• Five local authorities across England will trailblaze adult social care charging reform
• Trailblazers will implement the new adult social care charging reform system early
• Charging reforms will mean no one has to face unpredictable care costs

Government has announced that five local authorities in England will implement a new and improved adult social care charging reform system which caps the cost of care.

To ensure a smooth transition from the current charging system the five trailblazing local authorities – Wolverhampton, Blackpool, Cheshire East, Newham, North Yorkshire – will put the charging reform plans in place in January 2023 ahead of a national rollout in October next year.

This includes a new lifetime cap of £86,000 on the amount anyone in England will need to spend on their personal care, alongside a more generous means test for local authority financial support.

The trailblazing areas were selected to ensure a cross section of communities are represented and so any insight, evidence and lessons learned from this initiative will be useful to providers and authorities in all parts of England.

The Health and Social Care Levy will raise more than £5.4 billion for adult social care reforms which includes including £3.6 billion to reform the way people pay for their social care charging reform to ensure the new system is fair and responsible, balancing government support and the need for people to be responsible for their future care needs.

From October 2023 no-one starting to receive care will pay more than £86,000 over their lifetime, and no-one with assets of less than £20,000 will have to make any contribution from their savings or housing wealth – up from £14,250. Anyone with assets between £20,000 and £100,000 will be eligible for some means-tested support with the upper limit more than four times the current limit.

The trailblazers will shape the government’s approach to implementation by allowing the Department of Health and Social Care to test key aspects of the reforms.

The initiative will generate valuable evidence and insight to help the government to monitor progress, identify challenges and improve understanding of how this will work in practice.

These five local authorities will co-produce documentation to educate and inform other local authorities with a series of events to be planned before the final rollout.

The launch of the operational initiative is running in parallel with the ongoing Parliamentary discussions on the Health and Care Bill, which includes charging reform.

This is necessary to make sure England is operationally ready for charging reform.

The Planning Inspectorate has made three appointments to senior leadership posts, with all successful candidates coming from within the organisation.

They are:

• Sean Canavan – Director of Strategy
• Rachel Graham – Chief Digital and Information Officer
• Richard Schofield – Head of Planning Inspector Profession

Sean will take over the role of Director of Strategy from Christine Thorby who leaves the Planning Inspectorate at the end of this month.

Rachel Graham’s new leadership role for digital and information has been created to reflect the increasing importance that data and digital continues to have in all aspects of the Planning Inspectorate’s work including contributions to the reforms of the planning system.

As Head of Planning Inspector Profession, Richard, a highly experienced inspector, will lead on all professional development of inspectors, and he will be the main liaison with Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and other key stakeholders.

Sarah Richards, Chief Executive of The Planning Inspectorate, said:

“I am pleased that these are all internal promotions. These appointments reflect the impressive skills and expertise of our staff and the benefits of nurturing and developing talent across the Planning Inspectorate. The knowledge and expertise of each will be invaluable in continuing the work of the Executive Team and delivering our priorities in future.”

The appointments come at an exciting time as delivery of the revised five-year strategic plan continues and with important work taking place currently to improve key areas including the following:

Digital Improvements

Appeals Service

We are working on digital improvements to the planning appeal journey so that it is easier, faster and more cost effective to appeal a planning decision.

We have been piloting the service for householder appeals with three local planning authorities (see our previous blog post). This has provided useful data and we are now looking to expand the pilot from late April/early May when we will include further types of planning appeals with a selected group of Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) and enable the service to be accessed via GOV.UK

This is a big step forward as it enables us to increase the number of appeals being submitted via the new service meaning we learn quicker about what works and what needs improving. This is critical not only for improving the service we offer to customers but so that we can use that feedback when developing the appeal submission process for all our other types of appeals; work that is planned for the next 6 months.

Applications Service

The Applications Service covers any application dealt with by the Planning Inspectorate and the work to modernise our applications service has been progressing well. The majority of applications are National Infrastructure planning applications, with other applications including Common Land, Drought Orders and Permits, Compulsory Purchase Orders, and Necessary Wayleaves.

The National Infrastructure service is the first of our applications services being developed. We are planning to go live with a first public pilot in early April 2022 with a new ‘Register to have your say’ service. This will streamline the service to deliver value to users and bring us one step closer to our vision of “Making the National Infrastructure Consenting process inclusive, efficient and understandable for everyone.”

