This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Supporting People funding
24/03/2005
Information on people assisted through Supporting People funding is published for the first time today in the statistical bulletin People assisted through Supporting People funding: 2003-04. The bulletin presents information about client profile, client group, type and duration of support and accommodation type.
The main points to emerge from the bulletin are as follows:
- In 2003-04, 140,207 individuals were assisted through Supporting People funding. This represents 3.4% of the population aged 16 and over. The local authorities with the highest percentage of clients per head of population aged 16 and over were West Dunbartonshire (11%), Inverclyde (7%), Renfrewshire (7%) and Angus (7%). The lowest percentages were found to be in Highland, Orkney, Eilean Siar, and Shetland (all at 1%) (Table 1).
- The biggest groups of clients who received support were older people (55%), other vulnerable groups (15%) and homeless or rough sleepers (14%) (Table 2). Older people are the majority group for 23 local authorities and homeless people for a further five local authorities (Table 4).
- Females made up 59% of clients and the people aged 75-84 constituted the largest group (24%) with 53% of clients being 65 or over (Table 5).
- The largest providers of support were local authority housing (28%), registered social landlords (27%) and local authority social work departments (25%). Voluntary organisations provided 17% of support (Table 7).
- Accommodation linked continuous support was received by 40% of clients and one to four hours floating support, received by 26% (Table 8).
- Of all clients, 60% of received permanent support and 19% received variable support (Table 9).
- Nearly half of all clients received support in mainstream housing (49%), with a further 28% in special housing (Table 10).
Supporting People is a new integrated policy and funding framework for housing support services introduced from April 2003. The aim is to provide good quality services, focused on the needs of users, to enable vulnerable people to live independently in the community, in all types of accommodation and tenure.