Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 38
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 ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We suggested that the licensing schemes that local authorities were considering would turn out to be very different from each other, unless there was a clear standard to be followed. We were concerned about evidence that, in the absence of such a standard, some local authorities were already making decisions such as deciding not to continue funding charities that were doing an outstanding job in supplying housing for vulnerable people. We asked when the first license might be issued. MHCLG replied that it would depend on what the consultation revealed about the state of the regulations and how complex the licensing regime would be to implement. It suggested that the consultation was likely to last for several months, after which it would need to evaluate the responses and lay the appropriate regulations, before finally implementing the scheme. MHCLG argued that the general election had pushed back some of the timescales in a way that was “frustrating” but that it was committed to making this happen as quickly as possible. 53 51 Committee of Public Accounts, Supported housing, Seventy-Seventh Report of Session 2022–23, HC 1330, 10 November 2023; House of Commons Library, Supported exempt accommodation (England), September 2023 (page 4) 52 Q 6 53 Qq 7-11 20
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".