Written evidence submitted by Brighton & Hove City Council [HOL 36]

1. Differing causes of homelessness for households, couples and single people

Single People

Brighton & Hove has been experiencing increasing homelessness for single people since 2010.  In 2010/11 the rough sleeper count numbered 14 and the total cases worked with by our street outreach team at 588.  This has increased to 1129 individual cases in 2014/15 with 41 found on the street count.  In recent years the count / estimate figures has been falling but are still significantly higher than 5 years ago.

In 2014/15 the reasons given for rough sleeping for those with a local connection were as follows :

2. Steps to tackle homelessness

Single People

Brighton & Hove City Council commissions a number of services that work to prevent homelessness this includes:

• A housing advice service for young people which includes family mediation and help to access private rented sector accommodation.
• A floating support service with the aims of settling people in independent accommodation when they leave supported accommodation to ensure sustainable move on and crisis response for those at risk of falling out of accommodation.
• A young peoples floating support service for young people resident in emergency placement accommodation and long term leased accommodation.
• A mental health floating support service for people living in independent accommodation to aid tenancy sustainment.

These services have been the subject of retendering as part of the budget savings that Brighton & Hove City Council needs to achieve.  These services have been retendered to work with individuals for a shorter length of time and to concentrate on building resilience and links with the local community so that people can maintain independent living.  However there has been a significant reduction in the budget for prevention due to the need to maintain as much funding as possible for very overstretched accommodation and outreach services for homeless and rough sleeping individuals.

Families and other Households

Brighton & Hove City Council itself, like all local authorities, is required to produce a Homelessness Strategy which complies with Housing Act 2002.

The Homelessness Strategy establishes the framework for actions taken by the council including its partnership work and commissioning work in order to deal with homelessness within its area. Our Homelessness Strategy embeds and incorporates previous Youth Homeless Strategy and Single Homeless Strategy. Brighton & Hove City Council’s Homelessness Strategy is available on the council’s website.

The Strategy describes the work which is carried out by Housing Officers to prevent homelessness by taking steps to sustain people in their homes or by finding alternative solutions. A considerable amount of innovative work is undertaken by local authorities across the country to this effect. Brighton & Hove City Council has established good work practices in Homelessness Prevention since 2004.

In order to tackle homelessness, at Brighton & Hove City Council the first actions taken are to try to sustain households in their existing accommodation. This is the least expensive and disruptive outcome for all. As part of casework we will be looking at negotiating with landlords over breaches of tenancy or problems they may be having with tenants. This requires hearing about problems as early as possible and we work in partnership with advice agencies across the city to ensure referrals are made or support is given to existing workers so we can begin these steps.

We are in the process of developing earlier intervention, specifically by undertaking new work with Health Authorities to improve understanding of tackling homelessness issues with GPs and primary health providers.

Sustainment actions include

• Paying rent arrears to avoid eviction action
• Negotiation over minor breaches
• Support to landlords and to tenants to prevent further breaches of tenancy
• Liaising with other services where support is needed to ensure breaches of tenancy are avoided – such as mental health support, debt support, family support etc
• Close joint working with adult social care and children’s services to ensure relevant support for sustaining tenancies
• Joint working with mental health services on cases

Where it is not possible to sustain homelessness the council undertakes prevention work by assisting to provide alternative accommodation before homelessness becomes an issue. The council therefore has embedded into its service the acquisition of privately rented properties to build up a stock we can use for this purpose. This requires liaison work with letting agents and landlords and good working relationships that encourage landlords to both give us access to their vacant properties and accept our customers as tenants.

The council has a Deposit Guarantee Scheme to assist customers into private accommodation.

Other options which are used to tackle homelessness is the use of this authority’s Integrated Support Pathway so that vulnerable single adults access supported accommodation and move on through reducing levels of support as they are provided with support to acquire skills to live independently. Commissioning support in this area can also help to ensure that these residents are able to move on at the end of this stepped support pathway into independent accommodation without the council being involved.

Successful homelessness prevention has continued despite huge pressures on the housing market in recent years in terms of supply and demand. However the last two years in which medium and low income households have effectively been priced out of the local housing market, successful prevention work has become more difficult.

Guidance on the role of prevention strategies for local authorities is given in the Homelessness Code of Guidance 2006.

The Code of Guidance also addresses the statutory duties which apply to local authorities arising from 1996 Housing Act, Part 7. Clearly the implementation of these statutory duties plays a very large part in the activities of Brighton & Hove City Council with respect to tackling and dealing with homelessness.

