Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the maximum funding available under the Disabled Facilities Grant.

The Disabled Facilities Grant is a shared responsibility with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) given that funding for the grant is provided through the Better Care Fund. Officials from both departments meet regularly with a range of stakeholders interested in this policy.

Local areas already have discretion to increase the cap on the grant on a case-by-case basis in line with a locally published housing assistance policy. As with all aspects of the grant, government will keep the upper limit under review.

We do not hold official statistics regarding the number of applications for the DFG submitted and approved in each year from 2010, or the numbers of applications since 2010 that have been submitted for either the maximum amount of £30,000 or for amounts between £25,000-£29,999. However, my Department funds a National Body for Home Improvement Agencies, Foundations who publish an annual report which analyses unaudited, voluntary data from Local Authorities which you may find useful. These reports can be found here.

Since 2010 government has invested £4.8 billion into the Disabled Facilities Grant (2010-11 to 2022-23), delivering an estimated 490,000 home adaptations.

I recognise that for some home adaptations the cost of the works can be higher. Where this is the case, and where an authority has a locally published Housing Assistance Policy, authorities can take a local decision to provide grants above the existing £30,000 limit on a case-by-case basis. However, I must be clear that these discretionary grants are a local decision, and I am unable to intervene in individual cases.

In addition to providing expert support and advice to local authorities, Foundations also regularly provide information and advice to individual disabled people on applying for a DFG, including advice around other sources of financial support. More information can be found here.

* £431m annual grant plus an additional £42m announced in Autumn Budget 2017

**£468m annual grant plus an additional £55m announced in Budget 2018

***£505m annual grant plus an additional £68m paid to LAs in December 2020

**** Source: Foundations, the national body for home improvement agencies

Footnote: Local authorities in England provide annual data on their DFG delivery, however the data is not audited, and local authorities provide this information on a voluntary basis. The headline totals above are based on estimates provided by Foundations which have been extrapolated from the available data.