The Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Sub Committee were scheduled to discuss the Rough Sleeping Prevention and Recovery Grant, temporary accommodation, the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol, and an update on the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy. The committee was also scheduled to hear an update from the Commissioner of the City of London Police.

Rough Sleeping Prevention and Recovery Grant 2025/26

The committee was scheduled to discuss a report providing a summary of the interventions to be delivered by the City of London (CoL) through the Rough Sleeping Prevention and Recovery Grant (RSPRG) for the period of 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) confirmed the CoL award of £1,373,509 for 2025/26, which is similar to the amount awarded the previous year.

The report stated that the grant would soon be paid in a single tranche as a Section 31 ring-fenced payment¹. The grant would be subject to a single, light-touch mid-year delivery report and an end-of-year declaration.

The report referenced the following priorities from the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2023–2027:

• Priority 1 – Rapid, effective and tailored interventions
• Priority 2 – Securing access to suitable, affordable accommodation
• Priority 3 – Achieving our goals through better collaboration and partnership
• Priority 4 – Providing support beyond accommodation.

The report stated that the previous 2024/25 Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) award funded 15 separate interventions including projects, posts and/or funds. Some interventions were funded by a mix of RSI grant and City Fund, and some were shared with other local authorities from their respective RSI awards.

The report noted that the MHCLG has reduced the emphasis on co-production and moderation of funding proposals in favour of a ring-fenced grant award and has removed individual lines with funding allocations attached, giving officers greater flexibility in how the grant is used.

The report stated that CoL posts, accommodation projects and personalisation funds previously funded by the RSI grant are now wholly or in part, funded by the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping 2025/26 base budget. These interventions are:

• Homeless Health Coordinator
• Commissioning Manager
• Strength Based Practitioner
• Pathway Liaison Officer
• The Lodge and City Lodge
• Reflective Practice
• Social Worker Personalisation.

The report stated that this change has allowed space within the RSPRG 2025/26 funding envelope to address shifting demand and to pilot new interventions.

The education, training and employment outreach service, Street 2 Work, delivered by St Giles came to an end on 31 March 2025.

The CoL and London Borough of Tower Hamlets (LBTH) Navigator service delivered by St Mungo’s came to an end on 31 March 2025. St Mungo’s have agreed to provide a reduced, three-month CoL Navigator service while CoL go to market to procure a CoL Navigator service for a minimum of 1.5 years.

Additional to the CoL’s award, MHCLG has awarded the north-east London (NEL) sub-region Winter Pressures Funds and RSPRG totalling £1,323,562. This fund is managed by the NEL Coordinator, based in London Borough of Redbridge and the NEL Sub-regional MHCLG Senior Rough Sleeping Advisor.

Sub-regional grant funds will now finance the Psychotherapy Outreach Service in 2025/26. This service was previously RSI funded through CoL, LBTH and London Borough of Hackney (LBH) individual RSI allocations. The psychotherapy service is to expand to include London Borough of Redbridge and London Borough of Newham as a five-authority partnership.

The draft CoL RSPRG spending plan for 2025/26 included the following:

• Senior Practitioner (City Outreach team)
• Lead Worker (City Outreach team) delivered by Thames Reach
• Mobile Intervention Support Team (MIST)
• Co-production Service delivered by Mayday Trust, Groundswell
• Housing First delivered by St Mungo’s
• Psychotherapy Service delivered by Providence Row Charity (PRC)
• Client Personalisation Budget
• Rough Sleeping Coordinator (Rough Sleeping team)
• Housing/Reconnections Officer (Statutory Housing team)
• Assessment Support team Officer delivered by PRC
• Winter Crash Accommodation
• Rapid Response delivered by Greater London Authority /Thames Reach
• CoL Navigators delivered by St Mungo’s
• Rent Deposit Scheme (Snow Hill Court) delivered by Thames Reach

The report stated that half of all interventions are a continuation from previous years, and the majority of interventions are delivering, with only five interventions in progress.

The report stated that City officers have and continue to carefully consider the best way to apportion the 2025/26 grant funds, identifying current pressure points and gaps in provision while also considering realistic timeframes for newly commissioned services and/or internal recruitment. Consultation was carried out with the wider Homelessness, Prevention & Rough Sleeping team, existing commissioned services, the Greater London Authority and MHCLG advisors.

