Agenda item

To receive an update on the performance and outcomes of the Single Homeless Prevention Service (SHPS) since its move to The Turning Point in Harlesden.

Councillor Promise Knight (Cabinet Member for Housing, Homelessness and Renters Security) introduced the report, which set out the rationale for the move of the Single Homeless Service to an in-person, face to face service. The Council had found that the previous online appointments system was unable to cope with the volume of demand, which was unprecedented, and could not meet the needs of single homeless people within the borough. The new face to face service was accessible, better placed to identify immediate need and was within 5 minutes walking distance of key delivery partners such as Crisis, Job Centre Plus and DWP. The Committee was asked to note the importance of co-location and the wraparound support single homeless people would receive, outlined in section 4.5 of the report.

The Chair thanked colleagues for their introduction and invited comments and questions from those present, with the following issues raised:

The Committee asked about the £500,000 price increase of the new contract with the Single Homeless Prevention Service, which had been retendered at £2.1m. Laurence Coaker (Head of Housing Need, Brent Council) explained that the contract went through the tender process and the final contract price had increased by £500,000, but the contract was outcome based. Compared to a traditional contract where the Council would commission the service following tendering, then pay for that service and monitor it through KPIs, this contract would only be paid for if the contractor delivered. The paper set out the different delivery outcomes that the specification expected from the service, which were to complete Personal Housing Plans, to prevent and relieve homelessness, and to support tenancy sustainment. If those deliverables were unsuccessful then the contractor would not get paid. The funding for the service came through the Government’s Homelessness Prevention Grant which the Council received every year to finance the outcomes of the service. The grant went into the General Fund where the service was then paid for. A written response would be provided in relation to section 8.2 which stated that there would be no grant subsidy as seen in previous years.

The Committee asked for further details on what the factors were resulting in single people becoming homeless. They heard that the number one factor driving homelessness was affordability as a result of the rising cost of living and high cost of housing in Brent, with privately rented properties beyond the reach for a lot of people. In terms of demographics, there were not many young people presenting as a single homeless person, and where there was a breakdown of family relationships causing a young person to want to leave home, the Housing Need Department worked with the Children and Young People Department to mediate and keep the young person at home where appropriate.

The Committee asked for further information regarding the co-location space in Designworks. Laurence Coaker highlighted that Designworks was the name of the building, and the Council had named the service within that building the Turning Point.  The Single Homeless Prevention Service (SHPS) was collocated with the Council’s Single Homelessness Team, who had also relocated from the Civic Centre to the Designworks building, who were contracted to help with the prevention and relief of single homelessness. In relation to the division of labour between the Council and SHPS, the Committee heard that all presentations of single homelessness came to the Council, who did a triage assessment and determined the circumstances of the individual. Those with higher vulnerability and more need were dealt with by the Council’s Single Homelessness Team and SHPS picked up clients with lower vulnerability and lower needs, which helped to free up resource for the Council’s team to focus on those with additional support needs.

The Committee asked for assurance that the Council was able to sustain this service and cope with the current demand. They were advised that it was a statutory, demand-driven service so the Council was required to deliver it. The move to Turning Point in Designworks was designed to increase capacity by co-locating the teams and being in close proximity to other service so that the passage for homeless people was smoother and more efficient. The Council was focused on continuing to develop services to make them more efficient to meet demand.

The Committee requested information on what tangible mitigations were being put in place to alleviate the 20-25% increase that the Council had seen in homelessness over the recent period. Laurence Coaker informed the Committee that a big part of moving the Single Homeless Prevention Service to Harlesden and rebranding as Turning Point was to make it better for service users and also for officers. The demand for housing was unprecedented across the whole of the country, particularly in London, due to the high cost of housing, which was having a real impact on stress and causing issues recruiting and retaining officers. The previous online system was adding to the stress of officers because single homeless people were not able to get an appointment quick enough and were being forced to use an online system that was not suitable for their needs, resulting in many turning up at the Civic Centre in crisis. The new face to face service in Harlesden, co-located with the Council’s Housing Need officers and other key services, helped to alleviate that stress. In section 5.2 of the report, it detailed that the Council had now cleared the backlog where there were around 500 cases before. Most recently, the service was seeing an average of about 43 presentations and had an average of 25 referrals, and people were receiving additional support and signposting to other provisions available to single homeless people. As such, the service was seeing some tangible benefits since launching Turning Point in August 2023 and was dealing with people quickly and effectively.

