Recommendation 18

At out evidence session the Department was unable to answer several of our queries about these cohorts. It told us it believed that people sleeping rough with no recourse to public funds would be eligible to receive vaccinations against COVID-19, but that it was not leading on this issue, and had not focused on these cohorts in particular in planning for people sleeping rough to be vaccinated.71 The Department did not have any information about how much money local authorities had spent on supporting these cohorts since the start of the pandemic.72 Nor did it have any data on how many from these cohorts was currently being supported in emergency accommodation.73 Once the immediate threat to life had lifted, the Department suggested there might be a range of options available to local authorities to support people who had been staying in emergency accommodation, but it was unable to provide general advice on what local authorities could lawfully do.74 The Department did not provide us with any details when we asked about what would change as a result of the joint planning it has been carrying out with the Home Office to help end rough sleeping among the non-UK population.75 Rough Sleeper Accommodation Programme