Policy briefings

These briefings establish our policy lines on key issues and provide overviews of current government policy that affects homeless people and our members. We continue to discuss these issues with our members and provide information on a range of relevant subjects to help them influence decision making in their local areas.

Please see our How To Influence Locally page for more information,  guidance and resources on local influencing.

CURRENT BRIEFINGS

Laying the Foundations: A Housing Strategy for England (November 2011)
Housing Benefit Reform - Supported Housing (Exempt Accommodation)
Briefing: 'Vision to End Rough Sleeping' - first report from the Ministerial Working Group on Homelessness
Health Service Reform
Changes to the Social Fund
Update on Safeguarding
Welfare Reform Bill
Localism Bill
Breaking the Cycle: effective punishment, rehabilitation and sentencing of offenders
Shared Room Rate
Universal Credit
Public Health
Work Capability Assesment
Comprehensive Spending Review
 

Laying the Foundations: A Housing Strategy for England (November 2011)
The Government launched its Housing Strategy on 21 November 2011. The strategy comes against a backdrop where house building has slowed over recent decades and there is a shortage of homes, particularly affordable housing. In its introduction, the Government states two broad aims: to ‘unblock the market’; and ‘spread opportunity in our society’.

Housing Benefit Reform - Supported Housing (Exempt Accommodation)
In July 2011 the Government launched a public consultation on Supported Housing as a part of Housing Benefit Reform (i.e. a review of ‘Exempt Accommodation’). We have developed an initial briefing on the consultation and the proposals it puts forward. The key aim of the consultation is to simplify the model currently in place so that it is compatible with Universal Credit, potentially by linking into the Local Housing Allowance model with an additional payment for extra costs.

The consultation document does not set out concrete proposals for what a reformed model will be, but rather a range of areas they want to look at and what the approximate end goal needs to be. In principle the consultation supports the idea that help with the higher costs of providing supported housing should remain within HB.
Download our briefing on the consultation.

BRIEFING: ‘VISION TO END ROUGH SLEEPING’ - FIRST REPORT FROM THE MINISTERIAL WORKING GROUP ON HOMELESSNESS
On 6 July Grant Shapps MP, Minister for Housing and Local Government in the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) launched the first report of the Ministerial Working Group on Preventing and Tackling Homelessness.

The Ministerial Working Group brings together eight government departments with the shared aim of preventing and reducing homelessness, and improving the lives of those people who do become homeless. The Working Group acknowledges that homelessness is about more than housing, and therefore addressing homelessness requires cross-Government commitment. Download our briefing on the report.

HEALTH SERVICE REFORM
The white paper 'Equality and Excellence: Liberating the NHS' and the 'Health and Social Care Bill' propose extensive changes to the form and operation of healthcare in England. The proposed changes aim to establish new healthcare structures at a national and local scale. Homeless Link has produced a Health Glossary: The New Landscape of Healthcare Provision in England which explains some of the new terms. We fed in our concerns about the impact of these reforms in our response to the Future Forum. Homeless Link is also working with the National Housing Federation and St Mungo's on amendments to the Bill as it goes through parliament. See our briefing for the Second Reading of the Health and Social Care Bill in the House of Lords.

CHANGES TO THE SOCIAL FUND      
A consultation paper is out  proposing the abolition of the current system of discretionary payments from the Social Fund. There will be a new combination of locally-based provision instead of Community Care Grants and Crisis Loans for general living expenses.Local authorities will be encouraged to set up discretionary schemes aligned with other local authority run services such as Supporting People and Social Services, to make emergency provision for people that are in the most urgent need. There will be no statutory duty requiring local authorities to deliver the service and the money for it will not be ring- fenced, so areas could have no service at all. Go to the briefing paper for details. Homeless Link will be responding to the consultation and would appreciate your feedback through our online survey.