The following provides a brief description of the 14 interventions:

I. Senior Practitioner: A deputy manager post in the City Outreach team who also manages the MIST team. This post has been grant funded for the past five years.

II. Lead Worker: An additional Outreach worker post to increase capacity in the City Outreach team. The post has been grant funded for the past five years.

III. MIST: A team of four including the Senior Practitioner who provides case management and accommodation support to those in temporary and unsupported settings, such as hotel accommodation, staging post and B&Bs. The service has been grant funded for the past five years.

IV. Co-production Service: A team of four and an advisory panel of individuals with lived experience identifying best practice for City officers and partners to commission and deliver co-produced services in the future. The project has been grant funded for the last 1.5 years.

V. Housing First: A joint-funded Housing First team delivering a service to LBH and CoL individuals. There is a CoL caseload of 12 individuals who have been identified as most in need of a housing first approach. The team will source accommodation of the individual’s choosing while providing robust person-centred support to ensure that the accommodation is sustained. The service has been grant funded for the past five years.

VI. Psychotherapy Service: This was a tri-borough psychotherapy outreach service funded by the CoL, LBTH and LBH RSI grant fund for the past three years. This service is now expanding to five-authority area provision and will be fully funded by the sub-regional RSPRG. Therapists take sessions to the individual, whether that is building-based or out on the streets. Session structure, length and quantity of sessions are bespoke to the individual’s needs. Each individual can access up to 24 sessions.

VII. Client Personalisation Budget: A small fund to enable personalised purchases for CoL clients as part of their resettlement into accommodation or to incentivise engagement.

VIII. Rough Sleeping Coordinator (RSC): A second RSC has been recruited to increase overall capacity in the Rough Sleeping team. This will allow the Services Manager to delegate operational and contract management duties to focus on forward planning and provision growth. Both RSC posts are currently vacant, however, the newly recruited RSCs are confirmed to start in mid-May 2025.

IX. Housing/Reconnections Officer: An additional statutory Housing Officer will work closely with Rough Sleeping Support Services to ensure that individuals with a local connection elsewhere in the UK receive the support they are legally entitled to through the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 and other Housing legislation.

X. Assessment Support team Officer: Providence Row Charity are based in LBTH where they provide a homelessness day centre called the Dellow Centre. The day centre is only a short walk from the CoL and is already providing a service to known CoL clients. There are various teams working from the Dellow Centre, one being the Advice and Support team. RSPRG will now fund a full time CoL Advice and Support Officer to deliver assessments, signposting and joined-up support to those rough sleeping in the CoL and who would benefit from accessing the day centre facilities.

XI. Winter Crash Accommodation: The aim is to partner with a CoL business or church within the Square Mile who can lease a building over the winter period. This opportunity will enable CoL to pilot a winter hub, a shared space of temporary camp beds for individuals seen rough sleeping in the CoL. The winter hub would increase the ability of commissioned support services to offer off-the-streets safe accommodation where individuals can access the support they need. A support service would be commissioned to provide casework support and manage the building.

XII. Rapid Response: This is a Greater London Authority commissioned pan-London outreach team that responds to Streetlink rough sleeping referrals on the evening and weekends on behalf of local Outreach teams or local authorities. CoL would look to fund a six-month trial, which would enable the local Outreach team to apportion more of the team’s time to case management during the day.

XIII. CoL Navigators: This was a joint provision with LBTH which ended last financial year. CoL are in the process of commissioning a City Navigator service to provide personalised and intense case support to the most street-attached individuals who rough sleep in the CoL.

XIV. Rent Deposit Scheme: A small budget will be made available to the team at Snow Hill Court to help individuals whose move-on accommodation has been identified as private rented. This fund will help avoid delays in moving individuals on, it will incentivise landlords to prioritise tenants from CoL and to provide a minimum two-year tenancy.

Statutory Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Service – Use of Temporary Accommodation

The committee was scheduled to discuss a report providing a summary of temporary accommodation (TA) usage under s.188 and s.193 of the Housing Act 1996 and on a discretionary basis as a measure for the relief of rough sleeping.

Section 188 of the Housing Act 1996 sets out an interim duty to secure accommodation where enquiries are being made into a homeless application. This duty arises when a local authority has reason to believe that an applicant may be homeless, eligible for assistance, and have a priority need.

Where a local authority has accepted a main housing duty to an applicant, Section 193 accommodation duty arises. This requires the local authority to ensure that the applicant has access to suitable TA until the applicant is rehoused and the Section 193 duty is discharged.

