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Some later living operators ‘inflating’ support to dodge affordable housing contributions, ARCO boss claims
Some later living operators are inflating the support element of their homes to get around affordable housing contributions, a trade body leader has claimed.
Some later living operators ‘inflating’ support to dodge affordable housing contributions, ARCO boss claims #UKhousingMichael Voges, chief executive of ARCO, the trade body for integrated retirement communities, told the Build More Homes and New Towns Summit last week that there was a “credibility gap” in the later living sector between housing-with-care schemes and so-called “housing-with-cappuccino” developments.
He added that some of the health and social care savings the sector delivers are “actually not very well evidenced”.
For older people’s housing that includes care and support, labelled ‘housing with care’, the Treasury has estimated that the saving per year, per resident is £1,840.
However, retirement living with communal facilities but no or few care services generates a healthcare system financial saving of just £8 per person per year.
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Pointing to these figures, Mr Voges said: “I know some people don’t like to hear this, because there are some people who like to pretend that they deliver more than they do.
“I’m sure there are other benefits [of retirement housing], but what I’m trying to say is that we have a credibility gap here, where you have operators coming in saying ‘I will provide this comprehensive service, and I will provide all these things, I’ll save the NHS money’, and that’s the housing-with-care solution.
“And then you have some people that I like to call the ‘housing-with-cappuccino’ solution, where there’s an... espresso machine over here, and we’re pretending that that’s delivering the benefits of a private hospital on the high street, when actually what the developer’s doing is trying to get out of affordable housing contributions – let’s not beat around the bush here.”
Mr Voges therefore said that “sometimes being more open and being more honest” about what the sector presents as benefits is necessary.
“Otherwise, I think we’re just not making a credible case if we don’t call out those instances where, quite frankly, we’re over-inflating things... on the back of either crowbarring yourself into a planning consent or saving yourself affordable housing contributions,” he added.
But Mr Voges recognised that older people’s housing has other benefits besides health system savings, including from downsizing and freeing up homes.
A report published by the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation in 2020 estimated there are more than 15 million surplus bedrooms in the UK, and this number is expected to reach 20 million by 2040.
Earlier this year, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Housing and Care for Older People called on developers, social housing providers and planners to create more intergenerational communities.
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