Temporary Accommodation Model Webinar

We hosted a webinar to talk about our newly developed Temporary Accommodation model, which can be found on our website.  

The webinar was very well attended, with over 100 councils, reflecting the very high (and increasing) priority which councils are attaching to this area. This reflects our own experience, where more and more councils are seeking our help in this area. 

As presented at the webinar, earlier this year Local Partnerships (with financial support from the LGA) developed a tool in conjunction with Manchester City Council to help councils assess the scale of their challenge.  

The Temporary Accommodation Model

Joining us at the event was Dave Ashmore, Director of Housing Operations at Manchester City Council, where the model was piloted. Dave talked through the progress that the Council has made in addressing homelessness – with particularly notable progress around reduction in the number of families in B & B accommodation to zero! Dave highlighted the decisions that had been made which enabled that to happen, including policy changes and ways of working. The model had been used as an important part of developing the evidence base in the City. 

Martin Forbes and James Dunbar from Local Partnerships then introduced the detail of the model. 

The purpose of the tool is to provide a rough order of magnitude assessment of the likely future profile, over a defined time period, of household types and numbers that will require temporary accommodation, and the consequential cost to a council’s revenue budget. Crucially, it enables ‘invest to save’ propositions to be assessed against a counterfactual position. 

The tool also enables changes in some of the main contributory factors to rising temporary accommodation spend (such as housing affordability, housing demand and housing supply), to be monitored and evaluated and can assist with budget planning. 

A large number of questions were asked, on topics ranging from policy changes at Manchester, to resourcing, detailed questions on data use, and use of the model in a two tier area. Where we ran out of time to answer questions, we will be collating and distributing answers to those questions via email. 

 We would be very happy to chat through how this could be used in your area too: please contact martin.walker@localpartnerships.gov.uk.