Peter Kyle – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Peter Kyle on 2015-10-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many local authorities have contacted his Department on the future of the Homelessness Prevention Grant in the last six months.

Mr Marcus Jones

Homelessness prevention grant is part of our £500 million investment in local authority and voluntary sector homelessness services. It has helped local authorities to prevent 935,800 households from becoming homeless since 2010 and assisted 220,800 in 2014-15 alone.

The Government does not evaluate the effectiveness of local authority grants including the Homelessness Prevention Grant. As democratically elected organisations, local authorities are independent from Central Government and are responsible for managing their budgets in line with local priorities. Since 2010, local councils have had more flexibility over how they spend the money they receive from central government. Together with the money raised through council tax and other local sources, they have considerable freedom to work with their residents to decide how best to spend available resources on local priorities.

My Department regularly engages with a wide range of partners on homelessness prevention. We have received five written representations directly from local authorities on the future of the grant since April 2015.