The City of London may also extend a discretionary offer of TA to rough sleepers on an emergency and interim basis for a period of assessment to establish eligibility entitlement and move-on accommodation options. This option is also used to add additional flexible capacity to alleviate emergency pressures, such as Severe Weather Emergency Protocol.

The report stated that new and increased duties prescribed by HRA 2017 have resulted in a steady increase in demand for homelessness assistance since the introduction of the Act in April 2018.

The report stated that the City of London has seen a steady increase in the number of TA placements over the past five years, driven by an increase in the number of eligible approaches and rough sleeping levels in the Square Mile.

The report included data for London councils on behalf of the 33 local authorities in Greater London:

• Homelessness presentations continue to increase year on year, rising by 584 (7.5%) in September 2024 compared to a year earlier, based on data from 27 councils.
• Reported by 27 councils, in the year between September 2023 and September 2024, the number of households living in TA increased from 55,050 to 60,866 households – an increase of 5,815 households (10.6%) since September 2023).
• The total number of TA units being used by councils, based on data from 29 respondents, is up 11.6% from September 2023.
• Data from 26 councils shows the gross total monthly TA spend for September 2024 is up 15.46% since the year before, reaching £97.6 million.

The report stated that there has been a reduction in the availability of suitably affordable accommodation for homeless households, particularly in the City of London and Greater London, due to high rental costs.

The Inter-Borough Accommodation Agreement (IBAA) annual report for 2023/24 shows that Greater London councils are placing households outside of the London region more frequently – 166% increase (1221 in Q4 2023/24 from 458 in Q4 2021/22) since 2021/22.

The City uses a local Temporary Accommodation Allocations Policy which outlines how TA is procured and suitability is assessed, ensuring that applicants are placed in TA within a reasonable distance to work, schools, and support networks.

Under the new duties in HRA 2017, priority-need households are offered TA during the 56-day relief duty before the council consider accepting the full housing duty. During this time, the household is likely to be placed in TA, known as the s.188 duty.

The full housing duty is a requirement to provide TA until such time as the duty is ended, either by an offer of settled accommodation, or for another specified reason. Settled accommodation may be social housing via the housing register, private sector housing, sheltered accommodation, or other suitable housing provisions, known as the s.193 duty.

The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 widened the definition of domestic abuse and placed further duties on local authorities to support victims seeking housing assistance. Under the Act, a person who is homeless as a result of being a victim of domestic abuse has an automatic priority need for accommodation and will be placed in TA.

The imminent introduction of the Renters Reform Bill may have led to some private sector landlords withdrawing from the market. The Bill seeks to increase the rights of tenants, bans no-fault evictions, and intends to remove rogue landlords from the private rented market.

The report stated that there has also been a drive across the sector to increase building standards, which includes TA. The Setting the Standard (STS) scheme is a Pan-London initiative focused on improving the quality of TA provision across London. The STS scheme deploys qualified environmental health officers to inspect TA properties. Where a property is assessed to be below acceptable standards, notifications are sent to all London local authorities to ensure that these properties are not re-let to homeless applicants. The City of London is part of the STS scheme.

The Home Office has increased its use of TA, in some cases taking provision away from the homelessness sector to accommodate the rising levels of National Asylum Support Service (NASS) leavers and arrivals from the Ukraine and Afghan schemes.

The recent Early Prison Release initiative has also led to a requirement for probation services to seek and secure TA for ex-offenders.

The table below shows the total upfront cost to the City of London (Homelessness and Rough Sleeping budget) of providing TA to households eligible under the Housing Act 1996, and rough sleepers placed on a discretionary basis:

The figures are derived from the nightly rate fees charged by TA providers which the City of London pays to fund the placement. Approximately 80% of this cost is recovered through Housing Benefit (HB), and some discretionary spending on rough sleepers is funded through the Rough Sleeping Initiative grant.

HB is payable by the City of London on all TA placements, regardless of whether they are within or outside the Square Mile. There is currently no TA available within our boundary. HB is awarded by the placing authority and recovered later from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). The DWP determine the amount they will re-imburse by using 90% of the January 2011 Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rate, these figures have not changed in some years despite the rising cost of TA placements. The HB subsidy is capped and any expenditure above this cap is known as the subsidy deficit.

