Agenda item

Pre-scrutiny of the Homelessness Review

It was agreed by Members no presentation was required as they had all read the report, which was also available for the public to view on the NNDC website, so the Committee went straight to questions.

The ADPS confirmed they were required to carry out the review of homelessness as part of developing the new Housing Strategy. They were proposing as part of that process to develop a single year Action Plan due to the uncertainty over funding.

Cllr Fletcher asked why the Council was only able to recover a small proportion of the Housing Benefit (HB) paid out on nightly paid accommodation. The HSDM responded by explaining that when someone presents as homeless the first, and only, option at that point is a hotel as it must be ready to be moved in to at short notice. The Government penalised local authorities for using nightly paid bed and breakfast as a form of temporary accommodation (TA). To penalise authorities the Government would only payback a very small percentage of the accommodation’s costs. The HDSM explained this was one of the drivers, along with human rights, to the Council purchasing their own temporary accommodation as they wouldn’t incur the same penalties when placing households in this type of self-contained accommodation and would then receive the full amount of HB back. The ADPS added that the figure being paid back by government against nightly paid accommodation had not been reviewed for some time.

When asked by Cllr Bailey what would be the ideal number of TA sites to have be, the HSDM explained she was not confident in giving an exact number. The HSDM explained that by the end of this year the Council would have 32 units of temporary accommodation, five of those being move-on accommodation for ex-rough sleepers and the others being standard, self-contained, accommodation but that was not enough. She explained that typically the Council had 60 to 70 households to house each night. The figure, the HSDM estimated, therefore was somewhere between 30 and 70 but they would keep monitoring as they could see the effectiveness of having their own TA in that the Net costs to the Council had gone down and the quality of that accommodation and the support households received whilst in that type of placement improved their future chances. In an ideal world, the HDSM said, the number of TA’s needed would be zero but with homelessness being at the levels they were she could not see that happening in the foreseeable future.

To add to that the ADPS said ideally, there would be a more accessible and affordable private rented sector but there was not much that the Council could do to influence that.

The ADPS also responded to a question by Cllr Bailey regarding the average length of stay for a household that the Council placed in temporary accommodation.  She said that as some people, through choice may only stay one night and then leave and that brought the average down. Some may leave and then come back again. The ADPS explained they did have averages but it would not be meaningful and felt it was dangerous to present those figures as someone who needed to present may look at that figure and deem that as the number of days they would be housed in TA and if they hadn’t been moved by that point, they would query as to why. With low turnover in social housing, placing larger families in need of 4 bed houses could take upwards of 4 years before they were moved out of TA. Also, some providers may refuse to re-house someone if there was a history of arrears from a previous tenancy with that provider, and this further delayed certain households from being moved out of TA.

In response to a further query around whether or not a similar scheme to the Homes for Ukraine could be implemented to support those households in need of short term or TA, the ADPS said that many people believed this could be part of the solution but similar schemes were very resource intensive and for the numbers that would potentially consider being a host, and time in identifying suitable homes, it would be a significant challenge. The ADPS said it was still a potential avenue and something the Housing Team would be mindful of but as the Homes for Ukraine was a government scheme there were issues that, as a local authority, they could not implement without government intervention, such as around council tax liability.

Cllrs Bayes, Hankins and Fitch-Tillett found the review document difficult to analyse, stating that there was an overload on data, some of which they didn’t understand or which was not clear. It was suggested that an executive summary would have been useful with some clear bullet-points to the key findings. Cllr Bayes felt the starting point should have been to start the review looking at the 2019-2024 Housing strategy and then picking out the key themes and issues that came out from that, as many of the priorities within that strategy still existed today.

The ADPS explained it was a legal requirement to produce a strategy based upon a review and felt that level of in-depth of review was needed to really understand the way forward and not to make assumptions. The ADPS used the example that many people were suggesting the Council should focus on the private sector when the results of the review had indicated that this wasn’t going to be the answer to tackling homelessness. It was essential to produce a high-level type of review to aid in managing their limited resources. The ADPS said to have provided an executive summary would have been to present what they believed was right, and fit for purpose when, in fact, they were asking the Committee if it was right or if there was anything missing.

The Chair agreed that there was a lot of data and that it was not unreasonable, or disadvantageous, to discuss solutions regarding what to do next as the following stage was to produce an action plan and strategy. The Chair suggested any graphics that could have been included would have helped Members see key themes and trends, adding that it was difficult to pull anything out, such as which methods that the Housing team currently used were effective or what was working and she felt that it was a missed opportunity to ‘bust any myths’, or share success stories, supported with the data gathered.