UPDATE ON SAFEGUARDING     
In 2009/10 Homelesslink had signifiant concerns about the potential impact of a proposed new national Vetting and Barring scheme. It was proposed that a much greater proportion of people who wished to work or volunteer with children or vulnerable adults would have to undergo a more stringent process before starting work and have information on them assessed. The Coalition government considered the Vetting and Barring Scheme a disproportionate response to the issues and halted it in June 2010 before anybody started registering with the scheme. The government has now carried out two reviews , one into the Vetting and Barring Scheme and a broader review of the Criminal Records regime.  This briefing describes the updated situation in relation to vetting and barring.

WELFARE RFORM BILL
On 16 February 2011 the Welfare Reform Bill was introduced to Parliament. Whilst the proposed 10% cut in housing benefit for claimants on job seekers allowance for 12 months has been dropped, the Bill still legislates for the biggest change to the welfare system for over 60 years. A number of these changes will directly impact on people who are homeless and the services which support them. We have created a Welfare Reform Bill briefing document which is an overview of the key changes and some commentary about their wider implications. For a copy of all the Bill documents, please visit Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) website. We have also jointly produced a briefing for this Bill's second reading in the House of Lords: Joint briefing for 2nd Reading of the Welfare Reform Bill. 

LOCALISM BILL
The Decentralisation and Localism Bill constitutes by far the most comprehensive and extensive changes to local government in recent memory. The Bill has a wide scope. However it is housing that will undergo the most fundamental reforms and is consequently the area of most importance for Homeless Link and its members. The Localism Bill received a second reading in the House of Commons on the 17th January 2011. Homeless Link has published a summary of this Bill.

BREAKING THE CYCLE: EFFECTIVE PUNISHMENT, REHABILITATION AND SENTENCING OF OFFENDERS
The Ministry of Justice has launched a Green Paper and consultation following their announcement of a ‘rehabilitation revolution’ for criminal justice earlier in 2010. Homeless Link has published a summary of the paper and consultation .

SHARED ACCOMMODATION RATE/SHARED ROOM RATE
The Shared Accommodation Rate (SAR, previously the Shared Room Rate (SRR)) restricts the maximum Housing Benefit claimants in the private rented sector can receive to the rate for a single room in a shared house, rather than a self-contained studio flat or one-bedroom property. As of April 2012, SAR that previously only applied to people aged 25 and under will be applied to people aged 35 and under. Download our briefing on the Shared Room Rate for more information.

The DWP published an Equality Impact Assessment of the Shared Accommodation Rate in May 2011. Download our . summary of the EIA

UNIVERSAL CREDIT
The White Paper on Welfare Reform ‘Universal Credit: welfare that works’ was published in November 2010, please see our briefing on the White Paper for more information.

PUBLIC HEALTH
The Public Health White Paper launched on 30th November 2010 promises a ‘radical shift’ in the way public health is tackled in England. As good public heath is strongly linked to wider determinants of health such as housing, this is an important strategy for our sector to engage with. Homeless Link has produced a summary of the key aspects of the strategy which suggests some of the main implications for homeless people.

WORK CAPABILITY ASSESSMENT
In November 2010 the Harrington Review of the Work Capability assessment was released and at the same time the government issued their response, accepting all the recommendations of the Review. Please download our briefing paper on the Harrington Review and the government response.

COMPREHENSIVE SPENDING REVIEW
In October 2010 the government announced their Spending Review for this parliament. Please see our briefing documents for more detail and visit our Comprehensive Spending Review page.

 ARCHIVE Policy Briefings

These briefings were developed in 2009 and following the change in government we are reviewing the content to reflect the current policy context. Each will be updated as new government policy comes into effect.

Each policy briefing has 4 sections. These provide information on

  • background, facts and figures
  • an overview of responsible bodies
  • latest government policy developments
  • a selection of key issues and policy lines.

We look forward to any feedback on these documents so that we can continue to develop our evidence base and policy lines in consultation with member organisations.