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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to assess the effectiveness of local homelessness strategies and monitor their progress in reducing homelessness.

The Government is committed to preventing and reducing homelessness. The Homelessness Reduction Act will ensure that local authorities intervene at earlier stages to prevent homelessness.

The new Homelessness Advice and Support Team, drawn from local authorities and the homelessness sector, will also provide support directly to local authorities leading up to and following the commencement of the Act. One of the team's objectives will include helping authorities to develop their homelessness strategies and governance, with a focus on preventing homelessness through closer collaboration across public services.

We are also changing the way homelessness data is recorded and reported, which is currently only aggregated at the local authority level. The new Homeless Case Level Information Collection (H-CLIC) will provide household - level data and will therefore shed a light on local authorities' performance, improve transparency and enable better analysis of their responses to homelessness.