The Committee asked how closely the homelessness teams worked with health services in the borough. Members heard that the health service was coming to deliver the services outlined in section 4.7 of the report.

The Committee asked what happened when someone presented as a single homeless person at Turning Point. Members were advised that the Council would assist in ending the homelessness duty, primary through helping to find suitable accommodation in the Private Rented Sector. For single people, a 1-bed property would be considered suitable. The law set out what was considered suitable and the duty on the Council to end homelessness. There were different duties – the prevention duty, relief duty and main duty. For single homeless people, they rarely reached the main duty as they did not meet the criteria in legislation. The prevention duty would usually be triggered for single homeless people, which ran for 56 days. If the person was not housed within those 56 days then the person would be deemed actually homeless and would enter the relief duty, which stated that the local authority must take reasonable steps to assist in relieving homelessness. If the person’s homelessness could not be relieved then the case was closed and the duty was ended as they would not meet the criteria for main duty homelessness as a single homeless person. The main duty stated that the local authority must secure suitable accommodation.

The Committee asked how the service dealt with someone who presented as a single homeless person but was actually pregnant and expecting a child. Laurence Coaker advised that this would be picked up by the Families Team who dealt with single homeless people who were pregnant. Many single people who were pregnant would present at the Turning Point, so they would be included in the self-referral figures, even though at the stage it was discovered they were pregnant, usually at interview, they would be referred on to the Families Team.

The Chair invited representatives of Brent Youth Parliament (BYP) to contribute to the discussion, who asked what was being done to promote this service to young people specifically. Councillor Knight felt that more could be done to engage young people, however, the target cohort for the service and the people who presented at the service were over 18 years old. Young people under the age of 18 who found themselves homeless would be dealt with using a joint approach with the Children and Young People Department. The Committee highlighted that, even though young people might not be users of the service, they may be the best communicators to older cohorts in the community who may be in need of the service. More generally, the service was promoted with large campaign posters across the borough, through the Council’s website and through communication channels.

Brent Youth Parliament also asked whether there was guaranteed housing in Brent for Care Leavers who wanted to live in Brent. Officers confirmed that there was a policy with the Children and Young People Department around accommodation for Care Leavers that ensured suitable accommodation for Care Leavers.

In response to whether there was specialist support for those aged 18-25, who were still considered young people but were adults legally, officers explained that there was a commissioned service to deal with young people and provide that age group with supported housing.

In relation to promoting the new location for services, members highlighted that the public had reported that the recording when using the telephone line still referred people to the Civic Centre for the service. They asked for this to be checked and confirmed that the internal recorded system had now been updated with the new location. Officers confirmed this would be investigated.

The Committee asked what engagement work had taken place with the Black Community Action Plan Champions into an appreciative enquiry approach to understand homelessness and Black households. Laurence Coaker advised members that a lot of the engagement work was done through the Homelessness Forum, chaired by Crisis, which had around 30 different agencies across the spectrum of housing and homelessness agencies in Brent. The Forum was the main form of consultation and planning for the new service and met every 2 months at the Civic Centre. The Forum looked at the details of planning for relocation and the operational details of how things would work practically with the implementation of the new service.

In relation to the number of presentations, the Committee asked how many amounted to referrals and how many of those who presented were subsequently housed. They were advised that performance was detailed in section 6 of the report and was focused on the prevention and relief of homelessness, which was detailed in Table 1. There was confusion in regards to the table in Appendix 1 – the Equality Impact Assessment, where figures for different age groups and ethnicity groups had been merged together. The Committee highlighted that it would be useful for future reports to have more readable, realistic and digestible data.

The Chair thanked those present for their contributions and drew the item to a close. He invited the Committee to make recommendations, with the following RESOLVED:

i)              To recommend that, before the contract is due for renewal in 2027, the Council does a viability assessment of the cost and implications of in-housing the Single Homeless Prevention Service.

ii)             To recommend that future reports present demographics data in a more readable, digestible way.

iii)           To recommend that officers ensure that the internal telephone line is signposting people to Turning Point in Harlesden and not Brent Civic Centre.

In addition to recommendations, the Committee made several information requests, as recorded below:

iv)           For the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee to receive data on how many single homeless people have been discharged on the grounds that they had declined suitable accommodation.

v)            For the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee to receive further information on what mechanisms are in place to stop single homeless people being discharged for various reasons.

vi)           For the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee to receive a written response in relation to section 8.2 which stated that there would be no grant subsidy as seen in previous years.