Against the upfront cost of TA in 2024/25 of £1,716,131 – £1,326,267 was paid in HB (close to the 80% estimate) and £633,052 will be re-imbursed by the DWP in subsidy. This leaves a subsidy deficit for the City of London of £693,216.

The report included a summary of data as follows:

• 164 households were placed in the period – this includes households in TA on 1 April 2024 and households placed thereafter until 31 March 2025
• 100% of these placements were within Greater London
• 158 unique properties were sourced and used – six properties were used more than once
• Hotels were used on two occasions.

Under s.188 or s.193 duties, 70 placements were made. In addition, four placements were made on behalf of Adult of Children’s Social Care; one placement was made on behalf of the City Estates Team; 85 placements were made on a discretionary basis; and two placements were made into Sub-regional Immigration Advice Service (SRIAS) funded accommodation. On two occasions, a placement was made at the discretion of officers pending the outcome of a s.202 review.

The vast majority of placements (142) were made for single people; 16 placements were families; and four were joint applications made by couples. Two placements were made for single pregnant women.

A total of 72 placements were costed to the Statutory Homelessness team; 88 placements were costed to one of two budgets managed by the Rough Sleeping Team – 77 to the core rough sleeping budget and 11 to a grant funded budget. Adult and Children’s Social Care funded two placements and one placement, respectively, and a single placement is funded by the Estates team.

The type of TA used reflects the needs of the applicant and other qualifying factors such as Housing Benefit eligibility. A total of 125 placements were made into studios, the least expensive self-contained TA available; 17 placements were made into shared accommodation for people aged under 35 who had Housing Benefit capped at the shared facilities rate; seven placements were made into one-bed properties and 10 into two-bed properties. A single placement was made into a three-bed property and four into hotel rooms. Hotel placements are made under emergency, short-term conditions.

Of the seven placements into one-bed properties, four were for family households. Under the Homelessness Code of Guidance, children aged under 1-year-old are not counted. Children aged 1- to 9-years-old are counted as 0.5, meaning a one-bed property is suitable for an adult and a child aged under 9 years. An adult and two children aged under 9 years would require a two-bed property. All 11 placements into two- and three-bed properties were for families. All four hotel room and shared facility placements were for single applicants. One family was placed in a studio.

Annual Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) Report 2024

The committee was scheduled to discuss a report presenting narrative and analysis on the City of London’s (CoL’s) Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) 2024/2025. The report also provides comparison data from previous years’ SWEP activations. Reference is made to the ‘Winter SWEP’ which, for this report, is between September 2024 and April 2025, as temperatures are decreased, there is risk of temperatures dropping below 0 degrees, and activation of SWEP is likely to occur.

SWEP aims to prevent loss of life during periods of extreme and freezing weather in the CoL.

SWEP is both a local protocol, with CoL-specific guidance and procedures, and a Greater London Authority (GLA) protocol. This is reflected in two main ways:

a) SWEP accommodation: GLA has pan-London SWEP provision, though local authorities will also provide their own local accommodation. The expectation is that, under normal circumstances, local authorities will exhaust their own accommodation and any surplus from the sub-region before using the GLA pan-London offer, though there are exceptions based on clients’ needs.

b) SWEP activation: The GLA will activate SWEP when any part of the capital is forecast to be 0 degrees or lower overnight. CoL can activate its own SWEP protocol independent of GLA activation, but the scenarios where this would occur are rare.

Once SWEP has been activated by the GLA and CoL officers, Thames Reach City Outreach team target all rough sleepers currently bedding down in the CoL and offer SWEP accommodation placements.

The total City SWEP provision consists of 30 bedspaces in a range of supported and unsupported accommodation settings. This provides a varied set of offers for frontline services to deliver a person-centred approach and appropriate placement.

The City SWEP provision consisted of 13 communal bedspaces in supported accommodation settings and 17 self-contained hotel rooms. The projects are listed below:

• Grange Road: 6
• Snow Hill Court: 3
• The Lodge: 2
• Crimscott Street: 2
• Hotel bookings (Travelodge): 17

The Outreach team can refer to pan-London provision once the local and sub-regional provision is exhausted. The pan-London provision consists of self-contained hotel spaces, managed by the GLA.

Once placed into SWEP accommodation, efforts are made to carry out further assessment of everyone’s circumstances. Supported accommodation settings where there are trained staff on site will attempt to complete a detailed assessment on behalf of the Outreach teams. Outreach workers will attend hotel accommodation to complete these assessments. The aim is to have all individuals assessed and an identified offer of support before SWEP is deactivated. However, this is not always possible due to the short timeframes of SWEP activation and capacity of the supporting teams.

