Making strategies count: preparing a local response to Central Government strategy on housing older people

More Choice, Greater Voice is centred on the provision of specialist accommodation - specifically sheltered/retirement housing and the increasing supply of - and demand for - extra care housing for rent and/or sale. It is based on real examples of how local authorities are beginning to develop and consult on their strategic approach to housing with care and support for older people.

The document is jointly published by the Housing Learning and Improvement Network, part of CSIP Networks at the Department of Health, and the CLG.

It effectively provides a template that local authorities can choose to follow in adopting a whole system approach to accommodation and care for older people across a variety of tenure and property types, surveying current and future needs before agreeing how to meet them. That approach is encouraged by the national strategy also published today by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Jeremy Porteus, National Programme Lead for CSIP Networks, said: "With an emphasis at all times on the practical, More Choice, Greater Voice suggests a handy structure for a local study, based around an agreed focus on the housing with care needs of older people across local economies. That study can become a central plank of a plan for responding to local circumstances and wishes now and meeting future demand."

It runs through each stage which those responsible for assessing local housing and care needs might follow in the light of the new national strategy, raising the questions and issues they might usefully consider before embarking on such a survey.

Amongst the specific, hard issues it addresses - with the assumption that the local authority and partners would wish to include them in their own surveys - are establishing robust data on population size and trends, consultation and the context of national policy. To this end, it provides useful source materials and essential reading for those responsible at a local level for implementing the National Housing Strategy for an Ageing Society.