Thangam Debbonaire – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Thangam Debbonaire on 2015-10-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department has taken to safeguard the size of the homelessness prevention grant in the period up to the 2020 spending review.

Mr Marcus Jones

We have made available over £500 million to local authorities and the voluntary sector to tackle homelessness and since 2010 this has helped local authorities to prevent 935,800 households from becoming homeless.

Since 2010, local councils have had more flexibility over how they spend the money they receive from central government.

The allocation of Homeless Prevention Grant has developed over many years to take account of different kinds of pressures, including rough sleeping and statutory homelessness. We supported the establishment of the National Practitioner Support Service’s ‘Gold Standard’ programme to help improve the effectiveness of local authority homelessness prevention services.

Decisions on funding beyond 2015/2016 will be subject to the forthcoming spending review.