The Head of Housing and Property has submitted a report to approve the allocation of homelessness prevention funds, with the purpose of meeting the objectives of the Homelessness Strategy.

Recommendations: That the City Executive Board resolves to:

1.    Approve the allocation of Homelessness Prevention funds to commission homelessness services as outlined in paragraph 28.

2.    Agree that any savings from 2016/17 budget allocations for Homelessness Prevention activities are at the end of the financial year considered to be carried forward  to fund necessary and additional services in 2017/18 and 2018/19 including those items as outlined in paragraph 22-27.

3.    Delegate authority to the Head of Housing and Property, in consultation with the Board Member for Housing and the Chief Finance Officer, the discretion to revise the intended programme of use associated with  the 2017/18 Homelessness Prevention budget.

The Head of Housing and Property submitted a report which approved the allocation of homelessness prevention funds, with the purpose of meeting the objectives of the Homelessness Strategy.

Councillor Rowley, Board Member for Housing presented the report.

The City Executive Board resolved to:

1.            Approve the allocation of Homelessness Prevention funds to commission homelessness services as outlined in paragraph 28.

2.            Agree that any savings from 2016/17 budget allocations for Homelessness Prevention activities are, at the end of the financial year considered to be carried forward to fund necessary and additional services in 2017/18 and 2018/19 including those items as outlined in paragraph 22-27.

3.           Delegate authority to the Head of Housing and Property, in consultation with the Board Member for Housing and the Chief Finance Officer, the discretion to revise the intended programme of use associated with the 2017/18 Homelessness Prevention budget.

The Rough Sleeping & Single Homelessness Manager introduced the report which set out how the Council would spend £1.4m of homelessness prevention funds in 2017/18.  The provision of homelessness services were about to go through unprecedented changes due to the withdrawal of 100% of the County Council £1.5m budget for housing related support, which would end completely in 2019.  A pooled budgeting arrangement involving the City Council, the other Oxfordshire district councils and the Clinical Commissioning Group would replace some of the homelessness beds that were being lost.  Through this arrangement the Council had committed £161k of prevention funding to maintaining supported accommodation that had previously been funded by the County Council.  The Head of Housing said that the city needed a minimum of 150 beds (the pooled budget will fund 78 beds for city use beyond April 2018) and the Council would prioritise making up the shortfall.  The most pressing issue was the replacement of Julian Housing (dispersed housing across the city) as 83 beds would be decommissioned from June 2017.  The Council was already in discussions about this.

In response to a question, the Rough Sleeping & Single Homelessness Manager confirmed that no prevention activities would stop in 2017/18, aside from one small funding reduction to a provider that was becoming self-sufficient.  In 2018/19 there would be a need to reallocate funding to meet the challenges from County Council funding.  At this stage there were uncertainties about the impacts of the Homelessness Reduction Bill and Homelessness Prevention Trailblazer funding but officers would come back to members with costed proposals for 2018/19.  The Panel also noted that £150k previously allocated to topping up Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) was being removed in 2017/18 but heard that only a fraction of this funding was likely to be utilised in the current year and the Council’s DHP grant allocation had been significantly increased for the coming year.

The Panel questioned whether the severe weather emergency provision was sufficient.  The Head of Housing said that there was sufficient flexibility to meet need and that any people seen sleeping rough during severe weather had done so not because of a lack of provision but through choice.