Leicestershire County Council is clarifying its role in homelessness support after agreeing to run a consultation.
The upper tier authority - which is required to give a range of advice and support on health and wellbeing – will be asking key stakeholders for views on not renewing the current homeless support service when the current contract with Falcon Centre and Nottingham Community Housing Association runs out next March.
District councils are responsible for preventing homelessness and supporting people who are homeless and receive Government funding to do so.
The county council is investing an extra £57m in supporting vulnerable people over the next four years and making £22m available to ease cost of living pressures.
This is about delivering our support differently. Our First Contact Plus team and Local Area Co-ordinators add to the work of the district councils and can support people who are homeless or at risk of being homeless, and these services will be continuing.
Supporting vulnerable people is at the heart of our budget. We face a situation where we’re funding a service which we can deliver in a different way so it makes sense to look at options.
Person:Councillor Louise Richardson, cabinet member for health and wellbeing
The consultation was discussed by the county council’s cabinet today (23 June) – read cabinet's decision here.
The consultation is now available for you to give your views on our dedicated webpage.
Find out more
- The contract with the Falcon Centre is to deliver support to help people maintain their tenancy, develop skills to live independently as possible and to access local health and wellbeing support – it is not to run a homelessness centre.
- District councils are responsible for both preventing and supporting those who are homeless or are at risk of being homeless. They have received a total of £3.5m from the Government’s Homelessness Prevention Grant to help them with this statutory duty.
- The move to delivering support for residents differently would save the county council £300,000 per year and would go towards helping fill the authority’s budget gap, which is set to rise to nearly £90m by 2026.
