Submission to Treasury Budget and Spending Review

What is it?

This document is a formal submission to HM Treasury's call for evidence ahead of the upcoming Budget and Spending Review.

Who is this for?

This document is written for HM Treasury to explain why urgent financial intervention is needed in the upcoming Autumn budget and to set out a vision for a more sustainable funding system going forward ahead of the Spring spending review.

The document also has useful information on cost pressures and challenges that will be useful for others in the homelessness sector and with an interest in homelessness.

Key takeaways

The homelessness system delivers amazing work every day to support some of the most vulnerable members of our community. But the current system of funding to enable this work undermines these efforts, threatening the sustainability of services and diverting resources away from support. The complicated and patchwork funding network means it is not possible to ascertain value for money, and there is no quantified value to the current level of spending.

The upcoming budget and spending review is a golden opportunity for the new government to spell out their commitment to supporting people experiencing the most severe forms of disadvantage. With Treasury’s support, we can get England back on track towards ending homelessness.

But the depth of change required will take time to get right, and time is not a luxury that homelessness providers can afford. The majority of government funding for homelessness services ends in 2025. Hundreds of millions of pounds are set to leave the sector in the next six months putting the support and accommodation for thousands of people at risk.

Amongst other asks we are calling for Government to:

• Commit to a one-year rollover of existing homelessness funding into 2025/26 including additional funding to enable inflationary uplifts to local authority commissioned contracts for homelessness services and accommodation projects
• Undertake a systematic review of all homelessness-related spending across government informing a commitment to developing and delivering a consolidated, ring-fenced homelessness funding system from 2026/27 onwards.

Call to action

Policy makers should use this document as evidence that increased funding is required. Other stakeholders should feel free to use our evidence when making a case locally and nationally.

This document cross-references ‘Breaking the Cycle: Funding a homelessness system that works’