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

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 published a cross governmental strategy for addressing homelessness with a particular focus on rough sleeping in mid-2011. 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.

In summer 2012 the MWG will publish their second report.

Welfare Reform

In March 2012 the Welfare Reform Act was passed by Parliament and ushers in the most extensive changes to welfare benefits in this country in 65 years. Welfare Reform is used here as an umbrella term to describe the most extensive and important elements of recent legislative changes. It encompasses a wide range of changes including the Act and Housing Benefit changes. 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.

Of particular interest to those working with homeless and other vulnerable groups is the Inclusion Health Board, a national group chaired by Profressor Steve Field which is tasked with improving health outcomes for excluded patient groups: homeless people; gypsies and travellers; migrants and sex workers. Homeless Link is pleased to be represented on several of the working groups and will be working with the DH and the Board to ensure the NHS reforms can make real changes to reduced health inequalities among homeless and other vulnerbale people.

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 Formula Grant or Area Based Grant. SP is now an undifferentiated element of the Grant 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'. See also our briefing on 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.