Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many (a) new bed spaces and (b) specialist support staff have been allocated (i) to Barnsley, (ii) to South Yorkshire and (c) nationally under the Rough Sleeping Initiative since its implementation.

The Government is committed to reducing homelessness and rough sleeping. No one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why last summer we published the cross-government Rough Sleeping Strategy. This sets out an ambitious £100 million package to help people who sleep rough now, but also puts in place the structures that will end rough sleeping once and for all. The Government has now committed over £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the spending review period.

The Rough Sleeping Initiative (RSI) does not ‘allocate’ bed spaces and specialist support staff to local authorities, but funds based on the bids that the local authorities themselves submitted (in some cases with the support of our expert rough sleeping advisers). We recognise that rough sleeping impacts different areas in different ways, and so we work to ensure local areas can respond flexibly to the unique challenges they face.

Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, in conjunction with Doncaster and Rotherham, was successful in bidding for RSI funding in 2019/20. They have been allocated £328,038 this year for the staff and services detailed below.

Overall this funding is expected to provide at least 8 additional staff across these areas.

The remaining authority in South Yorkshire, Sheffield, was allocated £363,309 in 2018/19, and £412,926 in 2019/20 through the RSI. This funding is expected to provide a total of 37 additional bed spaces and 9 staff over the two years. As a whole South Yorkshire is expected to deliver 37 bed spaces and at least 17 staff through the RSI in its first two years.

In its first year, RSI funding provided over 1,750 new bed spaces and 500 staff across the country. This year we have expanded the initiative with an investment of £46 million providing funding for an estimated 2,600 bed spaces and 750 staff. £12 million of this is for areas new to the programme, bringing the total authorities funded to 246.

More information can be found on the gov.uk website: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/james-brokenshire-confirms-funding-to-help-people-off-the-streets