Agenda item

Report of the Executive Director of Growth, Planning and Housing and the Director of Policy, Performance & Communications

Petra Salva, Director of Services, (Rough Sleeper, Migrants & Ex-Offender Services) St Mungos, has been invited to the meeting as an expert witness to assist the committee in its deliberations.

6.1     Richard Cressey, Principal Policy Officer, introduced a report that outlined the proposed priorities for the Draft Rough Sleeping Strategy 2017-20 and the headline findings from the public consultation, which closed on 4 November 2016.

6.2     mr Cressey informed the Committee that the headline findings since the agenda was published remain the same although a greater number of responses to the consultation had been received.  During the consultation period the City Council engaged and received responses from over 400 people. This included a mix of residents, businesses and public and voluntary sector organisations who provided a breadth of views.  Officers were now examining the responses in detail with the aim of working up final proposals in consultation with stakeholders. 

6.3     He stated that from the responses received it was clear that rough sleeping is a polarising issue.  Some consider that more help should be provided to those who sleep rough while others believe that there should be a more robust approach to tackling the problem.  One clear message that came out of the consultation is that people wish to see more of the detail; how the strategy and its priorities will work in practice.  Many respondees wish to see more action on tackling begging and anti-social behaviour.  Many comments were received highlighting that rough sleeping is particularly acute in Westminster but is caused by national and international drivers.  There were disparate views on how to tackle rough sleeping by non-UK nationals.

6.4     The Housing, Finance and Corporate Services Policy and Scrutiny committee was asked to:

·             Reflect on the consultation and the views provided by residents, businesses, voluntary sector organisations and others engaged with.

·             Comment on the draft strategy in light of consultation feedback gathered, and identify areas for further development ahead of final publication of the revised strategy early in 2017.

6.5     The committee heard from witness, Petra Salva, Director of Services (Rough Sleeper, Migrants and Ex-offender Services) at St Mungos, who had been invited to the meeting to provide an expert’s view on the priorities.  Ms Salva provided a brief summary of her career background.  She stated that she had worked in a number of different roles.  This included working as an Outreach Worker in Westminster.  She was the instigator of the Government initiative No Second Night Out and has been instrumental in developing approaches to the challenges around rough sleeping by non-UK nationals.  Over the course of her career she had been both an advocate and critic over the use of penalties and enforcement to address rough sleeping as well as the provision of day centres.

6.6     At the Committee’s request Ms Salva provided her reflections on the draft strategy.  She commended the Council for challenging the perceptions around rough sleeping.  She considered that the Council was serious about tackling rough sleeping and that the consultation had been well run.  She informed the Committee that Westminster has historically been a magnet for attracting rough sleepers.  One of the reasons for this is that homeless people are aware that the Council provides rough sleepers with a good level of services.  She went on to explain that rough sleepers do not respect borough boundaries and often do not know that they are in Westminster.  The vast majority will not have a local connection to the borough.  As a consequence tackling rough sleeping requires a pan London approach and is not an issue that the City Council can resolve on its own.  This is something that is often missing in proposed solutions.  She reflected that while there was a great deal of activity around tackling rough sleeping outcomes were often poor.  Whilst this is recognised and addressed in the draft strategy she considered that there was a need for greater focus on this.  She suggested there was a need for a whole range of services to assist those rough sleepers with complex needs as well as solutions for different cohorts. 

6.7     The Committee then considered the proposals and in the ensuing discussion submitted a range of questions to Ms Salva and the officers present. 

6.8     The Committee noted that while the strategy contained targets these did not include an overall target for the reduction of rough sleeping.  The Committee asked whether it should.  Ms Brownlee recognised that setting numerical targets can focus activity.  However, she explained that rough sleeping is a continuous and complex problem where flows are hard to predict.  Ms Salva supported setting numerical targets to eliminate chronic homelessness particularly for rough sleepers with a local connection to Westminster.  However, she considered that it would be difficult to set such targets for reducing the number of new rough sleepers.

