Archived decisions

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

Decision Report

1. Summary

1.1. On 24 September 2007 Cabinet approved the Adult Services Development of Extra-Care Housing Report. This included Hampshire County Council's strategic aim of securing through multi-agency partnerships a total of 400 units of Extra-Care Housing over five years (2008-2013). It was anticipated that 200 of these would be within new-build Extra-Care developments and 200 would result from enhancing existing sheltered housing schemes.

1.2. Permission is sought to commit the capital funding of £1.62m for the three new-build Extra-Care housing schemes in Andover (£450,000), Basingstoke (£720,000) and Fleet (£450,000). This follows the same pattern as the agreement already given in June 2008 to commit Hampshire County Council capital to the new build Extra-Care scheme in Gosport (£750,000).

1.3. Capital funding has been allocated to each of the schemes as part of the Adult Services' budget bid process.

1.4. The schemes are planned to be completed during late 2010 and 2011. These schemes will provide a total of 190 apartments to complement the 50 already underway at the Gosport scheme, rendering a total of 240 by October 2011. This successfully contributes to the Cabinet commitment of Sept 2007 to achieve 400 Extra-Care units within the 5 year period of 2008-13 of which 200 would be new build. The remainder will be achieved through enhancing existing sheltered accommodation schemes which does not require capital funding from Hampshire County Council.

1.5. Full details of the completion date, capital commitments and number of units of accommodation for each scheme is at Appendix C.

2. Contextual Information

2.1. The Extra-Care Housing strategic aim, approved by Cabinet in September 2007, is to secure, through multi-agency partnerships, a total of 400 units of Extra-Care Housing over five years (2008-2013). The development of the Andover, Basingstoke and Fleet new-build schemes successfully contributes to this Cabinet commitment. The Extra-Care strategy is one of the key elements of the Market Development programme within the Hampshire Model.

2.2. Each of these new-build Extra-Care schemes is a partnership between Hampshire County Council, the Borough or District Council and the registered social landlord.

2.3. This partnership between registered social landlords, the Borough or District Councils and Hampshire County Council, with the associated Hampshire County Council capital, has been significant in leveraging and attracting external funding from both Homes and Communities Agency and Department of Health.

2.4. The Homes and Communities funding is paid directly to the relevant registered social landlord for each scheme, namely to Synergy for the Andover Extra-Care scheme and to Sentinel for the Fleet Extra-Care scheme.

2.5. The Department of Health funding has been paid in tranches upon achievement of certain milestones to Hampshire County Council in the form of an `in/out' payments for the Basingstoke Extra-Care scheme, where the registered social landlord is Saxon Weald.

2.6. Planning permission and the remainder of the capital funding, raised by the registered social landlords themselves, has been secured for each of the schemes.

2.7. Each of the new build schemes will be developed by a different registered social landlord, so Hampshire County Council is spreading both the risk and the learning.

2.8. The Extra-Care project is a key enabler of Adult Services delivering the following key National Indicators (NIs):
- NI 136 (People supported to live independently through social services [all ages])
- NI 139 (The extent to which older people receive the support they need to live independently at home)
- NI 142 (% of vulnerable people who are supported to maintain independent living).

2.9. These three new build schemes will provide a total of 190 apartments to complement the 50 already under development at the Gosport scheme, rendering a total of 240 by October 2011. Specifically, the Andover scheme will deliver 52 apartments, the Basingstoke scheme 64 apartments plus an additional Day Centre, which will serve as a replacement to the current day centre at Newman Bassett, whilst the Fleet scheme will deliver 74 apartments.

2.10. All the new build schemes will be high-specification, well-appointed, one and two bed-roomed apartments in a block of some 50 - 74 flats with generous and attractive communal facilities including restaurant, pamper suite, hairdressing, lounge and activity rooms, care suite and well laid out garden facilities. The concept of progressive privacy applies, so that people's apartments are entirely private to them, the corridors off which the apartments are located require access via a swipe card or fob and the entrance and communal downstairs rooms can be more generally accessed.

2.11. It is an important feature of Extra-Care Housing that the schemes are not considered to be care homes but are housing provision, in which the tenants living there have care and support available on site. As such they represent a modern response to the demographic pressures faced by Hampshire County Council and the Borough and District Councils, as well as to the challenges faced by registered social landlords wishing to update the quality of their housing stock.

2.12. Domiciliary care and housing support will be commissioned by Adult Services.

2.13. A performance management and monitoring model is under development in conjunction with the involvement of Adult Services' Business and Performance team and the Devolved Finance Unit.

3. Financial

3.1. The cabinet paper of 24 Sept 2007 approved a capital commitment of expenditure up to £5m for Extra-Care Housing.

3.2. The capital from the potential £5m earmarked for Extra-Care available to date (as of September 2009) is £2.7m. £2.37m of this has been allocated to the four new-build schemes (see Appendix D).

3.3. The £2.7m Adult Services Department capital contribution has been sourced from revenue converted to capital:
£1.5m 2007/08 revenue converted into 2008/09 capital
£1.2m 2008/09 revenue converted into 2009/10 capital

3.4. The capital already agreed by Executive Member for Adult Services on 27 June 2008 for the Gosport new build scheme was £750,000.

