Meeting documents

For Members to consider the attached report.

Contact officer:           Natalie Donhou-Morley 01296 585233

Local authorities had a statutory requirement under the Homelessness Act 2002 to produce a Homelessness Review and Strategy outlining the main causes of homelessness in their area and the strategic plans and actions in place to tackle them. As a minimum requirement, the strategy should be revised and rewritten every five years.

The Committee received a report which contained the Housing and Homelessness Strategy 2019-2022. The Strategy had been produced following a review of the housing and homelessness needs of residents within the Vale and outlined the council’s plan on addressing these needs for the next three years. The Strategy was created by a working group made up of internal officers and representatives from local partners including the Vale of Aylesbury Housing Trust (VAHT), Aylesbury Homeless Action Group (AHAG), Connection Support and Heart of Bucks.

Research and customer insight to inform the Strategy had begun in February 2018 with work including interviews with customers and a survey of providers offering services to homeless people. A consultation event was held on 19 April 2018 and was attended by 41 delegates from local partnership organisations, statutory and voluntary organisations, registered providers and local members. Following this, a full public consultation was completed in July/August 2018. Updates had been made to the draft Strategy to reflect the consultation responses and policy changes that had come into place since the draft was published.

There were four strategic priorities to ensure that those who want to make the Vale their home are supported and empowered to do so:-

·         Prevent and reduce homelessness and rough sleeping

·         Continue to facilitate and maximise the supply of affordable housing

·         Respond to the ongoing challenges of welfare reform

·         Contribute to the improvement of health and wellbeing services for people at risk of homelessness

House prices and private rents had increased in part due to the population growth in Aylesbury Vale. Conversely, the Vale had also had the third highest increase in its housing stock throughout England over the last five years and had the highest ratio of housing delivery to existing housing stock of any authority in the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford Corridor. AVDC had seen an increase of 25% in the number of applicants found as unintentionally homeless and in priority need since 2013. The biggest rise was seen in families with dependent children with the loss of tenancy being the most common reason for someone losing their home.

Since the last Homelessness Review, changes in both local and central government legislation and policy had had a significant impact on the approach taken by local authorities to preventing and dealing with homelessness. Official statistics continued to show an upward trend with the number of homelessness acceptances and rough sleepers rising year on year since 2014. Compared to the national picture and in general, the council’s homelessness figures were relatively low. However, the Aylesbury Vale 2017 rough sleeping rate (per 1,000 households) at 0.26 was marginally higher than national average of 0.20.

The Housing and Homelessness Strategy Action Plan would evolve to identify actions that would be taken to achieve the Strategy’s priorities. The Plan would act as a health check on the effective delivery of the service and would be updated quarterly on the AVDC website once live.

A statement was read out by the Chairman regarding this item on behalf of the Cabinet Member who was unable to attend the meeting.

Members sought more information from officers and were advised that:-

      i.        Quarterly reports would also be provided to the Assistant Director and the Cabinet Member.

     ii.        The monitoring of Universal Credit’s impact on residents and landlords would be ongoing throughout the Strategy. Claimants would be helped to access UC applications online and advice on AVDC’s website would be correct and current with signposting to relevant services as necessary. A communications plan within AVDC was established and debt advice leaflets would be available for registered providers to distribute with their clients. Further actions would be added as necessary.

    iii.        Following the gradual national roll-out, AVDC would become a Full UC Service from Autumn 2018

   iv.        The Government’s P1E data collection system used under previous strategies did not go into as much detail as the new HCLIC system. This allowed the new Strategy to go into further depth to identify those at risk of homelessness earlier. This outcome would be reported to Government.

    v.        Residents who had difficulty with rental shortfalls as a result of LHA caps could approach AVDC for housing advice. Managing expectations early was important in this instance. Depending on the shortfall and officer investigation into affordability, discretionary housing payments could be offered.

   vi.        Although the Strategy would begin in 2019, actions were still ongoing to address rough sleeping. Funding had recently been received to help with rough sleepers which had already achieved housing outcomes for 11 people and additional funding for support services, including a Band 6 Community Psychiatric Nurse. These were quick ways to ensure that rough sleeping did not become entrenched which was an underlying issue for the service. In addition, a rough sleeper count would be carried out later in the week during the early hours of the morning which would be combined with intelligence based information to agree a figure.

  vii.        It was acknowledged that there was a difference between rough sleepers, individuals who had sought and been granted homelessness assistance by the local authority and those who were begging but had somewhere to stay.

 viii.        Despite affordable housing numbers being in VALP, it was appreciated that some affordable rented properties might not be affordable because of welfare reforms. This would be fed back to the Strategic Team.

   ix.        The impact of VALP on the delivery of new affordable housing may take years to accurately measure.

Members felt that the Strategy was comprehensive and balanced overall, however concern was expressed over the impact that UC would have on residents which would influence the effectiveness of the Strategy. The Strategy needed to be agile enough to manage this change but assurance was felt with the flexibility of the action plan and that AVDC was a Full UC Service. Although the Strategy acknowledged that responding to Welfare Reform was a priority, on balance, Members felt that their concerns about UC should be made clear to the Cabinet Member. The Committee saw merit in an update being brought back to Committee in March 2019 which would allow for the impact of the winter and UC to be understood.

Further clarity was also sought from Members regarding the outcome of the targets and actions from the previous Strategy 2014-2017; it was agreed that this should be circulated to Members in due course. A report would only come to Committee on this if deemed necessary by Members.

RESOLVED –

That:-

1.    The approach to the development of the Strategy 2019-2022 be endorsed and that Cabinet and the Cabinet Member take consideration to the discussion and concerns raised by the Committee in relation to UC and the Strategy.

2.    A note be distributed to the Chairman and Vice-Chairman regarding the outcome of the 2014-2017 Strategy.

3.    An update be scheduled to come back to the Committee on the Strategy in March 2019.