The following amendment has been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Paul Davies.

We move on to the next item on our agenda this afternoon, which is a Plaid Cymru debate on the Supporting People programme, and I call on Bethan Jenkins to move the motion—Bethan.

Motion NDM6104 Rhun ap Iorwerth

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

Calls on the Welsh Government to ensure that the supporting people programme is protected from any financial cuts over the term of this Assembly.

Motion moved.

Thank you. Often in these debates we scrutinise an area where we believe the Welsh Government could be doing better and highlight what we perceive to be its shortcomings, before proposing positive alternatives. For this debate, we want to try something a little different. We are taking a Welsh Government scheme that has successfully saved money and helped people, with one proviso which I’ll come to, and we’re asking for it to be protected against cuts for the duration of this Assembly.

We would, of course, like to see more resources allocated to the scheme, and it could be tweaked to improve its effectiveness, but we’re starting from the pragmatic position that, before expanding the scheme, we need to protect it.

The Supporting People programme helps around 60,000 of the most vulnerable people in Wales to live independently and prevent them from becoming homeless—very successfully, as I’ve said. It helps people back into education, sustains tenancies, and gets them back into work. The moral case for doing this is well understood, but there is a financial case for doing so as well. In 2006, it was found that, for every £1 spent by the programme, there was a £1.68 saving to the public purse. This was before improvements were made to the programme, so we could see even greater savings when the next evaluation is published.

This is because we now know that dealing with homelessness costs public services far more than preventing it. Research conducted in New York City that tracked nearly 10,000 homeless people concluded that each cost public services $40,500 each year, including time spent in hospitals, shelters and jails. Once housed, these costs were reduced to the point where they effectively offset the entire costs of providing people with housing subsidies and intensive supportive services. Had homelessness been prevented in the first place, these people wouldn’t have needed services that were as intense, saving even more money.

The UK Crisis report of 2015 underlined the New York findings by modelling several scenarios of homelessness in the UK—recognising, of course, that the reasons for homelessness are different to each individual, and that some individuals may be more resilient than others and others would require fewer services. The conclusions were stark. In every scenario, the savings to public services outweighed the cost of preventing homelessness by a magnitude of 3:1 over just one year. For some scenarios where you assume additional costs such as frequent arrests and use of mental health services facilities, the savings could be as high as 20:1. There is a very clear message here—preventing and rapidly resolving homelessness always costs less to the public than allowing homelessness to become sustained or repeated. There is an underlying lesson here about the way public services interact, complement and enhance the effectiveness of what they do when they focus on preventing problems and take a longer term view of what really costs money.

One aspect of austerity that is under-reported is that it fails on its own terms. Right-wing Governments come into power and cut spending on public services only to find themselves having to spend money dealing with the consequences of their short-sightedness. For example, potentially, when schools fail, we often end up with increased demands on benefits, adult education services and the criminal justice system, in particular when you are talking about people who are not in training or education. The response to this isn’t usually to reverse the cuts and make our schools better, but to then cut entitlements to benefits and make further cuts to adult education. The prison system then gets told to warehouse people and not to bother with educational or creative means by which to stop them reoffending, and so the cycle repeats itself yet again.

When the health service gets cuts, it can mean botched operations due to staff shortages. People who would have recovered then become chronically ill and become repeat users of the service, and perhaps are unable to work and contribute towards the income of the state.

We have long recognised the dangers posed to schemes that are good but don’t have the same level of ‘brand recognition’ as other services. They are often the ones most at risk during periods of financial challenges. We also know that schemes that mainly benefit groups of people who are socially excluded, as opposed to those who always vote, may also be at risk when it comes to facing the axe, regardless of how effective and value for money they are. That’s why we here in this institution passed the Mental Health (Wales) Measure 2010. We recognised that there would always be the temptation to focus spending on health conditions that didn’t attach a stigma over those conditions experienced by people unable to articulate and defend themselves for very, very complex reasons. So, we made it a legal requirement that health boards could never cut those services. Similarly, this motion today is simply asking to send a message that it will not be acceptable to cut the Supporting People budget during the course of this Assembly term. And, if we pass this motion today, we’ll be showing that at least some of us in this Chamber are capable of understanding the notion of invest to save—that public services and policies to help people stay in their homes are cheaper—

Will the Member give way on that point?

[Continues.]—than cutting off support and sending people to the streets. Yes.

Thank you for giving way, Bethan. I agree with you in terms of sending a message out there of what we want to achieve. You mentioned the mental health legislation the Assembly has passed. There is, of course, all the world of difference between making legislation and actually ensuring that the results of that legislation happen on the ground. How are you going to make sure—how so you think the Welsh Government should make sure—that the message that we do send out today does actually get interpreted by local authorities out there?

