Kelly Tolhurst: The Rough Sleeping Advisory Panel last met in June. Owing to the General Election and COVID-19 related pressures, this was the only panel held in the last 12 months. Ministers and officials have had numerous meetings with panel members over the last 12 months. We are committed to continuing regular conversations and following through on actions taken. We are scheduling another meeting of the...
Kelly Tolhurst: The Government provided £4.3 billion to help councils to manage the impacts of COVID-19 which includes their work to support homeless people, £3.7 billion of which is unringfenced, and £600 million to support social care. The Government provided a further £3.2 million in emergency funding for local authorities to support vulnerable rough sleepers. On 18 July, the Government launched the...
Kelly Tolhurst: As of 31 March 2020, the Civil Service has achieved a total of 2.1 per cent of its total workforce as apprentices against the legislative target for the public sector of 2.3 per cent by March 2021. On 21 September 2020, the equivalent figure for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) was 1.7 per cent. Given this target is a percentage of the total workforce the...
Kelly Tolhurst: Nearly 15,000 vulnerable people have been housed in emergency accommodation since the start of the COVID-19 lockdown period. This includes people coming in directly from the streets, people previously housed in shared night shelters and people who have become vulnerable to rough sleeping during the pandemic. The Next Steps Accommodation Programme makes available the financial resources needed...
Kelly Tolhurst: Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic almost 15,000 vulnerable people have been housed in emergency accommodation. We are taking steps to protect vulnerable rough sleepers from COVID-19 and we are continuing to work hard to move vulnerable people away from the streets and into long-term, sustainable accommodation. The Next Steps Accommodation Programme makes available the financial...
Kelly Tolhurst: 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...
Kelly Tolhurst: The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which came into force in April 2018, is the most ambitious reform to homelessness legislation in decades and our manifesto committed to enforce the Act in full. It is a key lever for reducing homelessness as we seek to end rough sleeping within the lifetime of this Parliament. The Act placed new duties on local housing authorities to take reasonable steps...
Kelly Tolhurst: MHCLG announced £6 million of emergency funding to provide relief for frontline homelessness charitable organisations who are directly affected by the Covid-19 outbreak. This is part of a £750 million package of government support for UK charities who may have been impacted by the pandemic. This Covid-19 Homelessness Response Fund was delivered by Homeless Link and applications closed on...
Kelly Tolhurst: The Government is committed to ending rough sleeping. The Advisory Panel met in June, and ministers and officials have had numerous meetings with panel members over the last 12 months. We are committed to continuing regular conversations and following through on actions taken.
Kelly Tolhurst: The Government is clear that no one should be without a roof over their head. That is why we have committed to ending rough sleeping within this parliament. The most recent national figures, from the Official 2019 Rough Sleeping Snapshot, showed that the number of people sleeping on our streets on a single night fell for the second year in a row and a reduction on previous year.
Kelly Tolhurst: The department aims to respond to all correspondence promptly and ahead of the 20 working days target. The average time taken for MHCLG to respond to letters from MPs and Peers in the last 5 months is as follows: April: 13.4 working days May: 18.0 working days June: 18.9 working days July: 18.7 working days Aug: 18.0 working days
Kelly Tolhurst: On 17 September, we announced the funding allocations for the interim accommodation element of the Next Steps Accommodation Programme. Brighton and Hove Council have been allocated £3,428,766. Bids for move on accommodation under the £161 million longer-term accommodation portion of the programme are being assessed and local authorities will be contacted in due course.
Kelly Tolhurst: Tackling homelessness and rough sleeping is a priority for this Government. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic 15,000 vulnerable people have been housed in emergency accommodation. We are?also supporting those at risk of homelessness, with?an injection of?£9.3?billion into the welfare system.??This includes increasing the?Local Housing Allowance rates for Universal Credit and Housing...
Kelly Tolhurst: Charities, and the thousands of people who volunteer with them, make a real difference to vulnerable people’s lives. We all need to work together to break the homelessness cycle and we are committed to drawing on as much expertise and experience as we can. Many of the projects we fund involve joint working with voluntary organisations as delivery partners, and in response to Covid-19 we...
Kelly Tolhurst: None.
Kelly Tolhurst: The Civil Service Talent Action Plan, published in 2014, included a requirement that all civil servants complete learning on unconscious bias. Online learning was made available via Civil Service Learning (CSL) for all staff and a face to face course for the Senior Civil Service (SCS). As part of the introduction of the CSL Learning Platform for Government website in Autumn 2019, MHCLG has...
Kelly Tolhurst: The data requested is not held centrally and to gather the data for the whole department would exceed the disproportionate cost limit.
Kelly Tolhurst: Nationally nearly 15,000 vulnerable people have been housed in emergency accommodation, including hotels, since the start of the Covid-19 lockdown period. This includes people coming in directly from the streets, people previously housed in shared night shelters and people who have become vulnerable to rough sleeping during the pandemic.??On 3 June, the Government published the management...
Kelly Tolhurst: The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government publishes management information about the support for rough sleepers and those at risk of rough sleeping during the Covid-19 pandemic. The latest data was published on 3 June and shows 14,610 people were provided emergency accommodation at May 2020. This data can be found here:...
Kelly Tolhurst: The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) risk assessment for Marsham Street was finalised and published on 28th July 2020. The risk assessment for the building was undertaken by the MHCLG Estates Team in close consultation with both the Home Office, who are the site landlord, and Bouygues, the contracted FM supplier for the building and Arcadis who MHCLG have...