"The project has been invaluable to us as a service and team" Housing Solutions Service Manager, Caerphilly County Borough Council

May 2021 - March 2022 | Service Transformation

Challenge

Crisis were commissioned by Oak Foundation to work with three Welsh local authorities, helping them identify and develop local solutions to reduce the number of people ‘falling out’ of the Housing Wales Act. These were households owed a statutory prevention or relief duty who then received one of the following unsuccessful outcomes:

• Withdrawn application
• Withdrawn application due to loss of contact
• Failure to cooperate
• Assistance refused
• Other

Numbers were high and nationally nearly a quarter of all households were recorded as receiving one of these outcomes. We needed to gain an understanding of the current services run by the three authorities and work with their own project teams to identify possible causes and develop, test and evaluate local solutions to reduce fallout rates.

Solution

Project teams with staff from the local authorities and Crisis came together and worked through three phases:

Discovery ~ explore specific issues in local areas from each stakeholder’s perspective, and identify underlying drivers of fallout rates:

• Data analysis
• Desktop review of strategies and policies
• User and stakeholder research
• Case file audit
• Best practice review

Solution development ~ identify and develop solutions based on discovery findings:

• Synthesising key insights from discovery phase, brainstorming quick wins and design opportunities
• Developing solutions into concepts to prototype and test
• Prioritising and implementing quick wins
• Developing prototype plans and early prototypes of key solutions

Implementation & evaluation - develop a roadmap for iterative and agile implementation based on service priorities and capacity:

• Action plans for each service with quick wins, concepts, prototypes and roadmap for agile implementation
• Support to trial service changes and improvements
• Theory of change and results tracker developed to monitor and evaluate
• Quarterly check-ins of progress against action plans ~ including data review, completion of results tracker and staff surveys

Impact

The three local authorities had already implemented some quick wins by the end of the project; and we will continue to support them in monitoring and evaluating the impact of service changes on fallout rates (watch this space for updates). All three have a bespoke action plan that will drive their service development activities over the coming years.

The project also generated some lessons for national policy change which we will incorporate into our wider work to end homelessness in Wales. It also provided a number of tools (see below) which we will continue to share with other local authorities to benefit from, including some common themes and lessons for others:

• Accommodation did not always meet needs – some temporary accommodation had particularly high fall-out rates - little evidence of suitability checks even when clear evidence of customer circumstances on files e.g. health, family connections, schools etc.  Lack of suitable move-on accommodation identified in all areas causing lengthy stays in sometimes unsuitable temporary or supported accommodation
• Poor casework linked to fall-out cases - a large proportion of past fall-outs showed poor scores across casework in an audit. No evidence of casework standards to adhere to
• Reasonable steps for the Council lacking in casework – few or generic steps identified could contribute to potential breakdown in relationship between customer and council  ​
• Progressing customers along the homelessness journey could be improved – much better engagement and progression seen in initial phases of the process. Some cases showed little or no contact following assessment to close of file with little evidence of a range of contact methods being utilised
• Letters and communications with customers were lengthy and confusing - in some cases, communications with partner organisations could be strengthened to provide a stronger "safety net" for customers

Further reading/ resources

Project summary presentation (resource)

Tools and templates to help you run a similar project in your service (resource)

To find out more about how we can support your local area or organisation, please get in touch.