A LABOUR councillor has slammed a Cherwell District Council housing policy as 'hopelessly out of date' following an internal report.

It comes after the council’s Accounts, Audit & Risk Committee was presented with an internal audit at a virtual meeting last week which stated that the policy on Disabled Facilities Grants (DFG) had not been looked at since 2010.

DFG is a government funded grant that helps pay for adaptations to properties for people with disabilities or long term health conditions.

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The adaptations are meant to enable people to stay in their homes rather than be relocated into nursing homes.

Examples of work funded by the grant are, hoists, ramps, wet rooms and grab rails.

Councillor Sean Woodcock, leader of the Labour group on Cherwell District Council, says since 2010, a number of changes have affected housing and potentially DFG allocations including the creation of affordable housing, Universal Credit and the ‘Bedroom Tax’.

But despite this and government review of the grant in 2018, council officer Gillian Douglas said the DFG policy has remained 'on the shelf' and not checked or updated.

Mr Woodcock said: “Frankly I am astonished. The policy is hopelessly out of date. There have been consistent delays in getting DFG work in Cherwell done over the years.

"The Tory administration have always claimed this is down to other people or agencies; letting them and the vulnerable people who need the work done down. Perhaps the real reason lies closer to home.”

In the meeting last Wednesday evening, Ms Douglas said: "That's clearly very out of date. What has happened over time is that we've introduced a number of flexible grants.

"The DFG is obviously the mandatory grant that can be up to £30,000 but in Cherwell we've introduced a number of smaller grants so that we can undertake works quite quickly and are not always means tested, but we have failed to capture that in a revised policy.

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"It has been slightly embarrassing but nevertheless a good prompt."

A consultation on the new policy has now started and Ms Douglas emphasised that although the DFG policy had not been reviewed for 11 years, the council has helped many disabled residents.

She added: "I'm satisfied that we do help 200 households a year, we don't have a waiting list as some other councils do, so the effort is going in, but nevertheless the policy has been on a shelf."

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