3. The relationship between homelessness and the availability of social and other housing

Single Homeless & Rough Sleeping

Brighton & Hove has become increasingly unaffordable for those on benefits or on low incomes with private rented sector accommodation significantly above the LHA rate.  This has resulted in an increase in rough sleepers worked with under NSNO (those new to rough sleeping).  The number of individuals worked with between 13/14 and 14/15 increased by 18%.  We have also witnessed an increasing number of individuals from outside the UK 5% of the total worked with under NSNO were from other parts of Europe and 18% from other parts of the world.  Some of these have refugee or asylum status but are no longer able to reside in NASS accommodation. 

The availability of social housing causes difficulties for those individuals exiting the supported accommodation pathway.  Private rented sector accommodation is unaffordable and there is no priority for social housing afforded to those exiting supported accommodation within Brighton & Hove.  Access to social housing is decreasing and the waiting list for accommodation is significant meaning that single homeless people who have successfully managed to acquire the skills for independent living have little or no chance of accessing social housing within the city.  It is becoming increasingly difficult to move people on and this has silted up the supported accommodation pathway meaning that individuals remain on the streets for longer.

Families and other General Needs Households

Brighton & Hove City Council’s social housing stock consists of council accommodation which is owned and managed by the City Council. Private Registered Providers (RSLs/Housing Associations) also make up a considerable proportion of social housing in the City. Social housing is in critically short supply. Across all property sizes and types within the entire social housing sector, there were 680 vacancies in the year January 2014 – January 2015. The local Housing Register (Homemove) which is a choice based lettings scheme managed by the council has, at the same time, over 22,000 households registered.

The Brighton & Hove Assessment of Affordable Housing Need Report 2012 estimated that an additional 17,400 affordable homes are needed by 2017 above that planned however, limited subsidy and high land values are pushing up costs

At the time of the 2011 census Brighton & Hove had a population of 273,369 residents and was the 6th most densely populated area in the South East.  The city’s population is expected grow to nearly 290,000 by 2021, an overall increase of around 6% with the main growth in people aged 40 years and older

There were a total of 121,540 households in city at the time of the 2011 census, with around 37% being single person households.  The number of households in the city is projected to grow to nearly 130,000 by 2021, an increase of 7%.  The projected profile for the city’s households identify a higher number families and other households[1] than single households by 2021, although single households will still account for over a third of all households in the city.

These projections reflect the experience of the private rented sector for the last several years which is one of increasing demand, restrictions on new supply and increasing rental prices. This has had significant impact on the affordability of accommodation for local households of all kinds on both low and medium incomes. Recent welfare reform changes impacting on low income household incomes as well as Housing Benefit changes (reductions in HB levels followed by freezing of levels for the next four years) have further impacted to a very large extent on the ability of local families both in and out of work to afford accommodation in their own city.

Working households looking to rent in the private rented sector need a much higher income than the city’s median gross household income of £28,240 per annum (reported in 2012) with the rental costs exceeding a comfortable percentage of the household income.

The private rented sector is also unaffordable for households in receipt of housing benefit with the average rents exceeding the local housing allowance for all property sizes.

The gap in affordability between the private rented sector and the social housing sector is significant and for many households living in the city social housing is the only form of housing that they are able to afford, but with the introduction of affordable rents and the changes in Welfare Reform, social housing could become unaffordable for households on low incomes.

The Assessment of Affordable Housing Need Report 2012 estimates that 22,132 households are likely to be in housing need and unable to afford buying or renting in the residential housing market by 2017.6 In addition, 59% of those in need (10,642 households) are only able to afford social rented housing rather than affordable rented.

Becoming a home owner is beyond the reach of many families in the city, with house prices far exceeding the median gross household income.  Prospective homeowners need to save a substantial deposit to access the property market

Brighton & Hove is geographically restricted in terms of expansion of housing by the sea, neighbouring urban areas and the South Downs National Park. Brighton, however, continues to attract households and projections for population increase and demographic changes indicate that the situation will not improve which means supply will neither be able to address the backlog of need or keep up with the rising demand from.

This has led to the council formally accepting policies relating to the problems of affordability for residents in the area and, as further welfare reforms continue such as the implementation of Universal Credit etc, officers engaged with housing across all sectors are developing strategies and guidance specifically to deal with the impact of welfare reform, housing shortage, affordability and homelessness.

