 2025, there was some encouraging news for health and social care with an injection of £2.8bn in 2023/24 in England and £4.7bn in 2024/25 to help people support adult social care and transfer of care from hospital.
There was specific mention of £600m in 2023/24 and £1bn in 2024/25 through the Better Care Fund to get people out of hospital on time into care settings, something that the recent update of the High Impact Change Model by the Housing LIN identified.
We are also hopeful that the housing and technology measures set out in the Adult Social Care Reform White Paper will be taken forward to help bolster the market; in particular, the £300m Housing Transformation Fund, the £213m Care and Support Specialised Housing Fund and £150m Digitalisation Fund will be fully implemented.
We will be following these and other measures set out in the Autumn Statement with interest.
And on Tuesday, 22 November 2022, we are delighted to host a HAPPI Hour webinar that will focus on the Cost of Living Crisis and the impact on the specialist/supported housing sector (opens new window). We will be joined by speakers from The Charity Bank, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation CHC Cyrmu and WWA architects to discuss.