Yesterday the new Labour government announced their first budget in 14 years, It was a big budget with £70 billion of spending announcements and £35 billion in tax rises. Here we have summarised the parts of the budget that will impact the people we support and discussed how we think it will affect people experiencing homelessness, the housing sector and Barnabus.

National Policy Impact

Many funding and budget changes are happening nationally that will affect our area of work as we see them unfold over time.

Housing

The government has committed to investing over £5 billion to reach their goal of building 1.5 million homes. They have also specifically highlighted the need for affordable housing to be included in this. They have committed to increasing the Affordable Homes Program (a funding programme to give local authorities and housing associations funds to build affordable homes) to £3.1 billion. They have also mentioned that the right policies are needed to increase the supply of affordable housing, and have been in conversation with housing associations, local authorities, and Shelter. Whilst this is a good start and a big win to have the focus be shifted to affordable housing, we will need to wait to see what the concrete plans are to ensure that enough of the houses built will be truly affordable, as well as accessible by our service users who have multiple and complex needs. 

They have also announced that the Right to Buy discount will be reduced to help slow the rate that council houses are sold into private ownership. Local authorities will also be able to keep the full amount of any sale that is made so that it can be reinvested into new social housing stock, hopefully preventing the amount of social housing from reducing further.

Devolution and local authorities 

Alongside being allowed to keep all the proceeds from right to buy it was also announced that there would be a funding increase for local governments of £1.3 billion for ‘essential services’. £230 million would be allocated to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. This is hugely impactful in providing more resources for the homeless sector, but we will have to wait and see how this will be spent and how effective it will be. We hope that this will mean that we will see more adequate provisions of accommodation and support for our service users.

Firstly, there was significant talk about working with local governments and Metro Mayors (of which Andy Burnham is one) to give them a lot more control on their local spending. Greater Manchester and West Midlands will be the first local authorities to receive an integrated settlement of funding over which they will be in full control of. This means that Manchester will be able to decide what to spend their money with a more localised approach and to respond to the specific homelessness needs of Manchester.

Person Centred Impact

Some of the changes announced will begin to have an immediate tangible impact on the way that our service users will be able to access certain benefits and support.

Household Support Fund

£1 billion is to be given to continue the Household Support Fund and Discretionary Housing Payment which is hugely helpful as it was uncertain as to whether this program would continue. This program has been an essential tool for our Resettlement Team, it helps our service users to access basic furniture when moving into housing, covering rent short-falls, and other essential needs. This continuing will mean that we can support more of our service users when they are moving and transitioning into accommodation, and when they are facing financial crises, and vitally preventing them from returning to the streets. 

Benefits

There was also mention of plans to find ways to reduce benefits spending, specifically the Limited Work Capacity Amount that Universal Credit delivers to people who are unfit to work. Whilst it is understandable to want to reduce the amount that is being spent on benefits, this may make it more difficult to get our most vulnerable service users on the right amount of disability benefits. We hope that there will be recognition that disability benefits are essential to people who are not in a position to work and that there will be flexibility for that. 

Positively, the government has announced that they will reduce the level of debt repayments that can be taken from a universal credit claim from 25% to 15%. This will mean that our guys will be able to access more of their universal credit allowance whilst paying off debts and fines. 

Overall, the budget seemed comprehensive in starting to increase funds for public services where needed. The outcomes of these decisions will be seen in due time, but in the meantime we have some positive starts to work with. We still hope to see a cross-department unit established to tackle homelessness so that all these budget changes across multiple sectors and departments can be harnessed to have an effective, multi-disciplinary way to end and prevent homelessness.