Operational management of case progression was provided by CoL officers to uphold the ‘In for Good’ approach where possible. This year we were able to deliver ‘In for Good’ to 21 out of 94 placements. This was due to various reasons, though the key barriers were mainly due to clients’ immigration status, resource and capacity of support services, and onward accommodation provision in the City and other local authorities.

SWEP was activated six times across Winter SWEP 2024/2025, amounting to 27 active days.

Winter SWEP 2024/2025 saw twice the number of activations compared to the previous year. Notably, there was one working day between the second and third activation, therefore activations 2 and 3 operated as one sustained SWEP activation of 13 days, with many clients remaining in SWEP accommodation across both activations.

In total, 94 SWEP placements were made assisting a total of 82 people; 304 people were met and offered SWEP across the 27 days of activation; 82 individuals accepted SWEP and were accommodated a total of 94 times, with an acceptance rate of 31%. The acceptance rate was higher last year, with 64 out of 157 people accepted a placement (41%).

The Outreach team met almost twice as many people this year (304) when offering SWEP compared to last year (157). That is a 47% increase in people being seen rough sleeping across the SWEP period in 2024/2025 compared to the previous year.

CoL-commissioned teams and CoL officers worked in collaboration to offer ‘In for Good’ where possible. Of those assessed, 22% of the placements were offered ‘In for Good’ and accommodation was extended past the SWEP deactivation date (21 out of 94 placements).

The report stated that 58% of the total placements (54) were booked back on to the streets, 18% of placements (17) abandoned the accommodation, and only 2% (two placements) were evicted once SWEP was deactivated.

As of 17 April 2025, the location of the 82 individuals who came into CoL SWEP was as follows: 42% (34) are in some kind of accommodation, most being outside CoL and the CoL accommodation pathway; 33% (27) of individuals remain rough sleeping; and 23% (19) individuals' location is unknown.

The total Winter SWEP 2024/2025 cost to date (30 April 2025) are £42,260.60. Some invoices from accommodation providers are still to be submitted and so final total costs are likely to be in the region of £45,000 - £50,000. This can be broken down by:

• Cost of delivering SWEP through local Pathway: £3,691.76
• Cost of additional hotel placements (flexible capacity): £38,668.84

The total cost to deliver SWEP in 2023/24 was £46,738.66.

Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2023–2027 Update Report

The committee was scheduled to discuss a report providing a summary of progress against the aims set out in the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2023–2027. Strategy delivery is administered through a Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy Delivery Plan (SDP). The first part of the report offers members a high-level summary of SDP actions underway and completed.

The second part of the report provides members with a commentary on the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2023–2027 Performance Scorecard and Dashboard.

The report referenced the following priorities from the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2023–2027:

• Priority 1 – Providing rapid, effective and tailored interventions
• Priority 2 – Securing access to suitable, affordable accommodation
• Priority 3 – Achieving our goals through better collaboration and partnership
• Priority 4 – Providing support beyond accommodation.

There are currently 49 actions on the SDP, two new actions have been added in the period, 40 actions have commenced, and 21 actions are now completed.

The actions completed in the period are:

• 1.8 Improve safety at rough sleeping hotspots – Creation of new materials utilising various media to explain service offer
• 1.12 Review statutory processes – Commissions independent review of statutory process to test resilience, quality and effectiveness
• 3.2 Deliver clinical mobile outreach service – Coordinate with local health and rough sleeping network to increase engagement with primary care
• 3.6 Review multi-agency meeting arrangements – Use multi-agency meeting action plan developed as a response to the Homeless Link review report
• 3.8 Establish clear procedures with Community Safety Team (CST) for hotspots and anti-social behaviour perpetrators – Implement new memorandum of understanding and refine the approach to cleansing and hotspot action planning
• 3.15 Develop protocol/policy approach to tents and/or rough sleeping hotspots – Utilise internal/external stakeholders to develop a consistent approach to tents and encampments
• 3.16 Collaboration with London School of Economics (LSE) to explore problem-solving opportunities through the LSE entrepreneurship programme – Consider and potentially deliver a programme with the LSE to team which focuses on practical problems withing the HRS sector.

