POLICY FRAMEWORK
Commentary
The 2002 Homelessness Act in England and Wales, the subsequent Priority Need Order in England and the 2003 Homelessness Act in Scotland marked those years at the start of the decade as a period when policies on homelessness were fundamentally re-thought - but in quite contrasting ways north and south of the England-Scotland border.
Some half a decade on, the question is how adequate the strategies laid down then now appear to be.
In principle, the approach in Scotland is much the more complete, with a comprehensive set of policies and mechanisms in place to plan, monitor and chase their implementation. The eventual goal, which it is planned should be realised in 2012, is that everyone who is officially recognised as homeless should have the right to permanent accomodation. By contrast, the adequacy of the approach in England and Wales is much less clear. Its basic philosophy is to provide appropriate support to all homeless people - which leaves completely open the key question of what exactly is ‘appropriate', particularly when it includes a mechanical decision that homeless households are not entitled to permanent accommodation unless they also meet defined criteria of ‘vulnerability'. A key strand that has emerged within this overall approach is an emphasis on prevention.
The depth of the difference between the approaches north and south of the border makes it especially difficult to interpret the main homelessness statistics, which are open to conflicting interpretations.
This is nowhere more readily apparent than in the statistics on the number of households officially recognised as newly homeless. In England and Wales, these rose sharply from 2000 to 2003 before falling even more sharply from 2004 to 2006. In Scotland, by contrast, the numbers, though no longer rising, are little different from the peak of three years ago.
At first glance, the natural reaction is see the fall in England and Wales from 2004 to 2006 as a sign of success. Certainly, the fall in the English and Welsh statistics does coincide with the introduction of the new approach, with its emphasis on preventing homelessness and its focus on the personal causes that may lead a household to present as homeless. There is no sign either of statistics being obviously massaged down (for example, the lack of any change in the proportion of households presenting as homeless who are then judged by their local authority to satisfy the conditions).
Yet it is also entirely possible to argue that what the Scottish numbers show is that under the new regime a previously partly hidden problem is now coming out into the open, presumably induced in part by the fact that anyone officially recognised as homeless is now offered at least temporary accomodation,
The root of the problem here is that the number of households who are officially recognised as newly homeless each year is not a complete measure of what really matters, which is the underlying number of homeless households. So for example:
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The number newly officially recognised as homeless could go up for a while even when the underlying problem remains unchanged if - as may be the case in Scotland - it becomes more likely that an application will yield something.
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Alternatively, the number could go down while the underlying problem remains unchanged if - as may be the case in England - some of the people who would otherwise apply to be officially recognised as homeless have their immediate problem solved in some other way.
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Yet again, some treatments for the immediate problem, say, the provision of a rent deposit, could lead to falls in both the number of officially recognised as becoming homeless, and the underlying number of homeless households.
Confusion and uncertainty about the success of the new approaches will remain for so long as the number of hidden homeless remains unknown, which will continue to be the case until there is agreement about how the number of households in that situation should be counted. This is a challenge that has still to be faced in England, Wales and Scotland alike.
Whatever the statistics may show, however, the fundamental question is what rights someone who is legally homeless ought to have. The English formulation of ‘appropriate support' simply begs the question of what is appropriate. Now that Scotland has decided that what it means is the right to permanent accomodation, the onus on England and Wales is to explain why such a right is not appropriate there too.
The immediate challenge in Scotland is whether local authorities have the resources to meet existing commitments, following a path that will allow them to deliver sufficient permament accomodation from 2012.
The longer term challenge is to ensure that much more ambitous policies on homelessness fit in with wider housing policies. In particular, if the 2012 goal comes to be realised chiefly by the provision of social housing, it will have the effect of opening up a route by which to acquire social housing. How much social housing will then be left for other potential tenants?
While the issue may be posed most sharply for Scotland, it applies in England and Wales too. Unless the underlying housing problems, of accessibility, affordability and availability are addressed coherently, the conflicting pressures are bound to show up in one form or another.
Page last modified on 25/07/2007 at 10:40
