Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 2
2
The Department still does not have a plan for achieving its target of ending rough...
Recommendation
The Department still does not have a plan for achieving its target of ending rough sleeping by 2024, and risks failing to capitalise on the successes of Everyone In. Following the general election in December 2019 the government began this Parliament with a manifesto commitment to end rough sleeping by May 2024: only three years from now. This brought forward the government’s previous commitment, which had been to end rough sleeping by May 2027. In February 2020 the Department commissioned a review of its 2018 rough sleeping strategy towards meeting its new target but, owing to the prioritisation given to dealing with the pandemic, this has not yet been conducted. Not only does the Department not have a plan for ending rough sleeping by 2024, it also has not worked out how to define what ‘ending’ rough sleeping means or how it will measure and report on progress in a meaningful way. To end rough sleeping will certainly involve addressing the wider lack of availability of supported housing and affordable housing. The Department’s evidence shows that 80% of rough sleepers have mental health needs and a significant majority have substance abuse which underlines the importance of providing appropriate wraparound care to provide a sustainable pathway out of rough-sleeping. In 2017 this Committee recommended that the Department launch a cross-government strategy for addressing homelessness in the round, which could have helped it to address this issue, but it has so far failed to do so. Recommendation: The Department must, before summer recess, publish at least a draft strategy for how it will achieve its goal of ending rough sleeping by 2024. This should set out its definition of ‘ending’ rough sleeping, how it will measure and report progress in achieving and maintaining this goal, and the capacity of supported and affordable housing required to reduce the flow of people onto the streets towards zero for the long term.
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
2.1 The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation. 2.2 The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation, although it will be important to ensure sufficient time for the development of the new strategy and to align with the forthcoming 2021 Spending Review. 2.3 The government is fully committed to ending rough sleeping within this Parliament and has already made considerable progress in the last few years to reduce rough sleeping. Much of this work provided the capacity to deliver the Everyone In response both locally and nationally. The department’s annual statistics published on the 25 February 2021 show the number of people sleeping rough fell for the third year in a row, the largest decrease since these were first recorded in 2010 and a 43% decrease since 2017. 2.4 Nonetheless, the department is clear that to end rough sleeping there is a need for further cross government action to address the underlying causes of rough sleeping. The department will be working with partners across government and the sector to build on recent progress and consider what more needs to be done to end rough sleeping. The department will consider the role of health, policing, prisons, immigration, welfare, and employment, alongside housing and how the department will build on the already significant success of Everyone In. 2.5 As the Committee suggests, the department will consider a definition of what it means to end rough sleeping, including information about how this goal will be measured and evaluated.