Equality Impact Assessment - Housing

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Function being assessed:

Resettlement & Support Service within Housing

Is this a new function or a review of an existing function?

A review of existing function due to an equality impact assessment been carried out after the initial relevance test carried out.

What is the aims/purpose of the function?

To support people with vulnerabilities who have been accepted as homeless. People with mental health problems, drug and/or alcohol dependence or in recovery, people fleeing or experiencing domestic violence, individuals with learning disabilities, people with poor physical health or with a disability. We also work with young people aged 16 to 24 years who need support. The Resettlement Service works with people up to the age of 64 years. The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames has another service which works with people who are vulnerable and above this age.

We assist service users to address their housing issues and support them to set up, manage and sustain their tenancies and engage with local services in the community.

The service users are referred to the Resettlement Service by the Homeless Assessment Team and other internal and external agencies.  We liaise with other service providers to promote our services and improve their understanding of our service. All clients referred to our service are assessed, and for accepted referrals, a support plan is drawn up with the client. The service is tailored to suit the needs of the client, within our remit.  We support clients to apply for benefits and grants, assisting them with arrangement for removals and the setting up of amenities or utilities.

We offer referrals to the furniture project and signpost to other agencies that will be able to assist the clients. We support service users to settle into the community by finding GP’s, dentists, schools and other relevant services that can offer support and a social network.

We represent clients in other meetings as appropriate i.e. panels for supported housing or floating support.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Is the function designed to meet specific needs such as the needs of minority ethnic groups, older people, disabled people etc?

The specific service criteria is to provide resettlement support for clients who are eligible for our service and includes - disabled people, people fleeing or experiencing domestic violence, people with a drug or alcohol dependency or recovering from this, people with a learning disability or who are vulnerable due to age (16 to 24 yrs) and people with a mental health problem.

What information has been gathered on this function? (Indicate the type of information gathered e.g. statistics, consultation, and other monitoring information)? Attach a summary or refer to where the evidence can be found.

We gather data on service users when completing our comprehensive client assessment form. This data collection includes information on vulnerability, disability, gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, language and faith/religion and age.

This information is gathered on our assessment forms & is available for analysis. All client assessment forms are currently paper based & are stored on paper files. Some of the information is also entered into our Access database. But due to its limitations we are not at this stage able to insert new fields. (Please see action plan).

The collection of this data helps us to map demand for the service, identify any trends/changes, monitor performance, plan staff resources and training to meet needs and plan service development for the future. It also helps identify any potential unmet needs and provides data for consultation with our service user group.

Does your analysis of the information show different outcomes for different groups (higher or lower uptake/failure to access/receive a poorer or inferior service)? If yes, indicate which groups and which aspects of the policy or function contribute to inequality?

All the clients who have been referred and assessed and meet our criteria receive our service. At times of high demand we will have a waiting list. Clients are also sign posted to the services they need.

The current data shows that there is a higher take up of services from women this is currently attributable to the level of referrals of women experiencing domestic violence and young mothers.

Data gathered shows that male client referrals are predominantly for individuals with drug and/or alcohol misuse or in recovery, and individuals with a mental health problem.

There are also a marginally higher proportion of BME clients using our services.  This may, at least in part, be attributable to referrals for people fleeing domestic or other violence from areas or neighbouring boroughs outside RBK However, it also reflects that a disproportionate number of BME households are accepted as homeless and therefore become eligible for our service. Similar trends are reflected in RBK’s Housing Advice/ homelessness prevention services. (See action plan).

Are these differences justified (e.g. are there legislative or other constraints)? If they are, explain in what way.

Whilst there are some clear reasons why numbers are higher, for example, women fleeing domestic violence and teenage pregnancy.

We do need to better understand the reasons for the over representation of certain groups. However, our service users do reflect the profile of clients to whom a duty has been accepted under homelessness legislation. Any over representation is likely therefore to reflect either a higher level of vulnerability or a higher level of ‘acceptances’ within this group. To better understand the reasons for any overrepresentation, further analysis of homelessness applications & acceptances would be required by the Homelessness Assessments Team.

We would benefit from a better understanding of service take up by all service users including BME, white & other groups. This information can then be provided to senior management so that they can have a clear picture of need, and therefore take appropriate action to plan services.

We can identify trends in service demand through reviewing the data gathered regularly and building this into the team plan. Such information can also be used to inform our Housing/Homelessness Strategy and can be used to identify areas where further training may be necessary.

What action needs to be taken as a result of this Equality Impact Assessment to address any detrimental impacts or meet previously unidentified need? Include here any reasonable adjustments for access by disabled people. Include dates by which action will be taken. Attach an action plan if necessary.

The service is tailored to individuals needs, within our remit, we adapt to best meet the needs of our service users. For example, if a service user has mobility difficulties, Officers will visit the service user in their own home, or a place that will suit their needs.

Development of an IT system for the Resettlement Service to facilitate electronic data collection, reports & analysis. This will be a unified system working towards ensuring that the electronic and manual collection of data work in tandem with each other and reflect the information gathered.

To share the information within the Council and partner agencies to have a better understanding of users to work on prevention or support strategies. The analysis of data will be able to identify trends or projected trends that can be fed back to appropriate colleagues to feed into strategies, as well as having a direct impact on recognising the training needs of staff.

When will you evaluate the impact of action taken? Give review dates.

IT development monitored regularly via regular Resources Management Team, Housing Management Team meetings and the Information Technology Project Board. The phase of IT development that will improve the quality and ease of our analysis is due to begin in December 2008

A manual equalities data analysis programme has been implemented within Resettlement Service and the whole section. The data base we currently use, while being an extremely valuable resource, is limited and needs to complement the data that is gathered on our assessment forms. This will be one of the main focuses of the development plan for 2008/2009.

The impact of action taken will be reviewed in supervision which is held every six week, and also from feedback from our service users group, who meet every quarter.

Assessment completed by:

Name: Katy Gout

Service: Resettlement and Support Service

Date: 21/04/08