No Disabled Facilities Grant increase for local authorities as £505m confirmed for 2020-21
The Department of Health and Social Care has informed local authority chief executives that £505m will be made available for the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) in 2020-21 – maintaining the same level of funding as 2019-20.
DFGs provide funding to older and disabled people in owner-occupied, privately rented and registered provider properties to make changes to improve accessibility through the installation of adaptations such as showers, stairlifts, homelifts and ramps.
Designed to reduce hospital and care admissions and enable people to return from hospital quicker, the grant has been in existence for 30 years but in 2014 became part of the Better Care Fund – a pooled health and social care budget.
A letter issued on the 28th February by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to local authority chief executives noted that the £505m is “in recognition of Government’s continued support to local authorities to help older and disabled people to live independently and safely in their own homes for longer.”
As in previous years, the Government will intend to make the payments to local authorities across England in May 2020.
In recent years, the level of funding allocated to the DFG has seen a considerable and consistent rise with 2016-17 raising from £220m to £394m. In 2018-19, funding increased again to £468m and in 2019-2020 funding grew to £505m.
The announcement that funding will remain as the same level will come as unwelcome news to the Home Adaptations Consortium, who recently called on Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, to increase the DFG funding again.
According to the collection of 20 leading mobility, independent living and access organisations, “an ageing housing stock, higher numbers of people over 65, an increase in working-age adults with long term disabilities, and more families with disabled children, the need for essential home adaptations rises, and so does the required level of funding. Whilst last year’s 8% increase to the DFG budget was most welcome, it still falls short of meeting this need.”
