East Sussex funding gap: Have your say on the East Sussex Floating Support Service

Our funding gap

East Sussex County Council (the Council) has a net budget of £538.1 million for the year from April 2024 to March 2025. Our net budget is the money we have to spend which is financed by business rates, council tax receipts and the revenue support grant we get from the national government.

We expect our net budget for next year to be a similar amount. This means that we are facing a financial gap of £55 million for 2025/26. The financial gap is the difference between the funding available and the cost of keeping services at their present level.

Most local authorities are facing similar pressures. We face this gap even though we are a well-run and efficient council which has saved £140 million since 2010 and found new ways to work effectively through difficult times. Unfortunately, the cost pressures we face now are so great that efficiency alone is not enough and the limited reserves of money we have available would not be enough to meet the financial gap. Most importantly, reserves can only be spent once and could not repeatedly fill the financial gap which councils face every year. It is also not possible to close the whole gap by raising council tax as the increase that would be required is beyond the limit set by national Government.

We are legally obliged to close the financial gap and balance our budget. This means that some tough decisions will have to be made and reduced services are possible in all areas. When making these decisions, our priority will be to maintain protection and support, wherever possible, for the most vulnerable people in our community.

There is more information about why we have to make savings and what we are doing to highlight the issues local authorities face with the national Government on our website at https://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/your-council/finance/east-sussex-our-funding-gap.

Social care support

Adult Social Care and Health is a department of East Sussex County Council. We work with people aged 18 and over who live in East Sussex. We help people live healthy and independent lives, whatever that may look like for them. We look at people's strengths, capabilities, support network, community and difficulties and work with them to find solutions.

The Council has a legal duty to provide social care support to those who are eligible. About three quarters of the East Sussex budget goes on providing social care for children and adults, with adult social care accounting for nearly half of the budget (48%). Care and support for adults is not free and we charge for most of our services. The amount people pay depends on their financial situation, but most people have to pay something towards their care, with the remaining costs paid by the Council.

Nationally, social care is under pressure due to a combination of demographic, financial, and systemic factors. East Sussex is no stranger to this, facing unique challenges which impact on the need for support and services in the county. Around 25% of the East Sussex population is over 65 compared to a national figure of 18%, average wages remain lower than the national average and 30,000 people in the county are living in some of the most deprived areas of England. We have also seen a 40% increase in the average weekly cost of providing care in East Sussex since 2020.

As people live longer, they may require care and support for longer, and their care and support needs are likely to become more complex over time. There is also evidence that the cost of living challenges have increased demand for care, as well as making people less able to afford their contribution towards the cost of care.

As social care is such a large part of the Council’s budget, we will need to make savings to services in this area too. Reduced services are likely, and we will need to review staff numbers, but the amount we need to save can’t be achieved through reducing the workforce alone.

Developing the savings proposals

Given the financial gap we are facing, we know it is impossible to avoid some of our residents being negatively affected by the difficult decisions that we need to make. We have tried our best to identify proposed savings that would have the least possible impact on people’s care and wellbeing.

We know too that many of our external partners in the NHS, local authorities, providers and the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector (VCSE) are experiencing their own pressures in terms of demand for services and funding challenges. Where we can, we’ve tried to take that into account in looking for savings.

Our priority in Adult Social Care and Health is to meet our legal duties under the Care Act. To help us to do this, we have identified funding areas that we think need to be protected when we are looking at savings options.

The priority funding areas are:

• Community care budget: This budget covers the cost of care that is provided to adults who are eligible for social care support because of a disability or health condition. This budget is already under pressure because more people need our help, the cost of providing care is increasing, and our residents are increasingly struggling to pay their contribution towards the cost of care.

• Carers: As well as protecting the budget for community care which funds support for people who are eligible for social care support, we have tried to protect the direct support we provide to unpaid carers who are looking after their family members and friends. This is because carers play an invaluable role in meeting care and support needs for so many residents and reduce the amount of support residents need from other services.

• Voluntary and community enterprise sector (VCSE): These organisations make a huge contribution to preventing, reducing and delaying the need for care and support from the community care budget. For this reason, we want to protect the funding that we provide to support this sector as far as possible, particularly where we can demonstrate that services are supporting our statutory duties and other priority funding areas.

