Policy Statements and Initiatives
DH: Homeless people are to receive better help once they leave hospital thanks to £10m funding, Public Health Minister Anna Soubry announced last week. It is estimated that currently 70% of homeless people are discharged from hospital back onto the street without their health & housing problems being properly addressed.
The funding pot will support voluntary organisations to work with the NHS & local authorities to create services to ensure that homeless people receive the best possible support & care after leaving hospital. The funding will also be used to ensure better intermediate care is available after discharge - vital for recovering from health problems such as TB.
DfE: The Education Funding Agency has announced 46 schools (in 5 batches) are to be rebuilt using private finance under the next steps of the Priority School Building Programme. These schools have a total funding requirement of approximately £700m.
ScotGov: An extra £2m has been injected into Scotland’s Students Awards Agency (SAAS) to improve delivery of the ‘best ever package of student support in the UK’. The move follows an independent review carried out by David Wallace of the Student Loans Company which was commissioned by the Education Secretary Michael Russell in November 2012 in recognition of the fact that there were issues at SAAS that needed to be addressed.
ScotGov: A young voter registration form that will give young people the right to have their say on the opportunity of independence for Scotland has been endorsed after independent testing. The form was developed by the Scottish Government to enable eligible 15-year-olds to register for the forthcoming vote on independence, as part of the Scottish Independence Referendum (Franchise) Bill. Those already 16 or 17 will be registered through the standard annual canvas form.
WAG: The Welsh Government is to create a further 146 projects that support families in some of Wales’ most deprived areas. The new Flying Start facilities will allow parents access to the help & support they need to cope with the pressures of poverty. The extension is being supported with £19m of extra capital funding that will provide a boost for construction jobs.
Flying Start gives eligible parents free part-time childcare for 2-3 year olds, parenting support, an enhanced health visitor service and help for early language development. It supports families to look after their children’s health & well being, working in partnership with primary & community healthcare.
ScotGov: The Healthy Start scheme provides vitamin supplements to low income families, in addition to vouchers towards the cost of milk, fruit & vegetables. Previously, vitamins were distributed through NHS Boards. However, the average uptake of the scheme as a whole across Scotland was only 71%, with the uptake of vitamin supplements being significantly lower.
In a drive to ensure that everyone who needs these vitamins receives them, community pharmacies will now be able to give eligible women and children Healthy Start vitamins directly. The 1,246 community pharmacies and around 120 dispensing practices across Scotland have been asked to join the one year pilot.
CLG: Eric Pickles has welcomed news that more than a quarter of the government’s target 120,000 troubled families are already being worked with. He said the figures showed that ‘councils are on course to meet the Prime Minister’s target of having children back in school, cutting youth crime and anti-social behaviour and putting parents on a path back to work by 2015’.
DWP: The Government is acting to protect consumers by announcing a 2-pronged plan to tackle high & inappropriate pension charges. Its first action will be to ban consultancy charges in automatic enrolment schemes.
The Government also plans to publish a consultation this autumn, in light of a forthcoming OFT report on the workplace pensions market. This consultation will set out proposals including a cap on default fund charges in Defined Contribution schemes. Legislation in the Pensions Bill published last week will ‘enable the Government to take targeted & effective action’.
The Government is also publishing an updated impact assessment on the single-tier pension, and its response to the Work and Pensions Select Committee’s report on the single-tier provisions in the draft Bill.
CLG: Communities Minister Don Foster has announced a cash boost of up to £1m to support single homeless people. The funding will help them to find a safe & secure roof in privately rented accommodation. Mr Foster allocated up to £800,000 for homelessness charity Crisis to fund schemes to set up new shared tenancies for single homeless people in privately rented accommodation.
The minister also announced a further £230,000 for the charity to continue its Private Rented Sector Access Programme, which works with local landlords to help vulnerable people find the homes they need in privately rented accommodation.
DWP: Research from an independent consortium led by the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) at Sheffield Hallam University covers the impact of recent Housing Benefit reform in the private rented sector. The research looks at the attitudes of claimants and landlords in 19 areas across Great Britain following Housing Benefit reforms that started in April 2011.
Press release & links ~ Citizens Advice at the heart of offering advice to claimants and landlords coping with new direct payments of housing benefits
CLG: Unique & creative ideas to teach English in a fun & friendly way have been submitted to the Department for Communities and Local Government, as organisations compete for a share of a £6m fund to turn these ideas into reality & help people achieve their full potential. 14 of the best competition entries from across the country have been awarded with a development support grant of £6,000 each to help them prepare for the second stage of the competition.
To further encourage people to learn English the department has also published guidance to councils to stop translating documents into foreign languages, as this encourages segregation & undermines community cohesion. Instead, the focus should be on ensuring that people can learn to speak English and this competition is one way of helping communities to achieve this.
ScotGov: All eligible couples across Scotland will now be guaranteed fair, reliable & faster access to IVF treatment. The guarantee comes as the National Infertility Group publishes a report with recommendations on new IVF criteria.
Ministers have agreed the Group’s recommendations and the changes will come into force on 1 July 2013. The new criteria will unify NHS IVF services in Scotland and reduce current inequity of services & waiting times to 12 months by 31 March 2015.
DfE: The government has unveiled a new package of support to help local authorities attract and retain more foster carers from a wider range of backgrounds.
DWP: The Universal Credit direct payment demonstration projects will be extended for a further 6 months, Minister for Welfare Reform Lord Freud announced last week, when new findings from the projects were published showing a rise in the rent collection rate to an average of 94%.
The extension will help to further develop the support needed for social housing tenants moving onto Universal Credit. The projects will now run until the end of the year.
The extension will help to further develop the support needed for social housing tenants moving onto Universal Credit. The projects will now run until the end of the year.
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