6.9     The Committee asked about the challenges of successfully helping long term, entrenched rough sleepers who identify with a “community” or lifestyle.  Ms Salva explained that the reasons why many become caught in a “revolving door” of rough sleeping are numerous.  Mr Cressey acknowledged that supporting such people to re-build their lives was particularly challenging. There is a need to draw in other services to tackle underlying, fundamental problems such as alcohol and drug abuse and mental and physical health issues. Officers were referred to the fact that the pathway through GPs to tackle mental health problems was not particularly effective and that many rough sleepers suffer from problems which may not fit into defined categories of mental illness or do not meet the statutory threshold for intervention.  In response, Ms Brownlee advised that the Council was submitting a bid towards funding therapy for rough sleepers suffering with Personality Disorder.

6.11    The Committee asked for details of how the Council was participating on a pan London basis to reduce rough sleeping.  Ms Brownlee informed members that a representative of the Council sat on the Mayor’s Strategic Homeless Group.  The Council was also preparing on behalf of the GLA bids to Government for homeless funding.  It was also working in partnership with a number of cities in the North of the country to help those rough sleepers from those towns to reconnect with their local area.  Ms Salva was asked why she believed that a pan-London approach was not working.  She was of the view that while Westminster was at the forefront of providing innovative solutions to the problem she was not sure that the Mayor’s Strategy was being well implemented.  She was unsure that other London boroughs were playing their full part where reciprocal arrangements are important.  She stated that although Westminster has put a lot of funding towards the enforcement of antisocial behaviour associated with rough sleeping other London local authorities had not.  Ms Brownlee commented that some London local authorities had stopped providing services to rough sleepers which has resulted in a reduction in the problem in those areas.

6.12    The Committee noted that the new strategy would run until 2020.  Officers were asked whether it was likely to be reviewed earlier given the possible impact of major changes such as Brexit.  Mr Cressey advised that officers would invariably keep the strategy under informal review to ensure that it remained fit for purpose.

6.13    RESOLVED:

1.     The Committee was pleased to hear from officers that over 400 people had participated in the consultation which is considered to be a comparably high response rate for a City Council Consultation.  It noted that responses were received from a range of stakeholders including residents, businesses and public and voluntary sector organisations. The Committee was further pleased to receive confirmation from the expert witness that the consultation had been well thought out and executed.

2.     Members endorsed the targets within each of the priorities which it considered were acceptable.  However, following consideration it concluded that the strategy would not benefit from incorporating specific numerical targets. 

3.     The Committee expressed a specific desire for the strategy to focus on improving rough sleepers’ health and well-being, with a particular focus on addressing mental health issues.  Members noted that 88% of those in the Council’s accommodation services identified themselves as having a mental health support need.  These are often the service users who move in and out of services because they abandon their placement or are evicted after serious or consistent antisocial behaviour.  This results in rough sleepers becoming stuck in a ‘revolving door’ of rough sleeping which is unproductive for those involved and an ineffective use of resources.

4.     Having noted Ms Salva’s reflections that rough sleeping does not respect borough boundaries and that the vast majority of rough sleepers in Westminster are not connected to the borough, the Committee wish to see greater reference in the strategy to the importance of Pan-London working and connections with the Mayor of London’s rough sleeping strategy.

5.     Members would like further consideration to be given to whether different targets should be set for non-UK/Irish nationals to reflect that rough sleeping by this group in Westminster raises distinctive issues.  It was noted that such individuals have No Recourse to Public Funds and with the exception of those with significant support needs or who are vulnerable the Council does not provide them with services.

6.     The Committee has noted that rough sleeping is particularly acute in Westminster due to its unique location but also because of the good services it provides.  The committee expressed concern at anecdotal information that this is exacerbated by the perverse effect of other London boroughs reducing services for rough sleepers.