The ADPS said that this report set out the review data and the officer’s analysis of that data, which was the tested with stakeholders and consultees stage by stage.

Cllr Heinrich asked if the Council had clear projections as to where the private sector was headed and was the Council facing an increasing number of people being forced out of the private sector. The ADPS explained the District had many landlords as not many had large portfolios unlike most urban areas, and those landlords were making decisions based on personal circumstances rather than the wider economy. The Housing team did have some information to suggest the worst was happening now and when new Government legislation came in things, such as evictions, may settle down again but even if stability came back to the private sector, it would never be affordable. The expectation of what landlords believed they could achieve in rent was such that those dependent on a top-up of Universal Credit would never be able to afford those high rental charges. The HSDM said she had been monitoring the market for 3 years and had not seen a decline in the number of properties available in the private sector but that there were consistently not many properties available. It was the cost of those properties that was the problem, only two in the whole of 2025 were within local housing allowance (LHA) levels, the average 3-bed property was £500 a month more than the LHA and that’s not a gap a low-level income family could make up through other resources.

The HSDM confirmed for Cllr Heinrich that the number of affordable homes was on the increase with the new local plan coming in but the number of voluntary disposals by Housing Associations (HA) into the general market was unlikely to decrease as HA identify the properties that had a negative impact on their business plan. The issue being that the homes disposed of were in villages and the new homes were in the bigger towns that were easier for HA to attract tenants. Those homes were not lost but when on the market they were not at the levels that would help the type of clients that presented as in need to the Housing team.

The ADPS responded to Cllr Gray who queried if the numbers of people who would present as homeless more than once was captured anywhere. The ADPS clarified that there would always be an element of repeat homelessness; people who would continue to sleep rough or sofa surf etc and then present again as homeless and this was captured within the increases in figures to people presenting as homeless. The ADPS said that officers were trying to use ‘upstream prevention’, so people were not becoming homeless in the first place, or the period in which they were was shorter before a solution was found.

Cllr Boyle noted that the Housing Team was considering developing expertise in service delivery to reflect the 3 main reasons for homelessness and queried what they were hoping to achieve from this. The ADPS explained it was to allow for more time to build that trust and working relationship between staff and their clients and looking at their wider resources in working with local communities, to help prevent homelessness occurring. Cllr Boyle appreciated that the uncertainty around staff funding was difficult and thanked the team; and applauded schemes such as the purchase of the Council’s own TA houses, that had made such a positive difference to the costs involved, in tackling homelessness.

Cllr Hankins queried if the second homes premium was having any effect as he felt that the idea behind it was to create more local homes coming onto the market for local people. The HSDM said any change was going to take a while to happen but would have expected many second homes to switch over to holiday lets. What had been a positive, was that the premium charge had allowed the Housing team to purchase more of their own TA as funding those purchases had been possible from the revenue generated by the additional premium charge income. However, the HSDM did warn the Committee that it would take a massive shift for the average wage in North Norfolk to be able to afford the average asking price for a home in the area and this was something that the second home premium would have no impact in changing. It was affordable homes being built that would ultimately make the positive difference for local people.

Cllr Shires reminded the Committee that the Council had created a reserve to help with the increase in homeless costs out of the revenue generated by the Council’s portion of the second home premium.

Officers were asked, by Cllr Penfold, where the most significant pressures to housing, in a national context, came from. He explained that there was a lot of national discussion on migration and asked for some clarification, for the record, if those figures being mentioned nationally were at all accurate. The ADPS said migration was not a significant pressure from a housing and homelessness standpoint, but it was an unknown pressure. The data suggested it wasn’t going to become a pressure in the foreseeable future either but this could change. Government had decided that the burden of migration should be shared by the whole country and asylum seekers were to be more equally dispersed across the country. The ADPS said the Housing team had to manage that with a great deal of sensitivity due to community tensions, but it was inevitable that they would see refugees, asylum seekers being housed in the district at some point but foresee any numbers being very small and the impact minimal.

The Chair noted that the number of approaches to the Housing team were up, but duty had remained stable. The ADPS felt it was a case of managing client’s high expectations as sometimes the pathway isn’t into social housing and then those clients who approached the council chose to help themselves, which reflected the Council was capturing the numbers approaching, and was offering relevant information, advice and support.

Cllr Bayes asked how the rough sleeper data was obtained. The HOM explained that every year there was a date when officers were asked to estimate the number of rough sleepers. In addition to this, every month, they recorded how many people are rough sleeping, in the district, on a particular day of that month but also how many people are rough sleeping throughout the entire month as they came and went

The Committee provided feedback below, and noted, the review.

• An executive summary to be provided in future reports with clear bullet points to key findings.
• Do not overload on data.