Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that (a) local resilience forums and (b) local authorities work with the local voluntary and community sector to provide coordinated support to people affected by the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Simon Clarke
My Department continues to work closely with and local agencies, including the local voluntary and community sector (VCS), to manage the COVID-19 pandemic.
The local voluntary and community sector, and volunteers, are essential partners for many local support services – both in ‘normal’ times and even more so in the COVID-19 response.
Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) and local authorities have well established structures in place to work with the voluntary and community sector and, in response to COVID-19, are working alongside VCS partners and are coordinating volunteer support. This includes volunteer hubs or centres in some areas.
To support local engagement of the VCS, Government has provided support and guidance on partnership working, as well as announcing a £750 million support package to assist VCS organisations. The NHS Volunteer Responders are also open to referrals from local authorities and LRFs.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department has taken to ensure the adequate provision of (a) local resilience forums and (b) local authority services for (i) shielded and (i) non-shielded vulnerable individuals as part of its response to the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
To support those who have been identified as clinically extremely vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus, we are working with local authorities, the food industry, local resilience and emergency partners, and voluntary groups to ensure these individuals have both support and access to essential items such as groceries and medicines through deliveries and priority supermarket delivery slots, if they do not have alternative means of accessing these.
We are sharing data with local authorities on deliveries, including on planned deliveries in their area; where individuals have unmet basic care needs; or where individuals require assistance lifting food into their homes. Guidance has been issued to local authorities, most recently on 24 April.
The Government is also supporting local authorities to identify and support vulnerable people who fall outside the shielding programme. We have enabled local authorities to use NHS volunteers who registered with the GoodSam app. The system is also now open for self-referrals. The Government and local authorities are also working with supermarkets so they can offer priority delivery slots to non-shielded vulnerable people.
In addition, we have provided over £3.2 billion for local councils to manage the immediate impacts of coronavirus.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
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 the number of veterans who are homeless in (a) the UK, (b) Scotland and (c) Linlithgow and East Falkirk Constituency.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The Government collects quarterly and annual statistics on how many people make homelessness applications to local authorities in England. This information can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/homelessness-statistics.
Details on homelessness in Scotland can be found here:
https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/RefTables.
Current data tools do not allow for an estimate of the number of veterans who are homeless. However, in April 2018 the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government introduced a new, case-level data collection called H-CLIC (Homelessness Case Level Information Collection), from which the first tranche of data will be released in due course. This will give local authorities and Government more information regarding homelessness and those presenting as homeless, including if they are a previous member of the armed forces and have support needs.