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Welsh lessons on halting homelessness

English councils are grappling with a new duty to prevent homelessness.  What can they learn from the path set out three years ago by the Welsh pioneers?  Simon Brandon reports.  Illustration by Brett Ryder

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When it comes to homelessness prevention, England is following Wales' lead #ukhousing

What can England learn from Wales' homelessness prevention? #ukhousing

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as the saying goes – and English councils are about to find out how true that is.

In April, under the auspices of last year’s Homelessness Reduction Act, preventing homelessness became a statutory duty for England’s housing authorities.

"When it comes to homelessness prevention, England is only following the path set out three years ago by Wales"

The reasons are clear – the number of English households in temporary accommodation had grown by 60% since March 2011, and is costing the public sector £845m a year.

But when it comes to homelessness prevention, England is only following the path set out three years ago by Wales.

Anyone assessed by their English council as being at risk of homelessness within 56 days now has a statutory right to assistance from their local authority to stop that threat from becoming a reality.

But under Section 66 of the Housing (Wales) Act 2014, which came into effect in April 2015, Welsh local authorities have had a statutory duty to prevent homelessness for the past three years. What can their English counterparts learn from this headstart?


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In terms of general outcomes in Wales during the past three years, the picture is mixed. Section 66 seems to have made a positive difference on its own terms: according to the Welsh Government, Welsh councils prevented 65% of people threatened with homelessness in 2015/16 from becoming homeless.

That said, the caseloads of Welsh homelessness departments have continued to increase consistently since the act was introduced, says Jennie Bibbings, campaigns manager for Shelter Cymru. “It hasn’t had that positive impact we would have hoped for,” she says, adding that since the legislation came into force councils have been more active dealing with homelessness rather than preventing it. “The opposite of what you would hope,” says Ms Bibbings.

"It has made local authorities respond more effectively to people who present as homeless," Cheryl Emery, Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council

That too could be a consequence of the legislation. Councils have told Shelter Cymru that this is because of the increase in demand for their services. According to figures from the Welsh Government, Welsh councils’ homelessness departments dealt with about 17,913 households in 2015/6, an increase of 26.5% on the previous year (before the new legislation had taken effect), while their use of temporary accommodation fell by 8.5%.

An interim report on the effects of the act published by the Welsh Government last August found that councils do believe the new prevention duty has had a positive impact. “Overall, the findings from the 22 local authorities suggest that the preventative approach is working, although local authorities believe that there has been an increase in demand, cases are open for longer, and there are more administrative duties,” the report states. “On the whole, local authorities appear to be in favour of the changes and believe that they have had positive effects.”

Cheryl Emery, housing advice centre manager at Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) County Borough Council, broadly agrees. “It has made local authorities respond more effectively to people who present as homeless, and it has raised the profile of homelessness,” she says. “It is no longer a little back-office team that you don’t fund very well; all of a sudden [homelessness] has shot up the agenda and there is a will now to reduce homelessness.”

“[The act] is not a panacea in any way,” says Arwel Owen, senior housing manager at Gwynedd Council, a largely rural area in north-west Wales. “But it gives us the opportunity to try something different.”

Clearly councils have had to work differently, and that has not always gone smoothly.

Bringing prevention under the law has brought a sharp increase in bureaucracy – and this, Mr Owen says, is something his staff have found a challenge.

“I know it provides a more structured approach to the way we operate, but [the extra paperwork] is a bane for some workers,” he says. “They believe there are so many stages within the process now, which means more correspondence and records. The notes and details they have to go through are at times challenging… It is rather too cumbersome, I think.”

Data is fundamental to the success of the legislation, says Ms Emery. “We wouldn’t be able to tell people how well we are doing or how the legislation is working without it,” she says.

The Senedd building, Cardiff (picture:Getty)
The Senedd building, Cardiff (picture:Getty)

“But it’s not without its challenges. It is a complicated process… Before, we may have recorded everyone who came through the door and just put an outcome of advice or assistance. Now we have to be able to track a client’s journey, and that is far more complicated to do than under the previous system.”

The Welsh Government provided training in this regard for each of the country’s 22 local authorities. RCT provided its own in-house training as well, and although Ms Emery believes most of the operational changes are now embedded, she says data is still “a bit of an issue”.

Jim McKirdle, housing policy officer at the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA), says he now believes more attention should have been paid to this issue early on.

“One of the things we wish we had invested more in was system support around data gathering and data presentation,” he says. “That has struck a chord with colleagues in England because they thought they have had no time [to prepare] because of the pace of legislation. Some of that is down to system changes regarding data capture, and achieving consistency around practice and recording is difficult.”

It is also perhaps one of the issues behind what Mr McKirdle says was a “significant turnover of homelessness officers” in Welsh local authorities following the act’s introduction. “Some staff who had been working with the old system had difficulty adjusting to the new way of working, so we needed to provide training for people who were going to be on point six months after implementation, rather than just ahead of it,” he says.