The council has undertaken further analysis of the impact of Welfare Reform with respect to the housing market as follows:

Summary and analysis of welfare measures announced in the July 2015 budget

Below is a table which sets out the detail of the budget as it relates to welfare reform and related issues.

The main themes of the budget in this area are:

1)     Freezing most working age benefits for four years from April 2016

2)     Reducing Social Sector Rents by 1% for four years

3)     Limiting benefits in general to the amount for a family with no more than two children from 2017. (Will not apply to children born before April 2017)

4)     Reducing the benefits cap from £26,000 to £20,000

5)     Reducing Employment and Support Allowance for people able to do some work to the same rate as Job Seekers Allowance.

6)     Reductions in Tax Credits and Universal Credit from April 2016 for working people

7)     An increase in the minimum (living) wage

Analysis

The reduction of the cap from £26,000 to £20,000

At present the cap set at £26k affects approximately 115 cases in Brighton and Hove. The full financial impact is approximately £335,000

When the cap is reduced to £20k we estimate this will affect around 650 cases which will face reductions in their housing benefit between a few pounds and £450 per week. The full financial impact of this is estimated to be around £2.3million. Of this just under 50% is likely to be a direct reduction in rental income to the council.

Freezing of working age benefits

The freeze in working age benefits will affect 20,000 working age families who claim housing benefit from the council in the city, there are also a number of families who will be affected because they claim other benefits but not housing benefit for which the council does not hold figures. This will create pressure on the general cost of living for those families and assuming the private rental market continues to increase the city will become increasingly unaffordable for families who rent in this sector to live in. The report published by the Centre for Social Inclusion (CESI) looking at the impact of welfare reform in Brighton and Hove showed that the benefit freeze was one of the highest contributors to the overall relative reductions in income  households faced during the first phase of welfare reform (2011 – 2015).

Freezing of Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates

LHA is housing benefit in the private sector. LHA rates are due to be frozen over the next four years, the following graphs set out historic rent price increases and projections against LHA costs to demonstrate the impact this may have if these rent trends continue in the City (as the graphs demonstrate there is already a sizeable difference between average rents and LHA payable). There are currently 10,900 LHA claims in the city

(Source: BHCC Housing LHA rents report)

The consequences of this relationship between rents and benefit levels if they occur according to historical trend will mean that it will be increasing difficult to live in private sector rented accommodation if a person on household is on benefits or a low income,

Tax Credits and Housing Benefit will not increase if a third of subsequent child is born after April 2017

Approximately 100 third or subsequent children are born to families in Brighton and Hove who are living on benefits each year. The consequence of having a third or subsequent child will mean receiving £53 per week less in Child Tax Credit. It can also mean a loss of housing benefit if a household rents in the private sector of up to £100 per week (although in some circumstances LHA would not increase anyway).

Tax Credit and Universal Credit changes for people who are working

The tax credit changes have been withdrawn. We do not have analysis of the impact of the Universal Credit measures yet. The minimum (living) wage is due to increase from £6.70 to £7.20 in April 2016 and then to £9 by 2020.

ESA work related activity group

From April 2017 new claims for Employment Support Allowance who are in the Work Related Activity group will be paid at the same rate as people who claim Job Seekers Allowance. This means they will receive approximately £30 less per week then they would have done otherwise. In Feb 2015 there were 2520 people in the city in receipt of ESA work related activity group.

Discretionary Housing Payments

The Government has announced a national Discretionary Housing Payment allocation of £800million from April 2016 over 5 years. In Brighton and Hove this will mean funding is likely to rise to about that which it was in 2014/15 which was £1,014,000 and would mean there would be a sizable gap between need and provision given the new measures introduced in this budget. This will also depend on the distribution formula and could alter significantly.  Some of the reductions will be able to be covered through these discretionary funds but this will only be a short term solution.  Other mitigating actions are set out in the main report and in appendix 1.

