A big moment but still much to do

James Lloyd, director of policy and communications at ARCO provides his initial thoughts to the publication of the Older People’s Housing Taskforce’s final report.

Although published by the Ministry of Housing, social care runs through the recently published final report of the Older People’s Housing Taskforce like a stick of rock.

In a statement to accompany the report, the housing minister recognised housing can ‘enhance the wellbeing of our senior citizens and reduce demand on adult social care services and the National Health Service’. This is the first time this has been acknowledged by the new Labour government.

It took the last Labour government over a decade before it recognised the vital role of housing in the sustainability of the health and care systems. This resulted in landmark white papers, such as Lifetime Homes, Lifetimes Neighbourhoods. But these came too late for their full potential to be realised.

The Conservative governments that followed also ran out of time, having finally launched the taskforce just a year before the election.

Thankfully, rather than bat it aside, social care minister Stephen Kinnock MP and housing minister Matthew Pennycook MP have fully embraced the report of the taskforce, after spending some time to digest its many recommendations.

Key milestone

So, what does the taskforce have to say about social care? It recommends recognising those who work in service-led housing with care and support roles in all plans to grow the adult social care workforce and related skills plans. It also recommends local planning authorities produce older people’s housing strategies supported by their local integrated care board and council social care teams.

However, the real meat of the report lies in its focus on removing the barriers to growing specialist housing options for older people, such as modern housing with care for older people – known as integrated retirement communities (IRCs). The taskforce’s report is a key milestone in closing the gap between the UK and other countries with much more developed IRC sectors.

For example, given the higher running costs of specialist housing, the taskforce recommends the government explore innovative charging models that enable both purchase prices and ongoing costs to be matched to senior citizens’ capacity to pay.

It also recommends further work to assess the feasibility of new tenure models beyond leasehold for service-led forms of older people’s housing, such as occupational rights agreements seen in New Zealand, and it proposes developing an overarching regulatory approach to the sector to safeguard consumers and give certainty to investors.

Publication of the final report of the taskforce was a big moment for ARCO and its members who operate IRCs. It took years of campaigning by ARCO, multiple letters to the minister and countless parliamentary questions to reach this point.

We will be working with the government to implement the recommendations of the taskforce. There is much to do.