Our performance: improving and a new focus on hearings

During the second half of 2021 we focused on proposals for national infrastructure, examining local plans and deciding more appeal cases requiring hearings or inquiries. This work is most likely to be of greatest community interest or greatest economic significance as the country rebuilds its economy after the pandemic.

• we recently submitted reports to the Secretary of State for a new power station at Sizewell and for improvements to the A47 between Blofield and North Burlingham in Norfolk
• we continue to receive new Local Plans for examination, including the plan for the Manchester Combined Authority area
• we have closed more than 700 cases through inquiry in the last year and reduced the number of cases awaiting an inquiry by nearly a quarter

Over the last few months, we have successfully held more site visits, hearings and inquiries than in previous months. We are now deciding more cases than we are receiving. Our decision speeds will improve as our overall caseload falls.

We are now implementing further improvements for planning appeals decided after a hearing. We know our decisions on appeals requiring hearings have, for quite some time, taken longer than our customers expect. Although we have made progress in reducing the overall number of live appeals needing hearings, the average time it takes to decide these cases is still around a year.

From April 2022 we will be aiming to decide these appeals in an end-to-end time of no longer than 24 weeks, using many of the approaches we used to improve the inquiry process after the Rosewell Review. We will:

• validate hearing appeal casework within five working days of submission
• start the appeal and assign an inspector within a week of validation
• set out and require all parties to follow the timetable from the start
• have a stronger focus on the timely submission of evidence and documents by parties, including agreed statements of common ground and draft developer contribution/S106 agreements
• hold the hearing within 10 to 14 weeks of the start date
• engage with parties early in the programme. The inspector will identify if elements can be addressed through written representations and what elements require discussion in the hearing itself

We will continue to progress existing appeals on their current timetables. These improvements for new appeals will provide much needed certainty, with the appeal process being an essential part of a fair planning system.

Over 1,200 new affordable homes will be delivered across England with communities put in charge of where and how they will be built, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities announced today, Friday 25 March 2022.

The £4 million Community Housing Fund (CHF) programme helps community groups build homes in their local area by covering a range of costs incurred in the process – including renting the town hall for a public meeting, paying for searches, administration costs or legal advice, design work and planning applications. Once planning permission is granted, community groups can fund the build through the government’s Affordable Homes Programme, a Housing Association or developer or via a bank loan.

The fund will help level up the country by regenerating derelict areas and delivering homes that are affordable for local people, so more residents can live in the places they love.

The new houses will be part of locally-based organisations such as land trusts or housing co-operatives meaning they stay under the control of the community.

Housing Minister Rt Hon Stuart Andrew MP said:

Part of our Levelling Up mission is to build the quality homes that communities want and need. Community led housing is a great way to ensure local housing needs are met by putting local people in the driving seat.

It is about residents playing a leading and lasting role creating genuinely affordable homes which regenerate and restore pride in communities.

Community led housing also helps improve the design and construction quality of homes using modern methods of construction and gives more opportunity for smaller house builders to work on projects, growing local economies.

Tom Chance from Community Led Homes added:

Community led housing groups are rooted in their communities and truly understand local housing needs. There are so many fantastic community led housing projects planned across the country. This programme will help many of these projects come to fruition.

The fund will help deliver 52 housing projects in England, from Cornwall to Berwick-upon-Tweed. Bradford’s Greenwood Community Led Housing group, will build 62 supported homes for people with autism, learning disabilities or dementia. In Leeds, 34 affordable homes are being built to regenerate a deprived part of the city following extensive involvement of residents in the design of the buildings.

Today’s announcement follows the publication of the Bacon Review which recommended that reigniting the Community Housing Fund will create more opportunities for communities to build.

-The Community Housing Fund Revenue Programme 2021/22 is funded by DLUHC and will help community-led housing groups in the latter stages of pre-development.

The Community Led Homes Partnership (CLH) will manage the grant programme, assessing all applications and administering the grants.

CLH is a partnership of four leading community-led housing organisations: Confederation of Co-operative Housing, Locality, National Community Land Trust Network and the UK Co-Housing Network.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will be publishing its response to the Bacon Review soon.

Community Led Homes exists to make community led housing a mainstream housing option. We provide training, funding and practical support to local groups, councils and developers. By bringing people together from the grassroots to those in power, communities can create the homes they want and need.

Full regional breakdown