4. Measures taken by local authorities to deal with the homeless

Single Homeless & Rough Sleeping

• Brighton & Hove is remodelling and retendering its supported accommodation services to include an assessment centre and ‘sit up’ beds to allow for the quick assessment and support to rough sleepers. The remodel will also include women only services and incorporate PIES.
• The city has recommissioned its street outreach service, however inline with overall budget pressure, at a reduced contract value.
• The city is developing its rough sleeper strategy with the input of charities and stakeholders across the city. This will be published in Spring 2016.
• The city has recommissioned a floating support service which seeks to prevent homelessness, provide crisis response for those with housing issues and undertake tenancy settlement work and build resilience and community links to prevent future homelessness.
• The city commissions a young peoples mediation service to help young people remain in their homes.
• The city has successfully piloted and tendered a Housing First Service to work to tackle repeat homelessness and support people with complex needs.
• Young Peoples Pathway is commissioned to provide a swift route for YP away from homelessness and is joint commissioned by ASC and Childrens services.
• SWEP  -  we operate a severe weather protocol to prevent loss of life during cold or extreme weather.
• Brighton & Hove is part of the Sussex Homeless Outreach and Reconnections and Engagement (SHORE) group which is a county wide group of officers from local authorities is looking at issues of rough sleeping across Sussex.  The group has been addressing issues such a reconnections, SWEP provision, employment, training and education needs of rough sleepers, joint funding bids and support services.

Families & General Needs Households

We are working closely with Adult Social Care teams and Children’s Services to ensure we are identifying potentially homeless households at as early a stage as possible – setting up joint working wherever possible to prevent problems developing and leading to homelessness.

Where we are dealing with households known to be vulnerable we are also working with Adult Social Care and Children’s Services to prevent repeat homelessness and break patterns leading to repeat homelessness

In the context of the pressures on existing housing stock and lack of affordable housing in the area (see above_we are needing to establish much earlier intervention especially with tenants currently in relative security (social tenants) – so we work closely with social tenant management.

Where affordability is an issue for households becoming homeless we work to set out the options they have for moving to more affordable areas – where this is an appropriate option for some households such as enabling reconnection with areas they have connections or have recently left.

We are continually adapting services with a view to early intervention, joining our Housing Register and Housing Options services more closely and, again, flagging up households for prevention from the Housing Register.

Working closely with Housing Register we are able to seek innovative solutions to specific issues. For example the council has historically run “hard to let” voids in Seniors Housing (Sheltered Accommodation). Setting up fast track registration and allocations for these properties  specifically for older applicants referred to our services by agencies we work with in the City or those who present, we have prevented homelessness in several cases of vulnerable elderly persons who would otherwise have taken up resources (as homeless cases) across a range of statutory services. At the same time, we have been able to fill voids and increase rental income

Health initiatives and integrated working

Locally we are very aware of the health needs of single homeless people as we carried out a Homeless Health Audit published in 2014 along with a JSNA developed by Public Health.

Homeless Health Audit findings:

In 2013 a Homeless Health Audit was conducted of hostel residents. Data was collected on 302 people. It reported that:

•             84% reported at least one physical health problem

•             85% reported at least one mental health issue (nearly four in ten had been   diagnosed with depression)

•             40% reported that they were a drug user or recovering from a drug problem

•             39% had attended A&E (including many multiple attendances) and 25% had been admitted to hospital at least once in the last six months

Improving health outcomes for the homeless population is a priority and a key element of the Brighton and Hove Better Care Plan.  In response to this priority, city services have been working together to develop health services for homeless people. The CCG has funded 2 projects -

Pathway Plus Project - Initially funded by the DOH as a six month pilot (October 2013 – March 2014) the CCG took over funding from April 2014 and interim funding has been agreed until March 2016. The project provides specialist care and discharge planning for homeless people in hospital.  The team identifies patients who are homeless and develops specialist health assessment and discharge plans with follow up support in the community.  Community transport facilitates engagement with community and primary health care services e.g. housing, GP appointment. Follow up floating support following discharge is offered for those discharged to emergency temporary accommodation in the city.

Hostels Collaborative Project - Since 2013 Sussex Community Trust have delivered a community specialist ICPCT to in-reach to the city’s homeless hostel residents. This has been expanded this year through funding from Public Health for a nurse to work in homeless day centres and on the street delivering health care 2 days a week.

Through their in-reach the team has uncovered a high level of previously unmet complex physical health care need across a wide range of physical health conditions.  Many people have tri-morbid health care needs (physical, mental and substance misuse).

The city also has a specialist homeless GP surgery and through 2016 an integrated homeless health hub is being developed for the city based around the homeless GP surgery and the co location of services such as Adult Social Care, Housing, the Mental Health Homeless Team, the Rough Sleepers Street Outreach Team. This model has ‘spokes’ which are services providing in reach to people in different homeless settings and will include engagement workers to support people to access their health appointments to improve their health outcomes.

Looking at homelessness specifically, Brighton & Hove City Council has obtained funding from the Health Authority to provide early intervention housing advisory and support services through early intervention, ensuring GP registration and access to health services and support – jointly improving housing and health outcomes for those in housing need in the City.