Well, I think the strongest message that the Welsh Government can give is that they would not be committed to making any cuts to this scheme, because then local authorities will not feel that there’s any ambiguity in the process of making sure that these services are vital to what they’re doing on the ground, because, if they do not have a clear signal from Welsh Government that this is being protected, they may well see fit, potentially, to do things in a different way and then may unroll some of the good work that some of the charities in the sector are currently doing.

I just wanted to finish briefly and I wanted to raise one last point that has come to me from the sector. Priority-need acceptances may have fallen by 63 per cent, but, as the Cabinet Secretary knows, measuring homelessness demand according to how many are in priority need is no longer an accurate metric. The Housing (Wales) Act 2014 is requiring local authorities to work with all eligible households and relieve homelessness. Analysis conducted by Shelter Cymru has concluded that traffic to homelessness services has in fact increased by around a quarter since the law changed. It’ll be interesting therefore to hear the Welsh Government’s response to this. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you. I have selected the amendment to the motion and therefore I call on Mark Isherwood to move amendment 1, tabled in the name of Paul Davies—Mark.

Amendment 1—Paul Davies

Delete all and replace with:

Calls on the Welsh Government to:

(a) ensure that the supporting people programme is protected from any financial cuts over the term of this Assembly.

(b) ensure that the key preventative services provided alongside the supporting people programme by the homelessness prevention budget and the housing transition fund are protected from any financial cuts over the term of this Assembly; and

(c) recognise that this funding helps people to live independently, saves lives, saves money for statutory services and provides a platform for other sources of funds to be deployed into prevention work.

Amendment 1 moved.

Diolch. We agree with the original motion calling on the Welsh Government to ensure that the Supporting People programme is protected from any financial cuts, and have included this in our amendment to replace this accordingly. However, our amendment goes further, addressing calls by Supporting People providers to ensure that the key preventative services provided alongside the Supporting People programme by the homelessness prevention budget and the housing transition fund are also protected, and recognise that this funding helps people to live independently, saves lives, saves money for statutory services and provides a platform for other sources of funds to be deployed into prevention work—i.e., not only good of itself but an ideal way of tackling a situation of reduced budget.

The Supporting People programme is conservatively estimated to save £2.30 for every £1 spent, whilst also levering in other funding, preventing homelessness, preventing spending on health and social care, and increasing community safety—minimising the need for high-cost interventions and reducing avoidable pressure on statutory services.

This year’s Let’s Keep on Supporting People campaign has been launched by Community Housing Cymru and Cymorth Cymru to secure continued investment and ensure that people who are marginalised and at risk continue to be protected. As they state, the Supporting People Programme prevents homelessness and supports over 60,000 people in Wales to live independently in their own homes and with dignity in their community. They say it’s an essential, preventative service

‘that makes a real difference to the lives of those who benefit from it, increasing their resilience and ability to maintain a secure home’ as well as reducing their demand on health and social services.

‘Over 750,000 lives have been transformed since its inception in 2004’, they add.

Supporting People services support a wide range of people at risk of crisis, including people at risk of homelessness, families fleeing domestic abuse, people with mental or physical health problems or with learning disabilities—or, should I say, learning difficulties—ex-service personnel, care leavers, and older people in need of support. The Supporting People data linkage feasibility study of this year showed that Supporting People interventions reduce use of accident and emergency and GP surgeries, meaning fewer resources used and greater availability of services for the general population. Public Health Wales’s adverse childhood experiences report shows how many of the most intractable health and social issues can be reduced if we intervene early enough to protect children. The Supporting People programme helps us to meet this need.

Supporting People providers have been doing all they can to cut costs and deliver effective services with decreasing budgets, but further cuts would do irreparable damage to these essential prevention services, leaving many vulnerable people with nowhere else to turn. The Supporting People programme grant is £124.4 million and Cymorth Cymru are grateful for the cross-party support that kept this protected last year. They state the housing transition fund has also been hugely promising and effective. However, set around £5 million last year, and falling to around £3 million this year, this is due to reach its final year of funding next year.

So that local authorities are able to retain this funding to enable innovative ways of working, they suggest an increase in the Supporting People grant to £130 million and rolling the transition fund into that. This would allow security of funding for local authorities and providers alike to explore new ways of addressing the homelessness issue on a longer term basis.

