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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, with reference to paragraph 6 of Evaluating the Extent of Rough Sleeping: A new approach, published by his Department in December 2010, what assessment he has made of the effect of non-attendance by officials of his Department to oversee that counts are conducted in accordance with the agreed methodology on local authority and other agency (a) evaluation of and (b) reduction in rough sleeping since 2010.

It is vital that we are frank and open about the scale of rough sleeping. We overhauled the methodology for counting rough sleepers in 2010, so that now every council has to report the scale of the problem in their area.

The counts and estimates are evaluated in accordance with a well established methodology developed with the voluntary sector, and are independently verified by Homeless Link. In addition, the UK Statistics Authority report confirmed the designation of the statutory homelessness figures as National Statistics which fully comply with the Code of Practice.

Of course, nobody should ever have to sleep rough, or become homeless in the first place. That is why we launched a £40 million Homelessness Prevention Programme, including a £10 million rough sleeping fund to help new rough sleepers, or people at imminent risk of sleeping rough, and £10 million of funding for Social Impact Bonds to provide targeted support for entrenched single homeless people.