The majority of the provisions within the Homelessness Reduction Act (HRA) came into effect on the 3rd April 2018. We wrote then that this was only the beginning of the Homelessness Reduction Act journey and this week represents another key step in that journey. From the 1st October 2018, the final provision within the Act commences: a ‘duty to refer’ on named public authorities to refer service users that may be homeless or threatened with homelessness to a local housing authority in England. The named public authorities include prisons, jobcentre plus, social services authorities and hospital inpatient units and emergency departments. A full list can be found in the government guidance on the new duty.

The duty is a welcome part of a more strategic and joined up approach to ending homelessness and reflects the ‘prevention’ focus of the HRA, recognising that successful homelessness prevention can never just be the responsibility of the local housing authority. There is a risk though that the duty fails to recognise the active steps that public authorities themselves can and should take, leading to a greater number of ‘one-way’ referrals to local housing authorities.

As part of our HRA Implementation work, we have been working with a number of areas (Oxfordshire, North East, South Yorkshire) to develop regional approaches to support the new duty. This work has been led by the local housing authorities but co-designed with the public authorities and other partners. Following the statutory guidance, we have sought to develop local procedures and arrangements that ‘go beyond referral procedures’ and aim to maximise the impact of shared efforts with partners. These also build on existing joint working arrangements already in place. Oxfordshire have developed a ‘local agreement’ that sets out the strategic principles of how they want the new duty to work in the county. It includes commitments from public authorities and housing authorities that maximise the opportunity provided by the new duty and emphasise a need to cooperate wherever possible.

Our original report (that formed the basis of the Homelessness Reduction Bill) called for a stronger duty on public authorities to ‘cooperate’ with local authorities when they carry out their duty to help prevent and relieve homelessness. This was based on the Welsh legislation where this duty already exists for social services and social landlords. Our plan, Everybody In: How to end homelessness in Great Britain, also sets out the ideal legislative framework to end homelessness which includes a principle that ‘other public bodies should have robust duties to both prevent homelessness and to cooperate with local housing authorities in relieving homelessness’.

We are publishing a report at the end of October that explains what this ‘duty to prevent’ could look like with case studies and examples. It will also call on every government department to play their part to prevent and end homelessness. At a minimum, this means a commitment to ensuring they are not creating policy that will make homelessness worse. As called for by our Everybody In campaign, a strong cross-government strategy on preventing and tackling homelessness is needed to ensure this, backed up by the investment that will make it possible. This work at Westminster should be led by the Ministerial Rough Sleeping and Homelessness Reduction Taskforce and would help to fulfil the government’s manifesto commitment to ensure this taskforce focuses on homelessness prevention.

This week represents another welcome step on the journey to end homelessness. As our plan demonstrates, we know what needs to change and we still have a way to go.