Agenda item

Members considered a report which presented the forecast overspend from the Disabled Facilities Grant and requested additional top up funding from the Capital Receipts Reserve.

In presenting the report Members noted that West Lindsey’s allocation had not been uplifted for inflation and didn’t necessarily reflect the demographic of the District with many residents, not holding sufficient capital funds to pay for adaptions or owning their own homes, which allowed charges to be raised against properties.

The delivery of Disabled Facilities grants was a statutory requirement and the relevant Central Government Department had been quite clear that running out of grant funding, did not mean the Authority could cease delivery.

To ensure delivery of the grants could continue and the current service demand be met, a request from capital receipt reserves of £300,000 was being sought with an additional £234,000 having already been allocated from Section 106 monies.  

In previous years’, top-up grants had been received in January, however this payment had not been confirmed.

The spend to-date was detailed at paragraph 1.8 of the report and the reasoning for budget pressures set out in 1.9.

Members also noted the additional work which would be undertaken alongside allocating funding, to raise with the Government, and the County Council, the inadequacy of funding and the flawed formula used to calculate funding levels, particularly given the demographic of the District.

Debate ensued and Members sought and received assurance that the lobbying and letters referenced in the recommendations would be undertaken.

Members also questioned the process for determining how S106 funding was allocated, suggesting that there should be greater Member involvement and engagement in committing such Funds. The use of trusted assessors, appointed directly by the District Council, as an alternative way to reduce the delays resulting from a lack of Occupational Therapists was again raised.

In responding, Members were advised that as part of the detailed work undertaken by the Scrutiny Committee, the use of trusted assessors had been considered.  However, the need for a Disabled Facilities Grant was not ascertained until a referral had been made from the County Council. The Authority was not in a position to by-pass the County Council, as every person was entitled to an Adult Social Care Assessment. In comparison, a very small number of those assessments actually undertaken ended up in a Disabled Facilities Grant because there were so many other options that Occupational Therapists considered prior to relying on a DFG.  The possibility had been discussed with County colleagues, but it had been made clear that given the right to a full assessment and the fact that many assessments did not result in a DFG but some other form of assistance which was the County Council’s responsibility to deliver, it was not appropriate to miss out that step.   Furthermore the District Council had no expertise, in-house, to supervise an Occupational Therapist or a trusted assessor because health, in those terms was not within the remit of West Lindsey, because it was not one of its functions under statute.

Regarding Section 106 monies, Officers outlined how approved Planning Policy dictated this and the wording of the Section 106 arrangements themselves.  This was also detailed in the Infrastructure Funding Statement yearly.

Given this, applications for Section 106 monies were primarily dealt with internally and assessed against the options and priorities paper.  If the situation arose where there was not enough S106 monies then Members would be asked to select their preferred projects.  It was noted that much due diligence was undertaken to ensure any potential partners were adequate.  Officers outlined the detail and the nature of the specific S106 which had enabled monies to be allocated to DFGs.  It was emphasised that an overview and update of S106 spend would be included in the Infrastructure Funding Statement and offers to share more detail around the internal process was made.

In responding to further questions Officers confirmed the additional funding being sought would only cover the mandatory element of DFGs.  Whilst the Council had a discretionary policy, this was only in place when there was funding to finance it and it had been suspended in April.  It was also brought to Members’ attention that discretionary grants were often in place for customers who had already had a mandatory grant and, as such, acted like a top up or a contribution towards something additional not available through the mandatory scheme.  This had no bearing on speeding up the process or the number of applications being dealt with.

In response to Members’ questions Officers confirmed they were not in a position to know how many applications were made to LCC but not referred to WLDC, only the number of referrals that were made.  This had been discussed with the County Council but they did not log this data at present. It was suggested dual hatted Members could raise this with the County Council .

RESOLVED that: -

(a)    the allocation of £300,000 from the Capital Receipts Reserve to address the shortfall in Disabled Facilities Grant funding for 2022/23 be approved;

(b)    further lobbying take place with Lincolnshire County Council to obtain both further funding from the Better Care Fund for the current year and a larger allocation in future years due to the demographic pressures West Lindsey faced; and

(c)    it be noted that the Chief Executive would be preparing a letter for the MP Sir Edward Leigh, setting out the challenges the District faced in meeting demand for disabled adaptations.