Introduction
This step will support you to provide an overview of the current local housing capacity for autistic adults and adults with a learning disability across different types of housing with care and support and including general housing if that is a part of your housing strategy. This is part of understanding whether current housing meets current need and to what extent is it likely to meet future needs. This will help you to identify unmet demand.
What this step will add to your local strategy:
- A summary of current figures of housing provision for autistic adults and adults with a learning disability highlighting priority areas, types of housing offered, and unmet needs.
- Future projections of housing provision based on local market drivers, demographic projections, and local plans to expand and encourage investment in the area.
Key questions
- Identify the current figures of units of housing for autistic adults and adults with a learning disability available in your locality.
- Break it down by groups and type of housing available. See here for a short overview of housing types.
- Where possible, identify the availability of different housing and tenure types, as well as purchase cost (if applicable) and monthly costs. This will help identify if some housing types are only available to some groups.
- Include information on suitability and quality of current housing to understand the need for improvement and adaptation to address current and future demand.
- Break it down by local areas and provide a geographical overview of the provision. This will help to identify geographical priorities.
- Compare the current provision with local demand (step 1) to identify any current and future gaps in provision.
- Consider the different types of housing needed to match people’s specific needs, income, affordability and eligibility for different types of housing and level of care.
- Consider how current and future provision reflect the diversity of the local population, for example different ethnic groups, LGBTQ+ communities, and people with visual or hearing impairments.
- Identify regions and local needs to be prioritised.
- Identify past and current trends in development, highlighting the number of units of housing made available each year.
- Estimate the likely future growth in housing provision based on recent trends in developments, those developments already in the pipeline and what is already known about the local market.
- Include the number of young people likely to transition to adult services each year. These number may fluctuate each year so it is key to consider some flexibility in provision (step 1).
- Consider to what extend the demand projections identified in step 1 are likely to be met by the estimated future growth.
- Include any local strategy, vision, or plans to set a target number of housing for autistic adults and adults with a learning disability to be developed in the future.
- Identify the gaps in provision and highlight key opportunities for development.
- Highlight the types of tenures and types of housing to be prioritised based on local needs and current gaps.
- Explore wider alternatives and consider types of housing not traditionally used in your local area to improve housing options (step 6).
How to?
Identify the current figures of units of housing for autistic adults and adults with a learning disability available in your locality.
- Break it down by type of housing available. See here for a short overview of housing types.
- Where possible, identify the availability of different housing and tenure types, as well as purchase cost (if applicable) and monthly costs to residents. This will help identify if some housing types are only available to some groups.
- Include information on suitability and quality of current housing to understand the need for improvement and adaptation to address current and future demand.
- Break it down by local areas and provide a geographical overview of the provision. This will help to identify geographical priorities.
Compare the current provision with local demand (step 1) to identify any current and future gaps in provision.
- Consider the different types of housing needed to match people’s specific needs, income, affordability and eligibility for different types of housing and level of care.
- Consider how current and future provision reflect the diversity of the local population, for example different ethnic groups, LGBTQ+ communities, disabled people, people living with dementia and people with visual or hearing impairments.
- Identify regions and local needs to be prioritised.
Identify past and current trends in development, highlighting the number of units of housing made available each year.
Estimate the likely future growth in housing provision based on recent trends in developments, those developments already in the pipeline and what is already known about the local market.
- Include the number of young people likely to transition to adult services each year. These number may fluctuate each year so it is key to consider some flexibility in provision (step 1).
- Consider to what extend the demand projections identified in Step 1 are likely to be met by the estimated future growth.
- Include any local strategy, vision, or plans to set a target number of housing for older people to be developed in the future.
Identify the gaps in provision and highlight key opportunities for development.
- Highlight the types and tenures of housing to be prioritised based on local needs and current gaps.
- Explore wider alternatives and consider types of housing not traditionally used in your local area to improve housing options (Step 6).
Sources of information and resources
- PANSI – national and local projections of people with learning disabilities and autistic people populations.
- Supported Accommodation Review (SAR) – estimates the scale, scope and cost of the supported housing sector in Great Britain.
- Statistical Data Return (SDR) – annual online survey completed by all private registered providers of social housing in England.
- Partners in Care and Health (PCH) (2024), Developing a housing with support pipeline for people with a learning disability and autistic people – mapping housing supply and gap analysis (pp.23-28).
- Current figures of housing provision for autistic adults and adults with a learning disability – number of units delivered over the past years. Ideally organised by housing type, builder, and operator.
- Strategic plans and policies with relevant information on plans to influence future housing provision, including target numbers to be achieved.
- Housing registers, local housing pipeline, joint strategic needs assessments, joint health and wellbeing strategies, local adult social care strategy, housing with support needs assessments, local planning policies.
- Summary of housing demand for autistic adults and adults with a learning disability (from step 1) to be compared to current and future provision, identifying areas and types of housing that most need increased provision.
- Summary of resale values in owner-occupied schemes (Land Registry).
- Interviews with residents in local schemes.
Partners to involve
It is highly likely that no single group or body will hold the range of information needed or will be able to interpret the data that is held. Working across teams and with skilled data analysts is therefore essential to make best use of existing data. While many systems work with external consultants to support mapping the current provision and understanding the gaps, they will still need to work with:
- Adult social care housing panels and extra care housing panels
- Local teams managing supported living contracts including NHS foundation trust
- Local authority staff from planning, regeneration, and licensing teams
- Strategic housing, planning, and social care policy teams
- Housing advice and homelessness
- Allocations/lettings, property services/surveyors
- Accessible housing register teams
- Specialist teams, for example, tenancy support/independent living/outreach and community services
- General and specialist housing associations.
Co-production
The ‘I’ and ‘We’ statements below are illustrative examples of co-production outcomes associated with this step. We encourage housing partnerships to adapt them as they see fit to best reflect their local context.
For individuals:
- I say what is working well, what needs to be improved, and what is missing related to housing for autistic adults and adults with a learning disability.
- I help decide what is most important to understand provision of housing for autistic adults and adults with a learning disability.
- I have access to information on the current housing provision and so I can contribute to decide what the priorities are.
For the partnership:
- We have conversations with and take on board individuals’ views on the state and scale of current provision of housing for autistic adults and adults with a learning disability.
- We make information accessible and available, facilitate individuals’ understanding, and support them in deciding the key priorities for housing provision for autistic adults and adults with a learning disability.
Example: South Yorkshire
The South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) recently developed an assessment of the current supported housing offer in the region. The assessment was focused on those units to which the local authorities, or commissioned care providers, have nomination or referrals rights. Local authorities usually enter nomination and referral rights agreements with landlords and then arrange support services separately. Currently, most housing units are owned or managed by housing associations with the addition of a variety of supported living services established by the private sector.
The assessment identified the number of current supplies across all four local authorities included in the ICB, identifying current numbers, types of accommodation included, approaches to commissioning care and support services, and options available to individuals according to their level of need.
The available supply per local authority was identified as:
- Barnsley – 139 (71 per 100k of the adult population)
- Doncaster – 311 (127 per 100k of the adult population)
- Rotherham – 203 (98 per 100k of the adult population)
- Sheffield – 628 (135 per 100k of the adult population).
The assessment also identified developments currently in the pipeline across the four local authorities to map the number of housing units in development and types of housing and level of support offered by the future developments. This information will be key to identifying any current gaps in provision and support projections.
More information can be found in the South Yorkshire 2022 market position statement – housing with support for people with learning disabilities and/or autism.