Supporting People Reviews

Supporting People services offer practical support to vulnerable and socially excluded households, which help them access accommodation and remain in their own home.

The programme was launched by the Government in April 2003 as a new way for councils to pay for projects that provide housing related support services. Housing related support can include things like:

• floating support services
• accommodation services
• help from sheltered housing staff to claim benefits, manage money, access GP or other health services
• community alarm services
• help to lead a more independent life.

The Government also gave guidelines to councils on how to make sure that Supporting People projects provide good services. The guidelines said that each service had to be reviewed before April 2006.

• How is a service reviewed?
• What happens next?
• Who checks on the Council?
• Compliments, complaints and suggestions
• Confidential feedback

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How is a service reviewed?

The review is carried out:

• by a member of the Council’s Supporting People Team or by a consultant employed by the Supporting People Team. This person is called the reviewing officer.
• according to Government guidelines.
• by consulting with service users and other 'stakeholders'.
• in a fully transparent manner.

The review is carried out through assessments of the following four areas:

1. Strategic relevance

• Is there a need for the service?

2. Performance

• During the previous year, was the service always open / available?
• Did staff work the hours that they should?
• How many new service users moved in to a sheltered housing service or had a community alarm?
• How many service users were able to move on to more independent accommodation?
• How many people were helped to live independently?

3. Quality

• How well has the service supported service users?
• The reviewing officer visits the organisation for this part of the review and looks at files and other information.
• They may also ask service users what they think of the service.

The officer also contacts other organisations that work with the service (these are called 'stakeholders') to find out what they think.

4. Value for money

• How do service users benefit from the support they receive?
• Is the service too expensive?

A report is then written that includes the results of all four assessments and a recommendation about what the Council should do. The report may also contain a list of improvements that the service has agreed to make.

Possible recommendations to the Council include:

• Continue the service at the same cost
• Continue the service but pay less for it
• Continue the service but pay more for it
• Continue the service but find another organisation to run it
• Continue with the organisation and change the service (for example, we might recommend that a service works with people aged between 16 and 30 instead of 18 to 25 year olds, or that a service works with people who have higher support needs.
• Discontinue the service (in other words, we stop paying for it).

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What happens next?

The report then goes through the following stages:

• It is sent to the manager of the service for comments.
• It is agreed or amended by a review panel (which may include service user representatives).
• It is considered by Haringey’s Supporting People Commissioning Body. The Commissioning Body is a Board of senior Council, Probation and health service staff and has the final say.

You can find summaries of completed reviews via the navigation links on the left of this page. As more reviews are completed, we will add these to the listings.

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Who checks on the Council?

The Audit Commission and the Department for Communities and Local Government check that the reviews carried out by the Supporting People Team have been done properly. There will be an Audit Commission Inspection of the Haringey Supporting People Team in 2006/7.

Compliments, complaints and suggestions

Look in Related Links to find out how you can feedback about our services.

Confidential feedback

Look in the Attached Files section below to view a sample of our confidential questionnaire which we ask survey users to complete when we review Supporting People services.

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Attached Files

Filename	Filetype	Size
confidential questionnaire.pdf	PDF	37K
PDF documents require Adobe Acrobat reader. Please click here to download.

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