Agenda item

To consider progress against the actions arising from the Disabled Facilities Grants Review and to approve closure of the review. 

15.1          Attention was drawn to the report of the Head of Community Services, circulated at Pages No. 145-153, which set out the progress made against the recommendation arising from the Disabled Facilities Grants review.  Members were asked to consider the report and to approve closure of the review.

15.2           The Head of Community Services advised that the Council’s Environmental Health Team administered Disabled Facilities Grants but applicants must first be assessed by an Occupational Therapist from Gloucestershire County Council to find out if an adaptation best met the customer’s needs; it was only following a referral that the Council was involved.  The Environmental Health Manager explained that a review of the way the Council delivered Disabled Facilities Grants had been conducted by an Overview and Scrutiny Working Group in 2015/16 and reports setting out progress against the action plan had been brought to the Committee on a six monthly basis since that time.  The action plan was now complete, therefore, Members were asked to consider the progress made and to close the review.  It was noted that the downward trend of Occupational Therapist referrals and applications for Disabled Facilities Grants had continued during 2018/19 which could be attributable to the Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group restructure and the Occupational Therapists having less customers or less ability to process customers; notwithstanding this, it was a similar level to the previous year with a total of 85 referrals compared to 89 in 2017/18.  He pointed out that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government had allocated additional funds to local authorities which committed to spend it prior to 1 April 2019 and Tewkesbury Borough Council had been allocated £141,363 which had been used for Disabled Facilities Grants adaptations and more broadly on “other social care capital projects”, in particular for the insulation of park homes across the borough.

15.3          A Member noted that neither the Tewkesbury Borough Plan or Joint Core Strategy referred to ‘homes for life’ i.e. wheelchair accessible, wet rooms etc.  In response, the Chief Executive advised that the ‘homes for life’ standard did come with affordability issues which some housing providers had problems with, particularly in terms of affordable housing, and he undertook to ensure that a briefing note on this matter was provided to Members following the meeting.  Another Member questioned whether Gloucestershire County Council had been informed that the Council was not spending all of the funding it was allocated.  The Head of Community Services confirmed that discussions did take place with colleagues at the County Council and any unused money went back into the pot at the end of the year but a countywide working group was currently looking at how this could be improved.   In terms of possible reasons as to why the money was not being spent, Members were advised that, although the Council’s procedure was sound and applications were processed quickly, Officers were required to follow specific criteria set down by legislation which meant that some people looked elsewhere for grants; in addition, there had been a general decline in the number of applications across the county and further afield which indicated that demand was not as high as it had been in the past.  The Chief Executive reiterated that the Council’s system was very good but that the Disabled Facilities Grants administered by the Council were often capital grants for larger schemes as quite a lot of smaller adaptations were carried out within social care, furthermore, grants were means-tested which meant that some people would not qualify and may find it easier to obtain a grant from elsewhere.

15.4          It was

RESOLVED          That the progress against the recommendations arising from the Disabled Facilities Grants Review be NOTED and closure of the review be APPROVED.