October Policy Round-up

Welcome to the Homeless Link Monthly Policy Round-up for October 2010. We aim to keep you up-to-date with the policy team's latest influencing work as well as cross-sector policy and news which impacts on homeless people or those most at risk of homelessness.

HOMELESS LINK POLICY NEWS

Last chance to feed into consultation responses
We are working on responses to the government’s consultation on NHS reform, Skills for Sustainable Growth and Skills Funding Methodology.  If you would like to feed into our submissions please contact Drew Lindon by Wednesday 6th October.  More information on these consultations is available on our Current Consultations page.

Homeless Link to present to cross-ministerial group on homelessness
Jenny Edwards, Chief Executive of Homeless Link, will be presenting to ministers at the government’s cross-ministerial group on homelessness on 12th October.  Along with presentations from Leslie Morphy CBE (Chief Executive of Crisis) and Richard Blakeway (Mayoral Advisor on Housing, Greater London Authority), Jenny will outline the interventions needed to end rough sleeping by 2012, and prevent the flow into homelessness in this era of austerity.

Comprehensive Spending Review
The government’s spending review, setting out spending for all government departments for the next five years is due on 20th October. Homeless Link will be producing a response and briefing to the spending review as soon as possible after its release, which will be available on this website.  Homeless Link has submitted evidence to the spending review asking to sustain investment in homelessness support to ensure the most vulnerable groups are protected as well as avoiding impact on more costly acute services in future. See Homeless Link's Spending Review submission.

Party Conferences
Homeless Link is attending all the major party conferences to ensure the needs of homeless people remain on the political agenda. Homeless Link attended the Liberal Democrat Conference, and will co-host fringe meetings with St Mungo’s and the National Housing Federation at the Labour and Conservative conferences with the theme ‘Homelessness is a health issue’. For our blog and details of fringe events visit our party conferences page

Evaluating the Extent of Rough Sleeping
Communities and Local Government conducted a consultation on the street counts methodology. Homeless Link responded to the consultation and submitted draft guidance on undertaking both estimates and street counts. The CLG has published their response and the main changes are that the methodology is now broader to reflect people who are intending to sleep rough as well as those actually bedded down and that all local authorities must carry out a count or conduct an estimate once per year. Independent verifiers are now the responsibility of Homeless Link. Information about Homeless Link's new role and details on changes to the methodology can be found on our new web resource Evaluating the Extent of Rough Sleeping.

Housing Benefit
Homeless Link has attended a number of meetings with the Department of Work and Pensions to outline our concerns about housing benefit.  We have submitted evidence to both the Social Security Advisory Panel and Work and Pensions Select Committee, which can be downloaded here .  We have also written directly to Grant Shapps MP (Housing Minister) and Iain Duncan Smith MP (Secretary of State for Work and Pensions) and continue our discussions with the key players on this issue.

NHS consultations
The coalition government is proposing radical changes to how the NHS should be managed and provide services.  Homeless Link has been working with its members through its National Advisory Council, Policy Forum and other consultations to outline the key issues for people who are homeless in the new reforms.  Please see our current consultations page for more details or contact Helen Mathie.

Skills Consultations
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is currently conducting two consultations on Skills – one on the future direction of skills policy and one on funding methodologies. We ask that BIS recognise that the homelessness sector plays a significant role in delivering and improving skills and helping homeless people move into work related activity and employment. Skills strategy needs to consider the important role of training that may not have employment as the sole measure of success, recognising the wider outcomes education and training achieves. Homeless Link welcomes any input from members to support our submission (prior to 14 October submission date, to Kathleen Caper).

Homeless Link also participated in a Regional Consultation Seminar conducted by NIACE (National Institute of Adult Continuing Education) on behalf of BIS to feed into the consultation process.

Work Capability Assessment
Homeless Link responded to the call for evidence for the independent review of the Work Capability Assessment. Our key asks were that homelessness be considered a health issue in itself and be part of the points allocated system of assessment, that assessors be well trained in understanding chaotic lives, and that the fragile early days of recovery from drug and alcohol problems be protected through an extension of the period on ESA.

Big Society
Homeless Link’s presentation on the implications of the Big Society for homelessness organisations and the people they support is available here.  This was given at Brent Homeless User Group’s ‘Not just BIG but INCLUSIVE – A Big Society for All?’ event on 1 September 2010.  B.HUG will be putting together a ‘Big Society manifesto’ based on the views of users on this day.

Supporting People Data
We have produced a summary document detailing the key information from Quarter 1 Supporting People data. You can download this detailed summary and analysis here.

DWP Policy and Strategy Forum
Homeless Link recently attended the DWP Strategy and Policy Forum. This is a discussion forum between the DWP and representatives from the voluntary sector. This session covered 21st Century Welfare Reform, the Work Programme, Housing Benefit changes and DLA.

Funding Tracker
Homeless Link has launched an online Funding Tracker for members to tell us about changes to the funding of their services and organisations. We will use data from this to support our members through change and in evidence when we speak to government. Please click here to contribute to the Funding Tracker.