December Policy Round-Up

Welcome to the Homeless Link Monthly Policy Round-up for December 2010. We aim to keep you up-to-date with Homeless Link's latest policy and influencing work, across the sector and at all levels of government.

MONITORING THE EXTENT AND IMPACT OF FUNDING CUTS ON HOMELESSNESS
WELFARE:
- Welfare Reform
- Housing Benefit
- DWP Policy and Strategy Forum
- Barriers to employment for homeless people
LONDON DELIVERY BOARD
EVALUATING OF THE EXTENT OF ROUGH SLEEPING
THE WORK CAPABILITY ASSESSMENT REVIEW
REDUCING REOFFENDING WORKSHOP
HOMELESSNESS RESEARCH
HEALTH AND HOMELESSNESS
OLDER HOMELESSNESS
PRESENTATIONS AND EVENTS
TRANSITION FUND FOR THIRD SECTOR ORGANISATIONS

MONITORING THE EXTENT AND IMPACT OF FUNDING CUTS ON HOMELESSNESS

Homeless Link is contacting members and local authorities across England to build a comprehensive picture of what cuts are likely, and what impacts these may have on services.  This will help support local services to campaign. At the same time, we are lobbying directly to ministers and local authorities to protect services to the most vulnerable, including homeless people, particularly around the housing benefit changes. If services are able to tell us about the cuts they are facing in their areas, this would be much appreciated.  Services should contact either their local regional managers or the policy team. We also continue to add information to the Comprehensive Spending Review webpage, which includes our briefings that contain information relevant for local lobbying.

WELFARE:

Welfare Reform
Homeless Link’s CEO Jenny Edwards met with Lord Freud, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Welfare Reform) for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to discuss the impact of current welfare changes and proposals on homeless people.

The White Paper ‘Universal Credit: Welfare That Works’ was published in November 2010. This sets out in more detail the system of Universal Credit to be implemented. This will be laid before Parliament as part of the Welfare Reform Bill scheduled for January 2011. Universal Credit will then be phased in for new claimants from 2013 and then a gradual move over to the new system for existing claimants to be completed by 2017. Please visit our welfare benefits page and download our Universal Credit briefing.

Housing Benefit
The first raft of secondary legislation covering the housing benefit changes is expected in the first week of December. This will cover secondary legislation to the House on the housing benefit caps, change for calculation of Local Housing Allowance to the 30th percentile, removal of the £15 excess, and provision for disabled applicants to claim for an extra room for a care worker. We will be speaking to our parliamentary colleagues to ensure that these measures are debated, alongside our continuing lobbying work on this key issue. More information will be made available on our Influencing pages. 

We have also developing a briefing paper on the Shared Room Rate extension to people up to the age of 35 years.

Department for Work and Pensions Policy and Strategy Forum
Homeless Link attended at the DWP Policy and Strategy Forum in November. The main point of discussion was the Universal Credit white paper, along with housing benefit changes and reform of Disability Living Allowance.

Barriers to employment for homeless people
Homeless Link submitted evidence to the DWP who are reviewing barriers to employment for homeless people. This piece of work was a result of discussions which came out of the Ministerial Working Group on Preventing and Tackling Homelessness which Jenny Edwards attended last month.

LONDON DELVERY BOARD

Jenny attended a meeting of the London Delivery Board, where she is one of the four voluntary sector organisation representatives working with this multi-agency board to deliver the end of rough sleeping by 2012.

EVALUATING OF THE EXTENT OF ROUGH SLEEPING

The first street count under the revised methodology took place in November. Homeless Link advised on the methodology and was responsible for providing verifiers to all local authorities who undertook street counts. Figures from the street counts and estimates will be published by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) in the New Year.

THE HARRINGTON REVIEW OF THE WORK CAPABILITY ASSESSMENT

The Department for Work and Pensions commissioned an independent review of the Work Capability Assessment.   Homeless Link made a submission for the independent review. In November the Harrington Review was released and at the same time the government issued their response, accepting all the recommendations of the Review. The Harrington Review made 25 recommendations across the following core areas of the WCA process: the customer experience; the Atos assessment; the decision making process; the appeals process; descriptors and programme of work for year two. Of particular interest is recommendations to improve the assessment of mental health, cognitive and fluctuating conditions. Please download our briefing paper on the Harrington Review and the government response.

REDUCING REOFFENDING WORKSHOP

Homeless Link attended the Reducing Reoffending Workshop – Improving Delivery of Reducing Reoffending Approaches Through Sharing Effective Practice hosted by the Home Office. The workshop brought together representatives from the police, probation, local authorities, homelessness, drug and alcohol services and ex-offender charities.

HOMELESSNESS RESEARCH

The biannual DCLG and Homeless Link research meeting to share proposed research and update on current and recently published research took place in November. Representatives from Crisis, Shelter, Centrepoint, St.Mungos, Salvation Army, and Broadway attended from the homelessness sector, and representatives from Supporting People research, homelessness research, statistics and economics attended from DCLG.

HEALTH AND HOMELESSNESS

Homeless Link is a member of the Health Sub Group of the London Delivery Board, comprised of the Greater London Authority, Regional Public Health Group, St Mungo’s and other partners. The focus of this month's meeting was Hospital Discharge and the group is taking forward a number of recommendations from a report as part of a recent London Hospital Discharge Project. We are very supportive of this focus which builds on previous work undertaken by Homeless Link and others in the sector with hospital trusts to ensure appropriate discharge protocols  www.homeless.org.uk/hospitals are put in place for homeless people. The No Second Night project was also on the agenda and discussion of access to beds that were initially funded under the Homeless Mentally Ill Initiative.

OLDER HOMELESSNESS

Homeless Link has been invited to launch of Centre for Social Justice report ‘The Forgotten Age – Understanding poverty and social exclusion in later life’ which has identified older homelessness as an issue which needs to be addressed.  Homeless Link gave evidence to this project in the summer.

Homeless Link was interviewed on BBC radio Oxford for their Living Longer series, in which they did a special programme on older homelessness.

PRESENTATIONS AND EVENTS

Homeless Link’s National Advisory Council held a regional meeting on the impacts of the comprehensive spending review in the North-West and Yorkshire and the Humber.  The presentation by the policy team is available here. This presentation was also given at the Homeless Link Spotlight event on 1 December. Please download the presentation.

TRANSITION FUND FOR THIRD SECTOR ORGANISATIONS

The £100m transition fund for third sector organisations most affected by the cuts is now open. Interested organisations are asked to apply here.