Councils have been able to build on existing foundations as well as embrace new ways of working. The act’s implementation has worked partly thanks to the relationships that already existed across the sectors – and not just between councils and third-sector organisations, but with the private rented sector as well, argues Harry McKeown, an assistant director at 16,000-home Pobl Group and, until last year, an area manager at The Wallich, one of Wales’ largest homelessness charities.

England vs Wales – what is in the acts?

The homelessness prevention provisions in both acts – the Wales (Housing) Act 2014, and England’s Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 – are fundamentally the same.

They both impose a statutory duty on councils to assist anyone at risk of becoming homeless within the next 56 days – and because both acts remove a priority-need assessment at this early stage, this new duty applies to all households.

“There is now an obligation on local authorities to intervene earlier – it has changed things,” says Harry McKeown, assistant director at home Pobl Group. “Previously there wasn’t a duty to provide advice and assistance at that early stage. Some [councils] did that, but it wasn’t embedded in everything they did.”

By making prevention work a statutory duty, households and individuals at risk of homelessness on either side of Offa’s Dyke now have a legal right to assistance – and a right to challenge decisions made on their behalf in court.

“A key part of the legislation is about improved relationships and use of the private rented sector,” he says. “That has been really important – reaching out to private landlords and preventing evictions. Often the intervention to prevent someone from becoming homeless is the conversation with a landlord. Being able to do that two months before something is due to occur is powerful.”

In England, the National Audit Office’s report found that the ending of private sector tenancies had become the biggest single driver of statutory homelessness in England; 32% of households accepted as homeless by councils fell under this category in 2016/17, a figure that rose to 39% in London.

Gwynedd Council has been working more with landlords in both the private and social sectors since the legislation came into force, according to Mr Owen. “With private landlords we have been working to see if there is anything that can be done to save the situation or to delay things to give us time to find an alternative solution,” he says. “We are not always successful, but where we have been able to do this it has led to better outcomes.”

 

Welsh lessons on halting homelessness 3

Bangor, in Gwynedd, north Wales. Gwynedd Council has stepped up activity with landlords since the act came into effect (picture:Getty)

Those 56 days can provide enough breathing space to enable homelessness officers to look at different ideas. With the money Gwynedd has saved on temporary accommodation – a “significant” reduction from a few years ago, Mr Owen says – it has established a prevention fund that provides small sums of around £500 that allow staff to cast a wider net in search of solutions to threatened tenancies: one tenant at risk of losing their tenancy was offered help from the fund to clear out and clean their property to avert eviction, for example.

The act has also fostered closer relationships between councils and the service providers they commission, according to Antony Kendall, director of operations with The Wallich – and that is, he says, partly down to the more detailed reporting necessitated by the legislation.

"I feel as though these are still pockets of good practice rather than the norm across all services,” Jennie Bibbings, Shelter Cymru

“It has improved the way we work together,” he says. “Many local authorities commission our services for prevention work – floating support or tenancy support, for example. Before [the act] we would carry on doing our own thing, but because of the act, we do now work closer in terms of reporting those outcomes back to councils… There has been a significant improvement in how we work with local authorities in making sure that people are assessed, and then engage with and receive the assistance they require.”

But again, there is variance across Wales’ 22 councils, says Ms Bibbings. “We have seen some good examples of joint working [between councils and service providers], thinking about prevention in a more holistic way, but I feel as though these are still pockets of good practice rather than the norm across all services.”

Nevertheless, three years after the act’s implementation, the direction of travel in Wales is the right one, she adds. However the broader picture is one of inconsistency, and there is still plenty of work to be done.

“People are getting help who wouldn’t have had help in the past,” she says. “And a lot of councils have taken the whole culture change agenda to heart… But that hasn’t happened everywhere, and there are still some councils in Wales that have got a ‘gatekeeping’ attitude. The cultural issues are just as difficult as they ever were… It’s a work in progress.”

Whether this work in progress can feed into English councils’ journey as they begin their own response to the new legislation remains to be seen.

At a glance: Homelessness Reduction Act 2017

At a glance: Homelessness Reduction Act 2017

The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 came into force in England on 3 April 2018.

The key measures:

  • An extension of the period ‘threatened with homelessness’ from 28 to 56 days – this means a person is treated as being threatened with homelessness if it is likely they will become homeless within 56 days
  • A duty to prevent homelessness for all eligible applicants threatened with homelessness, regardless of priority need
  • A duty to relieve homelessness for all eligible homeless applicants, regardless of priority need
  • A duty to refer – public services will need to notify a local authority if they come into contact with someone they think may be homeless or at risk of becoming homeless
  • A duty for councils to provide advisory services on homelessness, preventing homelessness and people’s rights free of charge
  • A duty to access all applicants' cases and agree a personalised plan
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