Homeless Link Fears Grant Could Be Diverted

An umbrella group is concerned councils could spend homelessness grant on purposes other than homelessness through proposed changes to allocating business rate funding.  Homeless Link has responded to a CLG consultation on the business rate.   One of the proposals is for certain grants, including the homelessness prevention grant, to be rolled into the business rates retention scheme.  Councils currently have to return business rates - paid by businesses and other non-domestic occupiers of property - to the government who then redistributes it. Under the new scheme, they could retain half of the money collected.  But Homeless Link says this means the grant will no longer be identifiable at local level and there will be no transparency on the way it is spent. They fear that councils could further cut money spent on homelessness services, as they could when the ring-fence came off Supporting People funding in 2009.  Read more on Inside Housing.