Recommendation 4

The Department does not quantify potential savings in some areas, such as temporary accommodation, into the Programme. Surprisingly, the Department can identify, but not quantify, savings in areas such as temporary accommodation and adult social care that the public purse could make through the Programme. For example, from the estimated 8,500 households that could move out of temporary accommodation by 2026–27 through the 2021 programme. The Department needs 6 The Affordable Homes Programme since 2015 to improve its knowledge, so it can factor in these further savings when it allocates funding. The Department urgently needs to understand and quantify the savings that building more supported homes can make to local and central government spend on adult social care. It then needs to work harder with the Department of Health and Social Care to overcome the barriers to delivery, particularly in London. The Department does consider welfare savings such as savings to housing benefit and quantified these for the 2021 programme. Recommendation: Before the next iteration of the Programme, the Department should quantify the wider savings it could make to areas such as adult social care and temporary accommodation.