Agenda and minutes

No declarations of interest were made.

RESOLVED

that the minutes of the meeting of the Panel held on 13 July 2023, be received and approved as a correct record.

Committee to receive a presentation as part of the consultation process for the developing Homeless Prevention Strategy.

The Chairman welcomed all present to the meeting including Emma Lindley, the Council’s Housing Strategy Lead Officer, who was in attendance at the meeting to deliver a presentation in respect of the Council’s Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Prevention Strategy for 2024 -2029.

To commence the presentation, Members were advised that the Homeless and Rough Sleeping Prevention Strategy was one of four sub-strategies that made up the Council’s overall Housing Strategy which had recently been reviewed and refreshed. Both the updated Housing and Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Prevention Strategies were due to be submitted to Cabinet in January 2024 for consideration.

All local authorities were required to review homelessness within their areas at least every 5 years and the most recent review by the Council had been commenced the previous autumn, working in collaboration and on average one day a week with Mansfield District Council and Newark & Sherwood District Council.  Working in collaboration had ensured that common aims and objectives were aligned across the neighbouring authorities.

The Council had been consulting with internal and external stakeholders since the summer with consultancy support from the Shelter organisation who had facilitated in person consultation events in Ashfield, Mansfield and Newark & Sherwood during June 2023. During September, an online consultation had also been carried out with Council officers, stakeholders, customers and the general public on the proposed Homelessness prevention priorities but unfortunately the response had been disappointingly low.

Looking back at the previous 2019-2024 strategy, the following were noted by the Committee:

Aims

·         Prevention of homelessness

·         Ensuring that no one has to rough sleep

·         To minimise the use of emergency and temporary accommodation

·         To provide a high quality service

Objectives

·         Improving financial resilience

·         Increasing access to social housing and tenancy sustainment

·         Increasing supported housing and housing related support

·         Increasing access to the Property Redress Scheme (PRS) and tenancy sustainment

·         Ensuring support needs were met

·         Ending rough sleeping

·         Achieving high customer satisfaction

·         Evidence-based approach that was monitored and evaluated

Achievements

·         Specialist additional roles within the Council and partners

·         Training and partnership working on money advice

·         Good access to social housing and a minor cause of homelessness

·         Additional supported housing available, particularly for low-medium support needs

·         PRS access/sustainment improved for a period

·         Regular multi-agency case conferences

·         Broxtowe Youth Homeless sessions in schools

·         Rough sleeping reduced to 4 (Nov 2022 snapshot)

·         High levels of customer satisfaction regularly reported

·         Strategic forums met regularly

Challenges

·         Reliance on social housing to end all duties

·         PRS affordability

·         Lack of throughput in supported and temporary accommodation

·         Covid lockdowns.

In relation to the priorities and actions anticipated to deliver the 2024-29 Strategy, Members were advised on the key national policies that were currently in place and some potential changes to legislation that would be implemented within the next 12 months including the Renter’s Reform Bill which was introduced into Parliament in May 2023.  It was acknowledged that the asylum seeker population was growing quickly within Ashfield and the Council were hoping to recruit a Relocation Officer to assist with the ever growing  ...  view the full minutes text for item OF.6