Our response to the Spending Review

Homeless Link is analysing the Comprehensive Spending Review to provide information on its impact on homeless people and homelessness services. This page will be updated regularly over the coming days and weeks.

Download Homeless Link's Spending Review briefing
Download Homeless Link's Spending Review briefing - condensed version for those on the go
NEW  Download Homeless Link's Review of the Impact of Submissions to the CSR on Homelessness

The Spending Review includes deep cuts in many areas of public spending. Those most relevant to homelessness include local government, housing investment, public sector job losses and welfare cuts. These changes are very likely to increase the flow into homelessness.

At the same time maintaining homelessness services has been given some priority by Ministers and the Treasury within the Spending Review, particularly in the sustained level of homelessness grant (which mainly goes to local authorities for homelessness prevention), lower than average cuts in SP and new capital funding for Places of Change investment in homelessness services.  These are clear signals at a national level that the cost effectiveness of these services is recognised, particularly given the 51% cuts facing Communities and Local Government overall. 

Read more in our briefing.

Funding News: The £100m transition fund for third sector organisations most affected by the cuts will be open soon. Interested organisations are asked to register at: transitionfund@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk  More information is available through the Cabinet Office.

What is the Comprehensive Spending Review?

The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) is the process whereby funding is allocated across all government departments. Led by the Treasury, the CSR sets spending budgets for each department, which then decide how best to manage and allocate this spending within their areas of responsibility. The CSR also looks at non-departmental spending that cannot be firmly predicted or controlled, such as social security or tax credits. Please visit the HM Treasury website to download the documents from the announcement. To download Homeless Link's submission during the consultation process for the CSR please click here.

What does this Comprehensive Spending Review cover?

The Chancellor’s June 2010 Emergency Budget set out the total spending level from 2011/12 to 2014/15 inclusive. The key aim was to reduce the significant public deficit over this parliament’s lifetime. As a result, this CSR process has been characterised by government departments bidding for funding from a substantially reduced central pot (often termed the ‘spending envelope’), and will be a guide to the cuts faced by each department.

What doesn’t this Comprehensive Spending Review cover?

The CSR does not go into great detail on how each government department will spend their allocated funding, given that this is the decision of department’s Secretary of State. While each department will have done scenario planning and budgeting based on an expected level of cuts, these plans may now need to be revised in light of the final CSR document. As a result, while we summarise and draw implications from the CSR, the full ramifications of the spending cuts on specific departments and their work may only materialise in the coming weeks and months.


This page will be updated with further analysis as specific government departments announce how they will spend their budget allocations.