• Frontline workers: We need to ensure we have enough social work staff and occupational therapy workers to carry out assessments and put care and support in place. We also need to retain enough financial assessment staff to ensure we are funding those who are most in need and that people pay the correct contribution.

• Care market: We need to ensure we have enough staff so that we can support the care market and ensure we have a good supply of services that deliver the best value.

How the service works now

The Floating Support Service is run by BHT Sussex, formerly Brighton Housing Trust, on behalf of the Council. The service supports residents aged 16+ years who require support with their housing or help to stay in their own home. The aim of the service is to reduce the risk of someone becoming homeless and/or help them with housing issues that may affect their health or safety.

It offers short-term advice over three to four months to help people:

• look into more suitable accommodation
• prevent homelessness
• deal with tenancy, rent and mortgage worries
• keep warm and reduce energy bills
• ensure your home is safe and in good repair
• manage household bills and housing related debts

People aged between 16 and 59 have to be referred to the service by a professional. Those aged 60+ years can apply to use the service themselves.

Between April 2023 and March 2024, the service supported 5,282 clients and their households. Sixty percent of the clients were aged 16-59 and 40% were aged 60+. Many of these clients were experiencing poor health, with 61% of them identifying as having a physical disability due to a long-standing illness or condition, and 30% managing a mental health condition. The majority of people who used the service (71%) were supported to remain in their current home.

What we are proposing to change

The proposal is to reduce the funding for this service from over £4.3 million to £500,000 a year. This would be a reduction in the budget of 88.5%. If the proposal went ahead, the change would happen from October 2025 at the earliest, as we would need to give six months’ notice to the provider.

This is such a significant budget reduction that we don’t yet know whether a future service is viable or what it could look like. Based on the current model, that level of funding would potentially support around 800 clients. It’s likely though that any future service would have to significantly tighten its eligibility criteria. For example, it may only be available to people who are eligible for support from adult social care or to groups of people with particular needs who meet an agreed criteria.

Why we are proposing this saving   

While we recognise the importance of these services, the budget pressures we face mean that we have to make difficult decisions about how we spend our money.

We have continued to fund floating support services over the last decade, despite the budget reductions we have experienced. This is because we recognise the value they provide to our residents and because they help prevent the need for other services from us and other organisations like districts and borough councils.

The legal responsibility for providing advice, help and housing to those who are homeless, or at risk of becoming so, lies with district and borough councils. We are therefore not required by the law to provide these information and advice services for housing. Given the financial pressures we face, we are therefore proposing a significant reduction in the funding we provide for housing support.

How people and organisations would be affected

Current clients would be able to finish their support, but the number of people who could benefit from the service in the future would be significantly reduced. It is likely that we would need to prioritise certain groups of people such as adult social care clients, older people or those with particular needs if this proposal goes ahead. The support the service offers would probably need to change too, for example, to offer a more limited range of services or support people for less time. This will have an impact on the health and wellbeing of our residents, particularly as the service benefits are experienced by the whole household, including children. People may be at increased risk of poverty, debt, poor housing conditions, homelessness and loss of independence.

A reduction in the service offer for the Floating Support Service is likely to mean more work for our care management teams in adults and children’s social care, which are already under pressure. This is because they are the main referrers into the service and do not have the housing expertise needed to support clients directly. It is also likely to affect district and borough councils, the NHS and voluntary and community sector organisations that provide housing advice.

There is likely to be an increased risk of people becoming homeless and asking for support from the district and borough councils, which have responsibility for housing. District and borough authorities face similar financial pressures and may struggle to cope with the additional burdens this proposal would create. 

Housing issues and poor mental health often go hand in hand, so reducing the service would have an impact on health services. There is a risk that more people would seek support from their GP or be more likely to visit the hospital emergency departments if the Floating Support Service is able to support less people. That may then put more pressure on mental health services if there are more referrals to those services.

There is likely to be an increased burden on local voluntary and community services including money advice and welfare benefits services. We know such services are already under pressure due to the cost of living pressures many residents are experiencing.