Public support for older disabled people: evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing on receipt of disability benefits and social care subsidy

In England, state support for older people with disabilities consists of a national system of non-means tested cash disability benefits, and a locally-administered means-tested system of social care. Evidence on how the combination of the two systems targets those in most need is lacking. We estimate a latent factor structural equation model of disability and receipt of one or both forms of support. The model integrates the measurement of disability and its influence on receipt of state support, allowing for the socio-economic gradient in disability, and adopts income and wealth constructs appropriate to each part of the model. We find that receipt of each form of support rises as disability increases, with a strong concentration on the most disabled, especially for LA-funded care. The overlap between the two programmes is confined to the most disabled. Less than half of recipients of local authority-funded care also receive a disability benefit; a third of those in the top 10% of the disability distribution receive neither form of support. Despite being non means-tested, disability benefits display a degree of income and wealth targeting, as a consequence of the socio-economic gradient in disability and likely disability benefit claims behaviour. The scope for improving income/wealth targeting of disability benefits by means testing them, as some have suggested, is thus less than might be expected

Extra care housing: is it really an option for older people?

Extra care housing enables older people to remain in their 'own home', while providing appropriate housing and access to health and social care services that are responsive to their needs. This research explored the current levels of development and expansion of extra care housing in terms of the numbers of schemes and places and factors that contributed to and were problematic in its development. A stratified sample of 16 authorities was selected from 148 local authorities in England which had social services responsibilities: 13 agreed to participate. Each authority completed a brief form indicating its level of provision, and the leads were interviewed over the telephone. An opportunistic sample of three registered landlords was also selected. The findings illustrate that local authorities and the Government were united in their aims for developing extra care housing. However, the baseline for provision in the authorities was very limited in comparison with the number of care home places. Good working partnership between social services and housing departments was seen as the most significant factor in the successful development of schemes