5. The implications of the statutory duty of care, and possible extension to those in danger of homelessness, particularly single people

It is not clear what is meant by the “statutory duty of care”. If, by this, it is meant a statutory housing duty being extended it should be pointed out that someone “in danger of homelessness” would already come under the statutory scheme of Part 7, Housing Act 1996 if “threatened with homelessness” within 28 days. This includes single people.

Any household who applies and is threatened with homelessness within 28 days (if eligible) will trigger the duties on the local authority contained in s184 and subsequent sections of the above Act. However, to qualify for accommodation, the applicant would also need to be “in priority need”.

Existing guidance (Homelessness Code of Guidance 2006) and the good practice of most authorities has established for many years that involvement with housing problems is instigated well before the statutory 28 day period so that prevention strategies can be applied to avoid homelessness.

For Brighton & Hove City Council the extension of statutory accommodation duties would provide very considerable pressure and difficulty on existing resources unless such change were accompanied by steps to immediately and rapidly increase housing supply and a very significant increase in resources to equip the authority for such change.

6. Different approaches to homelessness in big cities and in non-metropolitan areas

The City Council has been working with the SHORE Group around Single Homeless and Rough Sleepers as mentioned above and there are differences in the provision of services for these individuals in city and rural areas.  The provision of support is limited in smaller areas meaning that 18% of the cities non locally connected rough sleepers come from other areas of Sussex.   Reconnection protocols are being worked on through the SHORE group however there are still barriers to reconnection including the lack of provision in other areas.

Brighton & Hove City Council is a Unitary Authority which facilitates joint working across the various statutory services engaged with homelessness, social care and children’s services. The council works to develop complementary practices across the range of issues experienced by our residents and vulnerable people in the area. By doing so we can affect outcomes relating to all trigger issues and provide more seamless services that cover the range of assistance and support that we are required to provide. For example, vulnerable clients to whom housing duties are not owed, we can assist through joined up work with teams where accommodation duties may exist (Care Act duties etc)

7. The re-establishment of the cross government Ministerial Working Group on Preventing and Tackling Homelessness

We welcome any support from Central Government to prevent and tackle homelessness and support the re-establishment of the Ministerial Working Group.

8. How levels of homelessness are monitored and reported

• In the past rough sleeping has been measured by an annual count in line with Homeless Link guidance, the city has also undertaken an estimate in Spring on a number of occasions.  Since 2015 the city has decided to use an estimate for the official figure it provides to DCLG.  This is due to the good partnership working in the city and robust data collection which makes this a much more accurate measure.
• We also measure data from our street outreach service on the number of individuals worked with, their needs, reasons for homeless and outcomes as part of our contract monitoring.   On top of this data we have data from the CAIERS list. This is a local database facilitated by a homeless day centre which logs every rough sleeper known to local services, their level of entrenchment and who the lead agency is for that person.  This has provided valuable data over the years and the plan is to review how this data is collected.
• As part of Better Care, we have data from the hospital regarding numbers of homeless people that are admitted, length of stay and A&E attendance. We are starting to collate data from homeless mental health in patients. We have the numbers of patients registered at the homeless GP practice which is currently 1400 people.
• Substance misuse services locally collect data on people engaged with treatment who are homeless and/or rough sleeping.

Collation of data is informing how we target preventative work.

9. The effectiveness of current legislative framework in England with a review of the different approaches taken in Scotland and Wales

On 31 December 2012, priority need was officially abolished by the Scottish Government after the passing of The Homelessness (Abolition of Priority Need Test) (Scotland) Order 2012. All councils across Scotland now have to provide 'settled accommodation' to anyone who is unintentionally homeless.

The current legislative framework is, in principle, an effective way for state provision of limited housing. It attempts to define homelessness and the kinds of duties that the state should have towards different groups. There is a basic assumption that most people can cope with a period of homelessness and can find their own accommodation so long as there is sufficient advice and information available to them to support them while homeless.

In this way the first duty of the legislative framework is to ensure that advice and assistance is available free of charge.

Following on from that those who are vulnerable and in priority need are entitled to varying degrees of accommodation duties from short term accommodation while their application is assessed through to a “main housing duty” to provide permanent housing. The main duty is only owed those homeless applicants who are vulnerable and who have not lost previous accommodation as a result of their own actions. All subordinate duties are accompanied by the advice and assistance to ensure support is available in finding accommodation when the duty ends.

