“Supported living” is not a service that is listed as something that a council can provide: it procures the care and support element, to go into the accommodation where the person is living, usually under a tenancy. It is often commissioned on a different basis to home care, (by the week as opposed to by the minute) so as to ensure that the person has access to support, for a number of background hours, all the time, from at least one person (shared care). It is a legal mystery that has never been gone into, in a case, as to HOW a person is ever assessed as needing a fraction of a person for certain hours of the day, given that there is no such thing as a fraction of a person, and a person cannot be made to share their personal budget without agreement. It’s an example of how a given market of providers and a given purchasing sector of commissioners ignore the Care Act in the interests of making or saving money.
Councils are not obliged to FIND a person’s housing, as a social service, unless exceptionally the specialist nature of the housing is regarded as the only way in which the person’s needs can be met. Since the vast majority of people’s needs could be met in a care home, as opposed to ordinary housing, going into a tenancy that the client has been signposted to is ultimately a choice, and what is not clear to the families is the basis on which other rights will be compromised if one says yes.
The LGO does not venture into criticising the way in which the market works in this field but has begun to point out that people MAY WELL qualify for the provision of housing, and not be able properly to be persuaded into taking up tenancies with individual rental payment obligations – particularly in the field of s117 aftercare.
A council cannot make a person go into any tenancy without the person’s own agreement or the agreement of a lawfully authorised person (unless the council takes on deputyship and acts in what are genuinely thought (defensibly and procedurally correctly) to be in the best interests of the person). The LGO tends to focus on delay in coming clean about the primacy of the Housing Act through which people can be expected to find housing, in the majority of cases, and on inadequate support having been assessed for, IN housing projects.