Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has made an assessment of the correlation between changes in (a) local authority funding and (b) changes in the level of provision of local authority services, excluding social care, since 2010.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
As democratically elected organisations, local authorities are independent of central government, and are responsible for managing their budgets in line with local priorities and their legal duties.
Central government funding cannot in isolation provide a true representation of local authority finances. The responsibilities, structure and makeup of local authorities have changed significantly since 2010 and spending power, formula grants and settlement funding assessments are not directly comparable over this period. For example, with the introduction of the Business Rates Retention Scheme, local authorities estimate they will keep around £2.4 billion in business rates growth in 2018-19.
As announced in the Local Government Finance Settlement, Core Spending Power is forecast to increase from £45.1 billion in 2018-19 to £46.4 billion in 2019-20. This is a cash-increase of 2.8 per cent and real-terms increase in resources available to local authorities. In the long term, the Spending Review will determine funding for local government from 2020-21 onwards and will enable us to look at local government spending in the round.
Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he has made an assessment of the correlation between the (a) increased proportion of local authority spending on social care, (b) reduction in local authority overall spending on services other than social care and (c) decrease in local authority funding since 2010; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Rishi Sunak
As democratically elected organisations, local authorities are independent of central government, and are responsible for managing their budgets in line with local priorities and their legal duties.
Central government funding cannot in isolation provide a true representation of local authority finances. The responsibilities, structure and makeup of local authorities have changed significantly since 2010 and spending power, formula grants and settlement funding assessments are not directly comparable over this period. For example, with the introduction of the Business Rates Retention Scheme, local authorities estimate they will keep around £2.4 billion in business rates growth in 2018-19.
As announced in the Local Government Finance Settlement, Core Spending Power is forecast to increase from £45.1 billion in 2018-19 to £46.4 billion in 2019-20. This is a cash-increase of 2.8 per cent and real-terms increase in resources available to local authorities. In the long term, the Spending Review will determine funding for local government from 2020-21 onwards and will enable us to look at local government spending in the round.
Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he plans to ensure that all investigations into deaths of homeless people involve an assessment of whether the death could have been prevented.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The death of any rough sleeper is a tragedy. That is why we said in the Rough Sleeping Strategy we are working to ensure that Safeguarding Adult Reviews are conducted when a person who sleeps rough dies or is seriously harmed as a result of abuse or neglect, whether known or suspected, and there is concern that partner agencies could have worked more effectively to protect the adult. We will consider how lessons learned from these reviews will inform improvements to local systems and services.
The Rough Sleeping Strategy was published on 13 August 2018. This strategy sets out our long-term vision for how all parts of Government, both centrally and at the local level, will work together to ensure that no one has to sleep rough. This vision is based around three core pillars: prevent, intervene and recover – centred on a system of rapid rehousing.
Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of levels of (a) homelessness and (b) rough sleeping in (i) Sunderland and (ii) the North East from 2010 until the most recent year for which information is available.
Answered by Nigel Adams
My Department publishes quarterly statistics on statutory homelessness and homelessness prevention and relief in England, and an annual rough sleeping count. These are published at a local authority level. The latest statistics can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-homelessness
Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the reasons contributing to trends in the level of homelessness.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The evidence suggests the causation of homelessness and rough sleeping is complex and that there is no single trigger or event. A complex interaction of individual factors (eg relationship breakdown, drug and alcohol abuse), structural factors and protective factors are likely to influence whether a person becomes homeless during their lifetime, as well as affect their ability to find a home.
To further our understanding on the causes of homelessness and rough sleeping we have committed to conduct a feasibility study - led by MHCLG, and co-funded by the Department for Work and Pensions. The long-term ambition for this research is to develop a quantitative, predictive model (or models) of homelessness and rough sleeping, which can be applied to various policy scenarios, to help assess the impacts of government intervention on levels of homelessness.
This will be supported by an evidence review on the broad range of factors that might influence levels of homelessness, from the housing market to welfare systems, as well as individual factors.
Also, the new Homelessness Case Level Information Collection (H-CLIC) which is a household level data collection will include more information on the people in a homeless household, more detailed information on people’s reasons for becoming homeless and their support needs.
Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to prevent the deaths of homeless people during the winter of 2018-19; and what long-term prevention strategy is being developed by his Department in relation to homeless people.
Answered by Nigel Adams
We are clear that no one should ever have to sleep rough and are determined to make it a thing of the past.
This year, as part of the Rough Sleeping Initiative, we provided £30 million to 83 areas with the highest levels of rough sleeping. This funding will boost the immediate support available, including providing an additional 1,750 bed spaces for those sleeping rough or at risk this winter. This will be followed by an additional £45 million in 2019-20 to continue to respond to emerging challenges and make an immediate impact.
As part of our new Rough Sleeping Strategy, published on 13 August, we will provide up to £2 million in 2018/19 in health funding. This will be used to test models of community-based provision designed to enable access to health and support services for people who are sleeping rough. We have also asked NHS England to spend up to £30 million on health services for people who sleep rough, over the next five years. Alongside this, we will ensure that people sleeping rough have access to existing local systems by providing new funding for rough sleeping navigators.
Most importantly, we will work to ensure that Safeguarding Adult Reviews are conducted when a person who sleeps rough dies or is seriously harmed as a result of abuse or neglect, whether known or suspected, and there is concern that partner agencies could have worked more effectively to protect the adult. We will consider how lessons learned from these reviews will inform improvements in local systems and services so this does not happen again.
We are clear that only by taking a holistic approach to homelessness and rough sleeping will we ensure that support is there for those who need it most. That is why our rough sleeping strategy builds on the foundation of the Homelessness Reduction Act and has prevention at its centre - stopping people from becoming homeless in the first place and providing them with the right support to find work and live independently. We are also committed to publishing a strategy on wider homelessness issues, which the cross-government Rough Sleeping and Homelessness Reduction Taskforce, will move on to address in due course.
I strongly believe that this package will achieve substantial results, alongside the work already underway. We have allocated £1.2 billion to tackling homelessness through to 2020. This includes £617 million in Flexible Homelessness Support Grant funding which local authorities can use strategically to prevent and tackle homelessness in their area.
Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of adult social care funding.
Answered by Marcus Jones
The Budget provided £2 billion of new funding to support social care. Councils will now have access to £9.25 billion more dedicated funding for social care over the next three years as a result of measures introduced by the Government since 2015.