Recommendation 3

Too many people’s lives are disrupted by being placed in temporary accommodation outside of their local area. For a variety of reasons, including lack of housing supply and suitability of accommodation, some local authorities struggle to place households in temporary accommodation within their local area. Over the period 2018–19 to 2023–24, the number of households placed out of area increased by 42%. As at June 2024, around 39,000 households were placed out of area. MHCLG is aware of families sometimes being placed a considerable distance away, and acknowledges that this can cause difficulties, especially for children, including challenges for their education, and social isolation affecting their support and health needs. The homelessness legislation and code of guidance state that local authorities should, as far as possible, avoid placing households out of area. MHCLG does not have the data to say exactly how far away people are living from their local authority areas. Anecdotally, it understands there are cases where local authorities are essentially “swapping” households. MHCLG is working to generate better data, and particularly to make information available to local government about where households have been placed, and who has been placed in their area. It is also considering sharing good practice and facilitating conversations between local authorities who typically place households out of area. recommendation MHCLG should improve its data on out of area placements as a matter of urgency, and use the data to encourage better coordination between local authorities, to minimise the number of households placed out of area. It should also explore possible steps to incentivise councils to use local providers. 5