3.5. The following table represents the capital sought for the 3 additional new builds of Andover, Basingstoke and Fleet and the proposed schedule for the release of this capital. These commitments have been built into the Adult Services' budget bid round to reflect payment dates:

Table 1. New-Build Capital Funding Requests and Release Schedule

3.6. The Borough and District councils have made financial contributions to the schemes in various forms including commitment of capital, land and the waiving of their Section 106 contribution.

3.7. External grants received for these schemes are as follows. The table below also shows the Hampshire County Council capital as a percentage of the total build costs. In each case it is below 10% of total build costs.

Table 2: Hampshire County Council's Capital Contributions as a Percentage of Overall Scheme Costs


The above clearly demonstrate the value of partnership working between Hampshire County Council, Borough and District councils and registered social landlords in leveraging and securing external funding for this programme of new build Extra-Care Housing. Each registered social landlord makes a significant capital contribution to their own scheme, namely the difference between the total costs and the sum of external contributions

3.8. It should be noted that the enhanced Extra-Care schemes do not feature in the capital bids as they require revenue, to fund the additional night cover, rather than capital sums towards build costs. In this way the Borough and District councils, registered social landlords and Hampshire County Council are making best use of existing stock.

3.9. A detailed breakdown of the capital funding for each scheme, by source, cost per unit of accommodation is provided at Appendix C.

3.10. In terms of payback for each scheme, the capital investment is shown in year zero with years one to five summarising the net benefits accruing from prevention of residential care. This analysis indicates that the Fleet and Andover schemes will pay back their capital investments within five years and Basingstoke (due to its higher capital contribution) in just over six years.

Table 3: Cash Flow, Payback Period and Return on Investments




3.11. Detailed financial costings, including the revenue costings, were contained within the confidential appendix of the Extra-Care Housing Tendering & Procurement Decision Report (Ref 868) of October 2009.

3.12. It should be noted there are further schemes in the pipeline that might come to fruition. The Extra-Care Programme Board is aware of these and has requested an Extra-Care Strategy paper showing the impacts of an Extra-Care scheme in each Borough and District and each major population centre.

4. Review of Other Options

4.1. Without capital commitment from Hampshire County Council, it would not have been possible to secure funding for these schemes from either the Homes and Communities Agency or the Department of Health.

4.2. The Day Centre, which is an additional part of the Basingstoke Extra-Care scheme, is to be relocated from its current venue of Newman Bassett in Basingstoke. This reflects a strategic synergy of purpose between upgrading the current building, positioning the day centre in a relevant venue and releasing the site at Newman Bassett.

5. Legal Implications

5.1. No legal implications have been identified.

6. Risk Assessment

6.1. Hampshire County Council is minimising its risk in investing this capital by using different registered social landlords, and through them different but experienced construction companies and architects for each of the new-build developments.

6.2. Individual project plans for each scheme are under development, and will include full risk assessment, in line with Hampshire County Council's corporate risk management framework.

7. Recommendation

7.1 It is recommended that the Executive Member for Adult Social Care gives approval to commit capital funding of £1.62m to the three new-build Extra-Care schemes in Andover (£450,000), Basingstoke (£720,000) and Fleet (£450,000).

CORPORATE OR LEGAL INFORMATION:

Links to the Corporate Strategy

Other Significant Links

IMPACT ASSESSMENTS:

1. Equalities Impact Assessment:

A comprehensive Equalities Impact Assessment on Extra-Care Housing has been carried out and there are no adverse impacts in terms of equality or inclusion. Input will be sought however, from the Equality and Inclusion team in developing the Referrals and Allocations Policy for the Extra-Care schemes.

It should be noted that Extra-Care Housing within Hampshire is aimed at vulnerable people over the age of 55, and where appropriate their partners and carers, in order to provide them with the housing, support and care that they need to enable them to live in a home of their own and maintain their independence for as long as possible.

Hampshire Adult Services, working in partnership with the Borough and District Councils, NHS Hampshire and third party partners (registered social landlords, care and support providers) ensures through its referrals and allocations process, that all service users have equality of access to Extra-Care Housing, in accordance with the guidelines contained within the Hampshire County Council Guide to Designing Extra-Care Housing and The Partnership for Extra-Care Housing in Hampshire. Impact assessment will be incorporated into the nominations and referrals process.

In preparing this report, account has been taken of the requirements of the Corporate Equalities Plan and Race Scheme. The contract ensures that the provider will perform their duties with due regard, to eliminate unlawful discrimination and to promote equality of opportunity to all people and to promote good relationships between different racial groups.

2. Impact on Crime and Disorder:

The County Council has a legal obligation under Section 17 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 to consider the impact of all decisions it makes on the prevention of crime.

3. Climate Change:

All new-build Extra-Care schemes are being designed to facilitate the prudent and efficient use of resources and to encourage sustainable consumption and production.

Green travel plans are being developed for the new-build Extra-Care schemes. The aim is to reduce the necessity for private motorised transport and to drive down car use by care and support staff, as a result of having service-users concentrated in one location rather than spread across the community.

Summary of New-Build Extra-Care Housing Developments

Extra-Care Housing Capital Summary