Current policy and practice context

Places of Change
Homelessness Legislation
Supporting People
Personalisation
Homelessness Change Programme

The external policy and practice framework is critical to ending homelessness in this country.  Here we update information on local and central government initiatives and policy announcements.

You might also find it useful to se our latest Policy Round-up for the latest news and updates at a national and local level.

National government initiatives

Inter Ministerial Working Group on Homelessness - Vision to End Rough Sleeping

Vision to end rough sleeping: No Second Night Out nationwide - The Ministerial Working Group on Homelessness has drafted a cross governmental strategy for addressing homelessness with a particular focus on rough sleeping. This plan sets out six joint commitments for inter departmental work that give local people the tools to tackle rough sleeping and put an end to second nights out on the street. Homless Link's accompanying briefing can accessed here.

A key element of the Ministerial Woking Group's plan is the establishment of the Homelessness Transition Fund. This fund, administered by Homeless Link, aims to help end rough sleeping by protecting services in England, encouraging innovation and supporting communities to adopt the 'No Second Night Out' standard.

Welfare Reform

Welfare Reform is used here as an umbrella term to describe the most extensive and important elements of recent legislative reform. It encompasses a wide range of changes including the Wefare Reform Bill  and Housing Benefit Reform. Please see the bullets below for more details on each of the legislative domains.

Health

The white paper 'Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS' and the susebquent 'Health and Social Care Bill' propose extensive changes to the form and operation of healthcare in England at a national and local level.  See our Health Glossary: The New Landscape of Healthcare Provision in England explaining the function of these new healthcare structures.

Homeless Link drafted a series of recommendations to the NHS Future Forum, which are summarised along with the changes government has made as a result of the listening exercise; 'NHS Future Forum: what do their recommendations mean for homeless patients'. For other consultation responses on health please follow this link. 

One of the aspects of the NHS reforms is the changing role for Public Health, responsibilty for which will pass to Local Authorities. The DH have published a series of factsheets about some of these changes, including:

For policy briefings on Public Health and other aspects of the NHS Reforms please visit our Policy Briefings page.

localism

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.

Homeless Link has commented on the housing component of this bill in our consultation response 'A Fairer Future for Social Housing Consultation' and has produced a briefing on the Localism Bill that can be accessed here.

Non-departmental public bodies

homelessness change programme

Places of Change programme - this initiative from the HCA brought a step change in the way services for homeless people are delivered. The Homelessness Change Programme, a £37.5m capital investment initiative, follows on from the Hostel Capital Improvement programme and the Places of Change capital investment programme of previous years. It was a major coup for the sector to have proved its worth and secured this capital in the Comprehensive Spending Review of October 2010. For more information on the Homelessness Change Programme please follow this link.

Local government

supporting people

Supporting People (SP) funding issued to local authorities has been rolled into what is called the Area Based Grant. In most commissioning authorities SP is no longer a named item within their budget and consequently it has become very difficult to track exactly how much each authority is spending on services for homeless people. Most importantly the ringfence that ensured sufficient money was spent on services for vulnerable groups was removed in 2009 and LAs now have considerable discretion over how much funding they allocate to services that work with the homeless. 

Homeless Link has launched a joint briefing for local authorities '4 facts, 4 questions about the future of Supporting People'.

cuts

Homeless Link has undertaken extensive cuts monitoring work to establish the scale and effect of the reduction in LA funding offered to homelessness service providers.

The changes to Supporting People funding have led to significant cuts in provision for homelessness services. On average the respondents to Homeless Link's cuts monitoring survey reported a 22% cut to their funding. This has had a pronounced impact on the overall volume and type of homelessness service provided. Amongst our sample population 21% of floating support services have closed and 63% of responding organisations have had to reduce the volume of support services avalible to their clients. For more information concerning the scale and effect of cuts see our 'Cuts Monitoring' page.

Ending rough sleeping in london

Ending rough sleeping in London - the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) launched their strategy in November 2008. The Mayor of London is committed to delivering the target of ending rough sleeping in London by 2012. The ending of rough sleeping in London is a key first step in Homeless Link's ambition to end homelessness in the next 10 years. For more information on ending homelessness please see 'Our 2010 manifesto to end homelessness'.