Tuesday 31 January 2012

They own land! Give them money!

From The Daily Telegraph:

The Department of Health is considering plans for a major drive to reduce the number of people going into care homes and reduce the cost of social care.

The centrepiece of the initiative would be Government-subsidised loans to the elderly to fund home improvements including downstairs bathrooms, stairlifts and other "property improvements" that would allow them to stay in their own houses longer.

Younger people will also be urged to volunteer to spend time with elderly neighbours, helping address the loneliness that helps push some into care homes.

As politicians struggle to overhaul the fragmented social care system, ministers are looking for new ways to reduce the flow of older people into residential care, which is much more expensive than remaining at home.


This is getting beyond satire.

26 comments:

Onus Probandy said...

I understand your objection; but surely if it really is the case that an old person at home is cheaper than an old person in a care facility, then that's better for the taxpayer?

Given that LVT is supposed to be on the location value rather than the property value -- what does it matter how many downstairs loos and stair lifts are installed?

Mark Wadsworth said...

OP, cheaper for whom?

Would any sane young person rather be paid proper money for working in a care home, or use up his spare time working unpaid with the sole object of ensuring that as few houses as possible come onto the market, thus losing out on both sides of the equation?

Assuming old people have to be cared for one way or another, what sort of crackpot malinvestment is this refitting their houses for tens of thousands of pounds, all of which has to be ripped out again when the house is finally sold?

And who says that "the taxpayer" should be paying more for care for owner-occupiers than for e.g. council tenants? And the bigger the house, the more expensive the fitting out needed.

And so on.

Onus Probandy said...

Agreed on the volunteering -- that's just bollocks. Volunteering is simply opt-in taxation; ergo, no one will do it.

Isn't there a converse argument on the house sales though?

Why should the taxpayer be subsidising alternative housing for old people just so young people can buy their old house?

I don't understand your council house argument -- surely if it's cheaper to live in your own house that is true regardless of whether the house is council-owned or privately owned? Value added would also be the same. In fact, with a modified council house they then have somewhere to put the next generation of oldies and need do no modification at all.

I'm also not sure I agree with the assumed relationship between house size and cost of improvement. A downstairs loo isn't more expensive in a larger house.

I suppose your argument is really that it isn't actually cheaper, net, for old people to live at home rather than move to care. Well fine; if it's not cheaper, then it's a stupid idea and we can move on.

If it is cheaper... well, cheaper is cheaper. Sign me up by lowering my taxes.

Mark Wadsworth said...

OP, basic logic says, it can't possibly be cheaper doing it this way. As you say, kitting out council houses is a good deal all round, because they can be used again and again.

But if you had to look after e.g. five old people, would you rather pay for their houses to be converted and spend half your time commuting between them, staying at your own house at night, or to be a live-in warden in a custom built sheltered housing type thing?

Surely the latter, which also largely sorts out the "loneliness" and "fuel poverty" issues.

This all leads up to the IF's suggestion which Shappsy actually adopted as policy.

Anonymous said...

I liked this comment on the article especially ...

"OK so long as "The Government" does not acquire property rights over the elderly persons home and property asset. Something for nothing is not something any government can afford to do".

Dare one suggest that amounts to "By all means help my ahem poor widowed parent out. BUT keep your grubby mitts off my inheritance. Someone else can pay the cost."

Mark Wadsworth said...

Anon, it would appear that the Homeys don't quite understand what a "low cost loan" is.

Ralph Musgrave said...

With a view to cutting care home costs, what about distributing suicide pills to the elderly? I would definitely make use of one. When my brain and / body begin to seriously deteriorate, I intend disposing of myself. That will benefit humanity in that I’ll cease exuding carbon dioxide. And in exchange for that sacrifice I expect to get to heaven and be rewarded with 70 virgins. It’s a win win win win scenario.

A K Haart said...

Adaptions don't work well anyway. They tend to be late for obvious reasons, always lagging behind the inevitable assessments and the cumulative problems of physical and mental decline.

Personal care can also be far too intrusive for anyone but professionals to take on.

Bayard said...

Wouldn't it be cheaper simply not to have taxpayer-funded care homes?

Mark Wadsworth said...

RM, that's very decent of you.

AKH, exactly.

B: "Wouldn't it be cheaper simply not to have taxpayer-funded care homes?"

? That would make more sense without the word 'not'.

Anonymous said...