The Inquiry will no doubt receive numerous submissions which describe the problems inherent in this legislation.

The single most difficult area of the legislation is that there is no compelling legal requirement for potentially homeless people to cooperate with or participate in prevention work. Households can refuse to engage with housing services, or can take up valuable resources relating to prevention work but there is no consequence within the Homelessness Legislation to require this engagement. We can then be left with costly homelessness duties at short notice and high resource use in addition to our existing prevention work and accommodation provided in exercise of statutory duties can fail to meet the expectations of applicants.

In its application the Homeless Legislation is onerous for a local authority. It requires considerable resources and the decision making is fraught with problems due to challenges and very small legal arguments which can sway decisions on duties and take up time, financial resources and wrap up the authority and its legal services for long periods and at great expense.

It is very much process led which can mean customer focus is lost. Brighton & Hove City Council has made considerable efforts to ensure that its customers are consulted with respect to its homelessness services and its service has recently adapted to re-establish a customer focus as far as possible. However the decision making, when applying criteria to who obtains housing and who doesn’t, must inevitably be led by an objective complex legislative process which is hard to understand and seems to be based on criteria that are not understood to be relevant to customers seeking housing.

The main compromise to its effectiveness, however, is that it is still operating in a very changed housing environment. Essentially it is the principle means by which a duty to accommodate can be established for increasingly large numbers of households struggling with worsening housing supply and decreasing ability to afford what short supply of housing there is. More and more households are in need of affordable housing and are priced out of existing markets. Social housing is, more and more, becoming the object to seek and – as its supply continues to decrease – it becomes ever more difficult to provide. The duties, however, still exist and cannot be avoided so this leads to the problems highlighted by recent Supreme Court and Appeal Court cases about the suitability of accommodation to be offered, about who is and is not “vulnerable” and about where local authorities are allowed to house people if it is outside their own area.

The legislative framework may have been effective in 1985 when much of the present Act was put in place (subsequent to the principles set out in the 1977 Act) but a local authority’s ability to fulfil the duties inherent in the legislation is compromised by the impact of increasingly challenging caselaw and the critical problems faced by households as a result of the housing market.

At the same time the removal of public service provision, welfare reform and tough decision making by councils on homeless applications do raise questions about the humanitarian impact of housing problems for poor and vulnerable persons excluded from housing by the market and excluded from the safety net of homelessness provision.

Simply, there is not enough housing. This causes increased housing need. What small amount of housing there is is unaffordable which further increases the demands. While this legislation remains unchanged, councils MUST provide accommodation. They are subject to the same demands and constraints of the market environment and find it increasingly difficult to obtain and provide this housing. Legislative constraints such as the recent case Nzolameso v Westminster City Council (2015) about offering accommodation out of area (where it’s affordable and where it exists at all) constrains councils further in discharging these duties. At the same time as cases like Nzolameso placing further onerous tasks and duties on councils we are also restricted to only providing affordable accommodation by statute (Statutory Instruments 3204 1996 & 2601 2012). Other examples where Supreme Court rulings are increasing pressures on councils are the recent Hotak vulnerability case (Hotak v London Borough Southwark 2015) which is interpreted to mean a lower threshold to duties than previously – increasing numbers accepted and – while the case has left open so many further questions – causes more challenges and difficult decisions around the use of decreasing resources when legal challenges are made.

Of course it is right that these duties are open to challenge and our responsibilities are under scrutiny but there is a perception of an “industry” having developed around this legislation and councils are more and more unable to meet the increasing demands put on them by this legislative framework.

The review process is good (s202 of the 96 Act) – it was developed in the 1996 Act to provide an internal review to mitigate against errors and changes in information prior to court procedures. For many solicitors it seems just a step up into the court processes. It may be helpful to review how these decisions on homeless duties are so easily directed into the court system at such enormous cost both financial (to Legal Aid and to councils defending decisions) and social cost in delaying the resolution of homelessness for applicants.

Scotland and Wales

The changes in Scotland and Wales have generally been in favour of the applicant for homelessness assistance. The changes increase the numbers of people entitled to accommodation assistance. While this would be welcomed by the sector and the industry which has grown up in order to challenge local authorities on homeless applications in England, any increase in the duties owed to homeless applicants by local authorities in England would lead to very great problems of resourcing unless accompanied by steps to immediately and rapidly increase housing supply and a very significant increase in resources to equip the authority for such change.

Representatives from BHCC’s Housing Services would be happy to attend a Hearing if requested.

February 2016