Shelter Cymru, Llamau, Gisda, Digartref Ynys Môn and Dewis are calling on the Welsh Government to ensure that all three budgets supporting prevention of homelessness work are protected: Supporting People, transition fund, and the homelessness prevention fund. They state that the homelessness prevention grant provides one of the few stable sources of funding for independent housing advice for those at risk of homelessness, without which much of that work would be at risk. They add that the grant has provided a platform for other sources of funds to be deployed into prevention work and works with people before their problems escalate, meaning statutory services are benefitting from this funding. In other words, cuts to any of these mutually supporting funds would, effectively, be a bigger cut to statutory services.

As the people I met when I visited Supporting People projects this summer told me, these had saved their lives. After all, as we heard at today’s Co-production Network for Wales and LivesthroughFriends seminar, which I hosted, we can all benefit from the abundance of talent and resources amongst our citizens by promoting self-reliance, encouraging reciprocity and ensuring that public services, citizens and communities work effectively together. Let’s not miss this opportunity. Yes, we can save money, but only by doing this differently. Thank you.

There can’t be a Member in this Chamber who doesn’t have substantial numbers of constituents touched in some way by the services supported by the Welsh Government’s Supporting People. In my own constituency, Gwalia, Coastal Housing, Neath Port Talbot Homes, Dewis Housing and many others provide vital services funded through Supporting People. I’ve met people who’ve been given back their independence because of Supporting People, and no decent people could meet someone in that position without appreciating the immense value of the work that it funds.

Supporting vulnerable or elderly people to live independent lives should be at the heart of what all of us want to achieve, whatever our political affiliation, in this Chamber. So, let me be clear: there is a not a monopoly of support for this programme on the opposition benches in this Chamber. It’s a Welsh Government programme and, indeed, while the nationalist Government in Scotland and the Conservative Government in Westminster have slashed support for their programmes, the Labour Party in Wales has consistently prioritised Supporting People.

Will the Member give way?

Yes.

I am grateful to the Member for giving way, and I understand the points that he’s making, and I understand the Government have supported this. But I have to say to him it was the budget before last, in which his Government suggested cutting Supporting People, that’s led to this debate now.

Well, I fully expect the Government to maintain its commitment to Supporting People in this budget, and, if it doesn’t, I’ll be as angry and disappointed as anybody who has put forward this motion today. But the work funded by Supporting People is a lifeline; it’s not a political football. The place for voting on the funding of Government services and programmes and policies is the budget vote. Everyone who follows this place carefully will know that, but for a lot of people who don’t follow it, or are casual observers, which will include a lot of people affected by Supporting People, it will seem that today’s vote is the vote on the programme, and it is not.

So, I appeal to Members to bear in mind the anxieties of people—many constituents of ours—who will understand full well the effect of the UK Government’s austerity cuts on the Welsh budget, and understand full well how much they depend on Supporting People. Others will form their own views of the opportunism of a party with a central role in writing the budget on the liaison committee, and the opportunism of a party whose Westminster colleagues have decimated their own programme and who have cut the Welsh budget, choosing to bring this motion in front of us today.

I’ll be voting against the motion, but I’ll not be voting against Supporting People. I’ll be voting against the kind of politics that treats Supporting People as a 30-minute quick hit in the Chamber.

Thank you very much. I call the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children, Carl Sargeant.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome today’s debate, and I thank Members for their comments. Can I first start by recognising the many organisations that look after many vulnerable people in our communities, and start by just thanking Cymorth Cymru for the starting point? Thank you to Auriol Miller, and good luck to her in her new job, and to the interim director, Katie Dalton, when she takes her post.

Although often taken for granted, a stable home is a basic requirement. It’s the foundation for children’s education, for holding down a job, for health and well-being, and it helps people realise their full potential. The Supporting People programme, as Members have alluded to, helps people to find and keep a home, provides vital support in overcoming problems—in many cases, difficult circumstances. This year, it is expected that around 58,000 people, including some of the most vulnerable, will have been touched by this programme. Be it an individual or a family, young or old, the support is there for them. It’s available irrespective of whether someone owns their home, is in social housing, lives in supported housing, or is in the private rented sector. In some cases, the support comes with accommodation, such as refuges, which help victims of domestic violence. In other cases, short-term floating support is provided in their home.

Can I just pick up the points that Mark Isherwood was making? I do find it astonishing that the opposition of the Conservative benches bring their support to these debates, placed by some of the opposition Members—but the Member has to have some reality about his comments today. The Institute for Fiscal Studies recent report says that the Welsh Government will be 11.6 per cent worse off in funding by 2019-20, compared to the year when we first started. I think that the Member has to recognise that we have one pot of money. We have to make sure that it’s well used. Prevention is certainly something that I’m keen to pursue with my team of colleagues around the Cabinet table.