The report stated that more actions were closed in the period than is typical: three closed actions (1.8, 3.8, 3.15) are thematically linked to the development of the Tackling the Detrimental Effects of Rough Sleeping protocol and policy position seen by Members at the December 2024 Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Sub-Committee.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) Homelessness Advice and Support Team visited the City of London in January 2025 for a diagnostic visit. The advisors retuned and provided written feedback in March 2025. This closes action 1.12 and a new action will be added to reflect the introduction of the resulting service improvement plan.

The SDP has progressed steadily across the six reporting periods to date. As the strategy moves into the middle part of its lifespan, the number of actions has increased from 41 to 49. The number of live actions has reduced in the last period as a greater proportion of the actions underway are substantial, long-term pieces of work.

Quarter 4 (Q4) saw a decrease in the number of prevention and relief outcomes from six to three. The average number of outcomes attained per month on 2024/25 was 3.5, compared to 4.25 in 2023/24.

During the period, 257 individual rough sleepers were reported, a 23% decrease on Q3. The average number of rough sleepers seen per quarter in 2024/25 was 286 compared to 227 in 2023/24. The unique number of individuals seen rough sleeping in the year (which accounts for people seen across more than one quarter) is published by the Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN) in June. We are expecting an increase on the figure reported in 2023/24 (656).

The number of ‘T1000’ priority rough sleeping cohort seen rough sleeping in the quarter increased slightly from 17 to 20. The average per quarter for the year was 20.25.

There were 104 accommodation outcomes achieved in the period, 22 more than the previous quarter. This includes Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) placements, and there are typically higher values in Q3 and Q4. The average number of accommodation outcomes per quarter in 2024/25 was 70, 10 more than 2023/24. A total of 280 accommodation outcomes were recorded in the year, an increase of 17% on 2023/24.

The average length of stay in temporary accommodation increased from 452 days to 497 days in the period. This is the third consecutive quarter this figure has increased. The reasons for this remain the same as that reported to Members in February 2025 – significant difficulties in sourcing affordable, suitable private rented sector accommodation, long waits on the City social housing register, and an increase in front-door demand. This latter point should be considered in the context of the City’s relatively small TA cohort, meaning a small number of cases can skew data quite significantly.

The number of supported accommodation beds at our disposal increased from 89 to 94 with the introduction of five new block-booked TA premises. These placements will be supported remotely by the Mobile Intervention Support Team (MIST).

Three placements into the private rented sector were achieved, all through the Rough Sleeping and Pathway teams, and nine individuals were placed in the private rented sector during 2024/25, one fewer than 2023/24.

There were 11 referrals received through the ‘Duty to Refer’ (S.213b of the Housing Act 1996), one fewer than Q3. The average number of S.213b referrals received per quarter on 2024/25 was 11, compared to 10 in 2023/24. The figure for last year was the fourth consecutive year that the number of referrals has increased, which indicates that we are communicating the S.213b referral option clearly though our professional networks and website.

The number of individuals sleeping at high-impact rough sleeping sites (HIRSS) and encampments (35) decreased from the 49 seen in the previous quarter. Without longer-term trend data, this decrease should not be seen as indicative of a reduction in the size or number of these sites. The number of individuals actually sleeping at high-impact rough sleeping sites can be difficult to gauge, with some tents used for storage or unoccupied, and other tents used by more than one person. It is expected that there will be fluctuations in the number of unique individuals seen.

A total of 25 rough sleepers with an assessed substance misuse need were referred to a specialist organisation. This is an increase of four over the last period. A total of 106 individuals were referred in 2024/25, although this could include some duplicates where individuals were referred more than once during the year. The number referred in 2024/25 is half of the 2023/24 number, despite rough sleeping numbers increasing. Officers continue to work with commissioned services to ensure that all eligible clients are being directed to treatment options.

The number of rough sleepers registered with a GP increased slightly from 24% in Q3 to 27% in Q4 but remains mostly stable for the year to date. A clearer picture is beginning to emerge around the rate at which City rough sleepers are known to be registered – an average of 27% for the year (32% in 2023/24). This value includes confirmed registrations and does not take into account where the Outreach team cannot confirm if someone is registered or not.

Nine individuals across our rough sleeping and accommodated cohorts accessed some kind of structured employment, training or education offer. This is the third successive quarter-on-quarter decrease in 2024/25, and the annual total of 57 is only one fewer than the total recorded for 2023/24.