You might like this :-

http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/local_news/rayleigh/9484543.Plans_for_600_homes_win_council___s_approval/?ref=ec

And if you go to google maps and use that "we can do aerial pictures" and "we can do ground level pictures" facility and just check out the properties which are to be nearest to the new development, you can see why the owners of the same, represented by Ian Croxford in the article, are "so unhappy" - the prospect of "new homes" on one side of the road, and they are already hemmed in by that golf course behind them, and they have such tiny tiny gardens front and back, and some of them it seems can't even afford to have a swimming pool and/or tennis court in their tiny tiny back gardens - or as one wag comments :-

My heart bleeds for those Hall Road Residents in their large mansions with the "Keep the Peasants Out" Signs out the front of the house. I almost shed a tear once when i went past!!!

Mark Wadsworth said...

Anon, there's a typo further down the comments:

Seasider90 said "The South East will be concreted over. Fact"

What he or she really meant to say is: "This development will use up about 0.00001% of the land surface of the South East, so there is no need to worry about it being concreted over. To suggested otherwise is a barefaced f-ing lie."

Bayard said...

"B: "Wouldn't it be cheaper simply not to have taxpayer-funded care homes?"

? That would make more sense without the word 'not'."

How? If we didn't have taxpayer-funded care homes, then the government wouldn't be worrying about the number of people going into them as the relatives would be paying, not the taxpayer.
Or are you assuming that these gov't goodies are to help the old stay out of private care homes. I, for one, didn't read it that way.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B: "are you assuming that these gov't goodies are to help the old stay out of private care homes."

Yes, that has been the whole thrust of the debate for decades. More to the point, the debate is "how to enable property to be retained in the family".

Bayard said...

Are you sure? There's nothing in the article to suggest that (and a lot to suggest the other).

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, try reading between the lines. This article only mentions some of their outrageous plans to "enable property wealth to cascade down the generations" and even Andrew Lansley, hardly a Commie, described the plans as "regressive".

Anonymous said...

If you read the Department of Health "proposal" and then re-acquaint yourself with the annoucement from Shapps atb DCLG circa mid janaury, well you might conclude, either that the two departmenst never talk to each other, never read each others press releases, and so on - i.e usual "non joined up government" farce, or, if you were being kind, see the two measures as just an example of the Grand Alliance "choice" agenda - freely available to anyone who "owns their home" - "how much help do you want to keep your home homeowner, and in what form, and oh yes, now don't worry, it isn't directly charged to the welfare budget, which makes it both fair, costless and just fine and dandy .... "

Bayard said...

"or use up his spare time working unpaid with the sole object of ensuring that as few houses as possible come onto the market,"

Sole object? come on, this is nonsense. To suggest that young people are being encouraged to visit old neighbours simply to prop up the housing market is really moving into tin-foil hat territory. That's like suggesting that old people should be put into a sort of "solitary confinement" in order to force them to move for the benefit of society.

James Higham said...

What was it the Who sang? "Hope I die before I get old."

Mark Wadsworth said...

Anon, my thoughts exactly.

B, it's all part of the general mood music, in the full article it suggests that said young people will be given 'social credits' possibly as part of this Big Society nonsense. Why not just give them cash and have done with it?

This is no tin-foil hattery on my part. The article says, quite clearly: "Younger people will also be urged to volunteer to spend time with elderly neighbours, helping address the loneliness that helps push some into care homes." You don't even need to read between the lines to see what that's all about.

JH, that is what they sang 46 years ago, yes. He does look after himself though does Daltrey, he's in fantastic shape for a pensioner.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Rob, apologies, they are to be called "care credits".

Rob said...

Ah, I thought this was some new wheeze whereby you volunteered for years and got some worthless crap in return.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Anon, yup, that would be today's instalment of "They own land, give them money!". Beyond satire. The only good news is that none of these much vaunted schemes ever take off - if they did, we'd really be f-ed.

Anonymous said...

Today IN PARLIAMENT

Just to show there is absolutely NO DIFFERENCE between the way the government views and treats people who rent their accommodation and those who "own" it (!)


The Government also said it would not make any changes to its proposals to force those living in council houses that were bigger than they needed, to move.

The Lords had proposed social landlords could only force a tenant to move to a smaller home if a social landlord could offer alternative accommodation, which was supported in the Commons by Lib Dem deputy party leader Simon Hughes.

But the employment minister Maria Miller said the changes were needed to relieve the pressure on social housing and free up one million empty free rooms to help families in over-crowded accommodation. She said the average cost of the measure would be £14 a week.

Um, compare and er contrast ?

Mark Wadsworth said...

Anon 22.39, exactly. The government is along the right lines with its cap on Housing Benefit and using social housing more efficiently.

But if you mention Land Value Tax, the government (and the powers that be) will start bleating the same nonsense which people are using as arguments against HB reductions or shuffling social tenants around a bit.

Bayard said...

"and free up one million empty free rooms to help families in over-crowded accommodation."

and replace old, possibly Labour-votong, people with no interest in right-to-buy with young, possibly Tory-voting people with more incentive to buy at a discount perhaps?