Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 18
4th Report - Tackling homelessness
Published 24 Jan 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Tackling homelessness All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
We enquired whether some local authorities were effectively “swapping” households with other local authorities. MHCLG replied that it received a lot of anecdotal evidence that this was happening, and that such an approach was clearly wrong given that it is better for people to stay as close as possible to their home. We challenged MHCLG on whether some kind of central co-ordination was required to prevent this swapping of households from taking place. It replied that it was cautious of too much central government involvement in the statutory responsibilities of local government, but that it would look at ways in which it might encourage local authorities to work better together.24 20 Q 87 21 C&AG’s Report, paras 3, 1.21 22 Q 1 23 Q 39; C&AG’s Report, para 21 24 Qq 41-42 13
From: Public Accounts Committee, 4th Report - Tackling homelessness (HC 352), 24 January 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Fourth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026.
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Fourth report from Session 2024-25
Published 6 May 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it agrees with the Committee's recommendations on tackling homelessness, giving target implementation dates ranging from April 2025 to Summer 2026 and noting that some are already implemented.
- On temporary accommodation, the government agrees with the recommendation and reports it as implemented: the Emergency Accommodation Reduction Pilots, backed by £5 million (later £8 million in total), work with 20 local authorities with the highest use of B&B accommodation.
- On consolidating funding, MHCLG will merge its main rough sleeping and single homelessness grants into a single grant for 2025-26, and will "explore options" for aligning Homelessness Prevention Grant funding with rough sleeping funding. It will "consider whether and how" to consolidate homelessness grants into the Local Government Finance Settlement.
- On local connection tests, regulations in force since 18 December 2024 exempt all former regular armed forces members. MHCLG will bring forward changes for domestic abuse victims and care leavers under 25 "in due course".
- On supported housing, the government agrees, with a target date of Summer 2026. A 12-week consultation published on 20 February 2025 covers a licensing regime and National Supported Housing Standards, with a response to follow "as soon as possible".