Committee for Social Development
Thursday 21 March 2002
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
Housing Support Services Bill:
Committee Stage
(NIA 23/01)
Members present:
Mr Cobain (Chairperson)
Mr Hamilton
Mr B Hutchinson
Mr G Kelly
Mr ONeill
Mr M Robinson
Mr Tierney
Mr S Wilson
Witnesses:
Mr Dodds ) The Minister for Social Development
Mr Hunter ) Department for Social Development
Mr Burns )
Ms Ferran ) Northern Ireland Housing Executive
The Minister for Social Development (Mr Dodds):
I thank the Committee for inviting me here today. The Housing Support Bill was debated in the Chamber on Tuesday, so it will be fresh in everybody's minds. It will create the framework that will enable us to introduce the Supporting People policy. Officials made a presentation to the Committee at the end of January, and the additional information that was requested has been provided. The Committee said that a further meeting would be useful, and I am happy to oblige. The Bill was also discussed at the seminar in March. I hope to introduce it in the Assembly in April and have the Committee Stage in May. I do not intend to seek accelerated passage, but that depends on the timetable - we are bringing forward a lot of legislation.
I will do everything I can to ensure that appropriate and adequate funding is available for the Supporting People fund. We covered this matter in detail in the debate, but I am happy to answer the Committee's questions, as are the officials who can comment on the more detailed issues.
Mr G Kelly:
You said that you do not intend to apply for accelerated passage. However, if we make insufficient progress, might it yet be applied for?
Mr Dodds:
Mr Chairperson, I intend to introduce the Bill in April, and the Committee Stage is planned for May. As things stand, we should be able to complete all the stages under normal procedures. It is not our intention to seek accelerated passage at this stage. However, I would be interested to know if Committee members felt that that was worth exploring. If the Bill is introduced in April, and it goes through the various stages, it should be in effect by April 2003.
Mr S Wilson:
The reason the Committee is keen to know whether there will be accelerated passage is that that happened before, and when the Bill was landed on the Committee, it caused some friction. That was not the fault of the Department; it was mainly due to timing. It would be useful, given the concerns with the Housing Support Bill, if we were able to go through all the necessary stages. In what circumstances would accelerated passage be needed, especially since it is expected that it will be laid in April? Is there any indication that that will not happen?
Mr Dodds:
No. We are neither urging nor suggesting accelerated passage. I am keen to hear members' views. The Department is introducing weighty legislation, and that is why I raised this. I agree that there will be time to get the Bill to Final Stage by Christmas, or early 2003, so that it comes into effect in April 2003. I do not intend to seek accelerated passage at the last minute.
Mr S Wilson:
Even though there will be a Housing Bill, a Welfare Reform Bill and a Housing Support Bill, you do not foresee any difficulty that might prevent our using the normal process?
Mr Dodds:
The Department has no difficulty with that.
Mr B Hutchinson:
Even though we have exactly one year left before the Assembly is dissolved - 21 March 2003?
Mr Dodds:
You are counting the days. Yes, that has been taken into account. It is a very tight timetable, and, for reasons that I will not go into, a lot of legislation will be coming through towards the end of this session. However, I am confident that it will all go through before the Assembly is dissolved.
Mr Tierney:
If there should be a problem, will you let us know? We would not want to find out from the Business Committee that there is to be accelerated passage. That is not likely, but we would be opposed to it. If there is a problem we want you and your officials to discuss it with us.
Mr Dodds:
I certainly would come back to the Committee. However, I do not envisage any problems, and I give you a commitment that the Bill will proceed in the normal way. I raised the matter to emphasise the point and to hear the Committee's views. I had no other agenda.
The Chairperson:
The three Bills are quite complex for the Committee Stage. The Housing Support Bill, the Welfare Reform Bill and the Housing Bill will involve a lot of work for the Committee. How will they come to the Committee, and will they have any priority or order?
Mr Dodds:
I wrote to the Committee about that and noted that it attracted some comment. Because two of the Bills are parity provisions and the housing support provisions must be in effect by April 2003, there is a time limit. The parity provisions will be urgent. The Housing Bill is an extremely important piece of legislation and a high priority for us. It does not have a time limit attached. That is the point that we were making about that piece of legislation.
The Housing Support Bill will be coming to the Assembly in April. As soon as the other two pieces of legislation go through the House of Commons and the House of Lords at Westminster, they will come to the Assembly. The Committee has already had meetings with officials and been briefed on the memorandum on them. It has also had discussions, which I was keen to see happen, in advance of the legislation's coming out of Westminster. The draft Northern Ireland Bill on at least one of those pieces of legislation should be available soon, and we will be happy for you to have that in advance of its coming out of Westminster.
The Chairperson:
We will deal with housing support and then deal with whatever is the next preference. It would be unprecedented for the Committee to deal with two Bills at the same time.
Mr Dodds:
How you regulate your work is a matter for the Committee.
The Chairperson:
But you will prioritise for the Committee. The Bills will come from the Department to us.
Mr Dodds:
Yes, the legislation will be introduced in the Assembly. The Housing Support Bill will be introduced in April, and the Committee Stage will be in May. As soon as the other two pieces of parity legislation complete their passage through Parliament, they will come to the Assembly. As you know, there is also a timetable set out for the Housing Bill; the two-month consultation period is under way. As soon as that is complete, it will be introduced in the Assembly.
The Chairperson:
We have to go though the Committee Stage for each Bill separately. We cannot do two together.
