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Social inclusion means ensuring that all individuals, despite any particular perceived ‘differentness’ (Sayce, 2000; Harrison & Davis, 2001) or disadvantage in life, may nevertheless feel at home in the world and find a sense of belonging in their local community. But the most important place to feel at home is at home.

Four routes or pathways have now been identified by which individuals may come within the scope of PSA 16 National Indicator 149, which is concerned with monitoring efforts to achieve settled accommodation for individuals with significant mental health problems. This article focuses on their needs and the identification of those with mental health needs as seen through these four principal routes. An understanding of these four possible pathways can help to identify areas for priority action, local delivery chains and partnerships, and also highlight some of the challenges and risks in and for delivery.

Government policy for vulnerable people has long been to encourage as many people as possible out of care homes and into supported accommodation. This article seeks to explore some of the unforeseen legal difficulties arising out of this trend. Two have already become very apparent: first, where the question of ordinary residence arises, with regard to which authority is liable for the purchase of the additional domiciliary care, and second, for residents who may be thought to lack capacity to make a contract for the tenancy which underpins the whole arrangement. The article begins by describing two quite different arrangements for providing accommodation and support.

In 1999 voluntary and statutory sector partners in Hull agreed that they wanted to respond more effectively to the needs of all those in supported accommodation. We were commissioned to undertake a review of services and make recommendations that would inform corporate strategy formation. The results set out eight key areas for change. This article is a summary of the report produced. It urges all parties to put client needs first, whoever they are, and to commit to genuine partnership to achieve agreed aims. Supporting People gives Hull a real opportunity to develop effective services across all client groups, and demands an increased commitment to some of the most vulnerable people in the community.

This paper considers the funding of supported housing schemes. These are schemes that house vulnerable people with special needs in the community. The paper looks at why the future of these schemes has been threatened by a series of legal decisions interpreting the housing benefit regulations.The paper analyses the relevant regulations and looks at how they apply to supported housing schemes. It then sifts through the details of the case law and concludes by looking at the lessons that may be learned in the future.

The purpose of this paper is to compare data from national social care statistics on the living situations of people with learning disabilities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

National social care statistics (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) reporting the living situations of adults with learning disabilities (residential and nursing care, living with family, other forms of accommodation) were accessed, with data extracted on trends over time and rate of service use.

There were substantial differences in the statistics collected across the UK. Overall, there were higher reported rates of adults with learning disabilities in residential/nursing accommodation in England than Scotland or Wales, but much lower reported rates of adults living in other forms of unsupported and supported accommodation and much lower reported rates of adults living with their families. In all three countries, trends over time suggest that reductions in residential care towards more independent living options may be stalling. In Northern Ireland reductions in currently extensive residential and nursing care services are continuing, unlike other parts of the UK.

Despite similar policy ambitions across the four parts of the UK, statistics on the living situations of adults with learning disabilities report substantial differences.

This paper is a first attempt to compare national social care statistics concerning the living situations of adults with learning disabilities across the UK. With increasing divergence of health and social service systems, further comparative analyses of services for people with learning disabilities are needed.

Bournemouth Churches Housing Association has developed a continuum of accommodation and support services through consultation with residents and local authorities. This is a holistic continuum of services that is designed to be flexible enough to enable residents to move between different services offered as their support needs change. Ultimately, the continuum of support services is intended to empower residents in achieving independent living after moving from fully supported services, to semi‐supported services, to independent accommodation with floating support. It has been possible to develop this range of services by mapping accurately support needs and developing effective professional working relationships with partnership agencies, such as Supporting People Administering Authorities.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an analytical description of the leadership provided by an official identified as “P” in the resettlement of adults with profound learning difficulties from hospital care to supported housing in the community. His story, presented as a case study, is contextualised in the history of the resettlement and its policy context, and in the evaluation of the resettlement.

This is a case study of the leadership activities and style of an individual based on evidence from a series of interviews; documentary evidence; and the results of a formal evaluation.

The leadership was highly effective in achieving a resettlement which had to overcome numerous hurdles and which achieved externally evaluated outcomes in improving the quality of life of the service users concerned.

This is a case study of an individual with the attendant difficulties of scientific generalisation. The achievements of the individual in terms of outcomes were evaluated through the use of valid and reliable measures.

The descriptions of leadership behaviour and style and the obstacle overcome should be illuminating to those facing comparable management challenges.

This would be the only case study in the literature of leadership in this area. The evaluation which measures its success is also unique.

This paper reports on the key findings of a study into the outcomes and costs of community care for a large cohort of people with learning disabilities, supported in 12 study sites across England, who left various long‐stay hospital 12 years ago as part of a centrally monitored and evaluated government policy initiative on deinstitutionalisation. It represents the last follow‐up of a raft of linked longitudinal evaluations, conducted at four time points over a twelve‐year period. The paper identifies the findings from the last follow‐up and interprets and presents them as summary observations and trends in relation to the findings in learning disability, briefly reviewing them in relation to wider evidence on deinstitutionalisation and community care in England.

The new local government performance framework, in combination with the move towards greater personalisation in services, creates a radically new funding environment for housing with care and support. From the Public Service Agreement (PSA) on achieving settled accommodation for individuals at risk of exclusion, through to the impact of local joint strategic needs asessments and individual budgets, the principles and mechanisms of the new joint commissioning culture create more opportunities for providers to articulate the needs of the client group served, and to assert the case for more joined‐up and responsive services. This may require different skills and new styles of leadership at local level, and providers who have become adept at being competitors may need to re‐discover the skills of partnership. Meanwhile, new social exclusion policy frameworks are emerging for supported accommodation, which can support moves away from institutional care for those with mental health problems.