You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
New duties funding to fall short of £132.7m homelessness cost to London councils
London councils will spend an estimated £132.7m battling homelessness next year as new duties come into force, despite an allocation of just £11m in government funding.
The government has only allocated a little less than £11m for the 33 boroughs for 2018/19 in new burdens funding.
London will receive around 41% of the total £72.7m to be distributed to all local authorities over the next three years.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the capital accounted for 69% of the 78,180 households in temporary accommodation in England at the end of June 2017.
London Councils, which represents all of the boroughs, produced the estimated spend figures based on a survey of 17 of its members.
The majority of the bill will be made up by homelessness prevention duties, with councils set to spend around £83m on keeping households in stable accommodation.
READ MORE
The Homelessness Reduction Act places extra responsibilities on councils, including intervening within 56 days of a household being threatened with homelessness and offering homelessness prevention advice to anyone who requires it, rather than just those considered in priority need.
It comes into force in April 2018.
Another £38.6m will be spent on casework, while around £11.2m will be used on homelessness reviews.
London Councils said the new burdens funding for boroughs should be £77m in the first year, based on costs associated with their new duties under the legislation.
Last week, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) issued its delayed guidance on implementing the Homelessness Reduction Act, announcing an extra £11.7m in funding to help councils meet their new duties.
“It is helpful that the government has assessed that costs will be higher than originally thought, but without a cross-departmental look at the impact of welfare reform on homelessness, their assessments will remain incomplete, resulting in the buck being passed to councils,” said Sir Steve Bullock, mayor of Lewisham and executive member for housing at London Councils.
“London boroughs have increasing homelessness duties, with decreasing funds and decreasing social housing stock, and must contend with increasingly unaffordable private sector rents.
“We are highly motivated to prevent and relieve homelessness, but cannot adequately do so without sufficient resources and joined-up policymaking.”
A spokesperson said the DCLG had nothing to add beyond a written statement issued to parliament by local government minister Marcus Jones last Monday.
Mr Jones told MPs: “The government has worked with local authorities and the Local Government Association to test the methodology behind the distribution, as well as the core assumptions of the costs of administering the new duties.
“The distribution reflects the differing need in different authorities. The funding has been allocated according to a formula which reflects where resource pressures are likely to increase as a result of administering the new duties contained in the act.”