Members will also be aware that the early results of the new homeless legislation are very encouraging—as Bethan Jenkins made reference to, indeed—so much that the UK Government is under pressure to follow our lead. The Supporting People programme plays a very important part in this success, but its benefits are not limited to housing alone. I have met Shelter Cymru this week, and I will be having further discussions around the impacts of that—the long-term sustainability of such a programme, which has seen great success.

I will take an intervention if the Member wishes to intervene.

I hope you heard me say that I acknowledge that budgets had been contracting. I’m asking precisely why, therefore, the Welsh Government doesn’t look to maximise the opportunity to do things differently in order to compensate for that, because this will help you manage reduced budgets. It’s not a cost; it’s an investment.

Indeed, and the Member’s right to raise that very issue. That’s why the Member voted against the housing Act in the last Government, when we were introducing this legislation. He should think back about his actions.

Our research shows how the programme helps to reduce unnecessary demands on the NHS—a significant benefit in its own right. It provides the case for early intervention and prevention, which is inherent in our well-being of future generations Act. For example, for people with substance misuse needs, there is an overall long-term reduction in the use of accident and emergency departments and GP services after receiving support. I’m very keen to pursue the issues around adverse childhood experiences as I believe that this is a long-term solution that impacts particularly on the health service, and mental health services too.

These examples, Deputy Llywydd, show how the programme—and, importantly, their integrated approach with other public services—benefits everybody: the individuals concerned, the NHS and other public services such as local homelessness services. Given increasing pressures on public services, preventing or reducing demand has never been so important. I do hope with sincerity that the Member who has brought this debate to the Chamber today will also recognise through that budget process the challenges that Governments face, and where we can make clever investments such as Supporting People, there is a consequence somewhere else within the budget mechanism. So, we have to be careful where we make our investments. I want to see more and even greater contribution in preventing homelessness—more joint working with other services so people get help when they need it. Whatever the funding arrangements, we must ensure the money makes as much difference as possible for those who need it.

Deputy Llywydd, I recognise the spirit of today’s motion. However, we cannot pre-empt the current budget process or speculate on our overall budget in subsequent years. Members will be only too aware of the continuing and, in some cases, increasing financial pressures bearing down on us. For those reasons I will be asking Members to oppose the motion.

I am pleased, however, that Paul Davies recognises the programme’s significant preventative role in part of his amendments. However, for the same reasons as I alluded to, I will have to oppose amendment 1. I trust that no-one—[Interruption.] Of course, the Member’s free to intervene if the Member wishes.

I was just saying, it was going so well and I had hoped that you would have supported the very sensible Conservative amendment that was put down in the name of Paul Davies.

I’m not sure the Member was in when the Conservative amendment was debated, but it’s impressive that he remembers.

I trust that no-one will seek to misrepresent or disrespect the proper budgetary process of this Assembly as the Welsh Government puts itself at odds with the views expressed across the Chamber on the importance of this work, Llywydd—that united messages must not get lost in the rough and tumble of party politics and that we are all, in this Chamber, supportive of the Supporting People programme, though there is a proper process to go through, as the Members here do recognise. Diolch.

Thank you very much. I call Bethan Jenkins to respond to the debate. Bethan.

Thank you. I don’t have much time, but I’d like to thank people for taking part in this important debate. I think it’s important that we do debate this particular issue.

You find in politics sometimes that you can’t win whatever you do. You support a Government programme and you’re accused of making politics with it. We are here to make sure, as the main opposition, that we hold you to account, Minister, and that we make sure that programmes like this are important for the future. So, I would say to your backbench Member Jeremy Miles: are you therefore patronising the people in the public gallery who are not saying that this is just a 30-minute political hit? They know of the importance of this debate because it was your Government who put forward the proposition to cut Supporting People, so we must keep this on the political agenda. If we do not, then it’s failing to hold you to account as the main opposition here. So, I accept that the Government Minister has been very liberal in his spirit to talk to us in the future, and I hope that he can hear the concerns of the people here today, but this is certainly not to try and play games. I don’t do that in politics, so I am a little bit offended by those comments, and also by the Conservatives. You know, a ‘delete all’ amendment—we came here in good faith. You could have helped improve our motion and enhance it. You said almost exactly the same thing that I said, Mark Isherwood.

So, let’s please try and get behind these schemes. They aid and support people in our communities.

Will you accept that the comments I made reflected the comments made to me by the charities I named, who say that the three funds are interdependent, in order to achieve the goals that we share?

I do, but I have finished. Thank you very much.

I missed that. Sorry about that.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Okay, thank you. Therefore, I’ll defer voting on this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.