Recommendation 8

Our predecessor Committee recommended that shared accommodation should be phased out across the estate as a whole. While we welcome the progress towards ending this practice, we are extremely disappointed that the Home Office did not take the opportunity of contract replacement in 2019 to make this change in full. It is deeply concerning that the contract for dispersed accommodation in London and the South East until 2029 was tendered on the basis of non-related adults sharing rooms. Further, the argument that room sharing is more acceptable in short term initial accommodation is unsustainable, given the increasing duration of service users’ stays in these facilities.