Mr S Wilson:
That depends on the spacing of the legislation. The Housing Support Bill will be introduced immediately after Easter. The Minister has said that the parity legislation has still to go through Westminster, so it is unlikely to come here before the summer recess. The Housing Bill will probably be placed before the Assembly in the autumn. There should not be an overlap.
The Chairperson:
Yes, but we will never get through the legislation in this period.
Mr Dodds:
How you deal with the Committee Stages of each of these Bills is a matter for the Committee. However, with the two pieces of parity legislation, the normal procedure is that accelerated passage avoids the need for the Committee Stage. That must be considered. Whether the Committee deals with the Committee Stages of two Bills simultaneously is entirely a matter of how it regulates its work. I cannot comment on that.
The Chairperson:
No, but we do not want to be blackmailed into accelerated passage to get the Bills through. We want to go through the Committee Stages of all Bills. The difficulty is that all this work is coming at the one time. The Housing Bill is a complicated piece of legislation, and we do not know how long it is going to take us to go through it or through the Committee Stage of the Housing Support Bill, because many issues in it may suddenly emerge. The timescale may be so tight that we cannot get through three Committee Stages. I just want to flag that up.
Mr Dodds:
Standing Orders govern the time allowed for Committee Stage. It is not an open-ended process.
The Chairperson:
Minister, can you clarify a point in the Housing Support Bill about the split between the bricks and mortar and the support issues? Many people, including me, are confused. The support package should be explained in more detail. What funding goes into it other than housing benefit?
Mr Dodds:
That was explored in some detail during the Assembly debate. However, Mr Burns will elaborate.
Mr Burns:
The amount of housing benefit to meet housing support costs is one of the major elements that will transfer into the Supporting People fund. There are also other funds within the Department for Social Development's bailiwick, such as Special Needs Management Allowance, which the Department pays to housing associations providing housing schemes that include support to help those associations meet the additional management costs involved in running such schemes.
Some smaller funds are operated by the Housing Executive, such as Staying Put funding, to help people, with advice from the Housing Executive, to make the changes to their homes that will enable them to stay there and prevent their having to move into sheltered accommodation.
Providers have significant difficulty identifying the split between their costs, and the aim of the Housing Executive's project team is to advise providers on how best to make that split. That is most important. The Special Needs Management Allowance and other funds already exist. Identifying the amount that should be transferred to the Supporting People fund is a major task.
The Chairperson:
When the criteria are drawn up, will the providers who are supporting people be paid accordingly? Will those individuals or organisations, such as Shelter, apply to the Housing Executive? How is the Supporting People element assessed? Does it matter if there are 10 people or 20 people? Does the Department adapt the formula depending on the number of people?
Mr Burns:
Yes. In many respects the formula will put the funding arrangements on a more secure footing. Contracts will be drawn up with each provider based on a formula that takes into account the number of beds in the accommodation, voids, and so on, throughout the year. At the start of a year a provider will have a good indication of the level of funding it will get. I do not know how housing benefit operates now. However, there will be no uncertainty about this. Contracts will be drawn up, and providers will know how much they will get from the Supporting People fund.
The Chairperson:
Are the criteria already agreed? Will the Housing Executive scrutinise them again?
Mr Burns:
The criteria have been determined by the social security side and are based on what housing benefit will cover after 2003. The Supporting People fund is intended to take account of the rest. There are some grey and difficult areas. Because housing benefit is a trusted source of income for many providers, they are reluctant if they have doubts about certain costs and whether the money is for support or bricks and mortar. In some cases, they tend to try to put it through as rent.
Our housing benefit section explains to providers that that is a dangerous thing to do. No matter what the Housing Executive wants to do, if the rules say that a claim for housing benefit for a particular cost is not eligible, the provider will not get the money. It will be too late then to ask for money from the Supporting People fund. Perhaps there is a misapprehension that we are applying the rules with a rod of iron and saying that we will not cover certain costs like a parent giving advice to an errant teenager and saying, "This is the situation."
The Chairperson:
That depends on what sort of parent you are.
Can providers identify the support element quickly and see what they will be entitled to for bricks and mortar and what they will be able to claim for as support? Are there grey areas? We are getting mixed messages about this, and the more it is discussed, the less clear it seems.
Mr Dodds:
As Mr Burns said, this is being discussed. It is understandable that some people want keep the bricks and mortar issue under the rent side, because that seems to be clear. However, difficulties may arise if people go along with that and it is found to be unclear. At that stage it will be too late to transfer a claim to the supported side and draw money from the initial round of funding.
That process is underway. Some people might think that the Housing Executive is being harsh. As Mr Burns said, it is for people's good to try to ensure that the various regulations are clear and that the Housing Executive will stand over them. We are also putting the maximum amount of money into the fund from day one. The point was made during the Assembly debate that we must not underestimate the pot at this stage; we must put the maximum amount into it now.
The Chairperson:
Some people told us that what is classified as bricks and mortar and what is classified as support is not clear. I agree that it is important to be very clear about those classifications. There is no sense in having grey areas with people thinking that they will get money, if they will not. However, people have told us that the classifications are not as clear as they should be. The Minister says that the criteria are clear, but some of the providers have said that they are not.
Mr Dodds:
The interpretation of any regulations or policy will always involve people arguing over what falls under certain rules or what can be challenged. Discussion are held, and a judgement is reached. However, if there is a court challenge, we want to be able to stand over it. I hope that we will be able to sort it out. My Department will check the state of play with the Housing Executive to ensure that everything is being done to see that the process operates correctly and efficiently.
The Chairperson:
Thank you, Minister.