Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the difference between the number given of 14,610 rough sleepers housed under the emergency Everyone In scheme and his Department's latest figures showing 4,266 rough sleepers in England, what steps his Department plans to take to improve the quality of data collected on the number of people sleeping rough.

On 3 June the Government published the management information that supports the announcements that nearly 15,000 vulnerable people have?been accommodated by local authorities in response to COVID-19 via the Everyone In scheme.

The separate annual rough sleeping snapshot provides a way of estimating the number of people sleeping rough on a single night in Autumn. In 2019 this provided an estimate of 4,266 individuals sleeping rough on a single night; down 9 per cent on the previous year. This does not include people in hostels or shelters and records only those people seen, or thought to be, sleeping rough.

In July this year, the Office for Statistics Regulation, conducted a review of the compliance of MHCLG’s Rough Sleeping Snapshot official statistics against the Code of Practice for Statistics. The review welcomed the new management information being collected on the numbers of homeless and rough sleepers in England being assisted into emergency accommodation since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as a range of positive features that demonstrate the quality and value of the rough sleeping statistics.

For further information please see the following link:

https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/mark-pont-to-sandra-tudor-compliance-check-of-rough-sleeping-snapshot-in-england/