Strategy To Combat Homelessness Unveiled

Uttlesford District Council (UDC) is aiming to eliminate all use of bed and breakfast accommodation for temporary housing over the next five years, as one of four main priorities in its newly-launched 'homelessness and rough sleeping strategy'. The strategy will be in place from 2020-2025 and see the council 'investing in the delivery of good quality affordable housing and suitable temporary accommodation'. UDC's three other priorities are: ensuring that homelessness is prevented through early intervention, working to end all rough sleeping in Uttlesford and providing residents with 'high quality housing advice'. Read more on the Saffron Walden Reporter website.

https://www.saffronwaldenreporter.co.uk/news/uttlesford-district-council-releases-homelessness-strategy-1-6398289

Government Has ‘Not Evaluated’ The Impact Of Its Reforms On Homelessness

Government has not evaluated the impact of its welfare reforms on homelessness, or the impact of the mitigations that it has put in place, according to the National Audit Office (NAO). An NAO report says the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) does not have a published cross-government strategy to prevent and tackle homelessness – despite acknowledging the scale of the challenge and plans to improve the data the government holds on homelessness. Download the report from the NAO website.

Calls for Strategic Planning Incentives to Boost Housing

Strong financial incentives are needed to coordinate planning and land use strategically across council boundaries with ‘meaningful penalties’ for councils which fail to do so, according to a new report on how cities could transform house-building performance. That’s the conclusion of the ‘Growing Cities’ publication produced by think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research and housing charity Shelter, which argues that drastic action is needed to tackle the urban housing crisis. The authors concluded that councils within city-regions “should be strongly incentivised to work closely together to co-ordinate building more homes”. The report argued that strategic planning powers and budgets should be devolved to cities and resources such as public land should be pooled and coordinated across boundaries. Read more on the Planning Portal website.

Government Urged To Improve Welfare Reform Strategy

Sweeping reforms to the benefit system have been hindered by failures to anticipate problems and over-reliance on assumptions, the government’s spending watchdog has said. The National Audit Office (NAO) said in a report today that the DWP should learn lessons from mistakes it has made implementing reforms to welfare, such as the long-overdue introduction of universal credit. Criticising the DWP’s strategy, the NAO said the department did not ‘have sufficient understanding of its portfolio of programmes or overall capacity’ and begun several large reforms without understanding its ability to manage the programmes. The NAO warned that the department relied on ‘uncertain and insufficiently challenged assumptions’ which had contributed to civil servants failing to anticipate risks. Download a copy of the report - Welfare reform – lessons learned – from the NAO website. 

Landlords’ Multi-Billion-Pound Fuel Poverty Hit

The government’s fuel poverty strategy has left social landlords responsible for funding billions of pounds of improvement works, senior housing figures have warned. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has published proposals to scrap its legally binding target to eradicate fuel poverty by 2016. Instead, it has set a new target of ‘as many fuel poor homes as is reasonably practicable’ to meet a minimum ‘C’ energy performance certificate ranking by 2030. The new targets have been condemned by fuel poverty campaigners as a reduction in ambition. Social landlords have also questioned whether they are achievable given the strategy also confirms plans to reduce the energy company obligation, which funds most work to make homes more energy efficient. The exact cost to social landlords of meeting the target is hard to pin down – estimates range between £7.2bn to £27bn. Read more on Inside Housing.

Independent Living For Disabled People Diminishing

Independent living for disabled people is in reverse, six years on from a government strategy to deliver improved choice and opportunity, a damning report has concluded.  Across social care, income, work opportunities and access to services, there has been “no evidence of significant progress” in disabled people’s experiences since the independent living strategy was published by the last Labour government in 2008. The strategy set a five-year goal to give disabled people more choice and control over the provision of support for daily living and to make significant progress in reducing barriers to opportunities and access to employment, transport, health and housing.

Download the report from the Disability Rights UK website.

Child Poverty Strategy 'Ignores Impact of Welfare Reforms'

The Child Poverty Action Group has accused the government of ignoring the impact of its welfare reforms in drawing up its new child poverty strategy. The new strategy has identified supporting families into work, improving living standards and raising educational attainment as the fundamental ways to achieve the long-term goal of ending child poverty by 2020. But the CPAG's chief executive Alison Garnham said the strategy lacked "clear actions, milestones and progress measures" and "ignored" projections suggesting child poverty would see the steepest rise in a generation in the coming years. Read more on the CPAG website.

DWP Cuts Put Government's Welfare Reforms at Risk

The government's ambitious welfare reform strategy is at risk because of the speed and depth of the cuts imposed on the DWP, according to a leaked internal review. The document reveals that the DWP is struggling to meet "extremely challenging" demands for over £1bn of efficiency savings over the next two years and these pressures could disrupt plans to roll out benefits reforms. Too crude an approach to future cuts would affect the quality and capacity of the DWP's "public-facing" services to vulnerable pensioners, jobseekers and benefit claimants, it warns. It is understood that separate internal DWP modelling shows that, as universal credit is expanded in the months before the general election next year, the cuts will diminish the department's capacity to keep on top of rising customer demand in jobcentres and benefit offices.  Read more on the Guardian website.

Homelessness Role to Be Axed In CLG Restructure

Charities have accused the government of ‘diluting’ its homelessness strategy after axing the role of a key civil servant. Jon Bright, director of homelessness and support at the CLG, is retiring this year and his role is being made redundant to save money.  Mike Barrett, chief executive of homelessness charity Porchlight, suggested the reorganisation was a ‘direct result of cost reductions and the diluting of the homelessness agenda by the government’. Read more on Inside Housing.