The NORTHAMPTON temporary accommodation budget could be overspent by around £1.7m.

The net cost of accommodating homeless households in temporary accommodation has increased dramatically in recent years and is placing a huge strain on the Council’s budget. The current forecast is that, in 2018/19, the temporary accommodation budget could be overspent by around £1.7m.

 

 

The severe shortage of affordable housing and a large increase in the number of requests for assistance under the homelessness legislation have resulted in a sharp rise in the number of homeless households that the Council has had to place in temporary accommodation.

Between March 2016 and March 2018, the number of households living in temporary accommodation more than quadrupled from 66 to 267 and, by the middle of September 2018, it had increased to 305.

Extended stays in temporary accommodation can cause severe hardship for the households involved, especially those households (including families with children) that are placed in Bed & Breakfast outside of the Northampton Borough because there is no other temporary accommodation available.

As the Council is only able to recover part of what it pays housing suppliers for the temporary accommodation it uses, extended stays and an increase in the number of placements are putting a huge strain on the Council’s budget. See Paragraphs 3.2.6 – 3.2.8 and Paragraph 4.2.4 for further details.

3.2.6 Based on an average net cost of £29 per night for Bed & Breakfast and £26 per night for self-contained nightly purchased accommodation, the average cost of accommodating each household for an extra 56 days in temporary accommodation will be between £1,456 and £1,624.

3.2.7 In the middle of September 2018, there were 197 homeless households living in self-contained, nightly-purchased temporary accommodation and 45 homeless households living in Bed & Breakfast.

3.2.8 Assuming that the Housing Allocations Scheme remains unchanged and that, each year, the same number of households are placed in self-contained, nightly-purchased temporary accommodation and Bed & Breakfast and they each spend an extra 56 days in temporary accommodation before they are rehoused, the extra cost to the Council could be nearly £360,000 per annum.

4.2.4 The net cost of accommodating homeless households in temporary accommodation has increased dramatically in recent years and is placing a huge strain on the Council’s budget. The current forecast is that, in 2018/19, the temporary accommodation budget could be overspent by around £1.7m.

 

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Public health funerals

Public health funerals are funerals in the United Kingdom paid for by the local authority, where the relatives are either unwilling or unable to pay, or where no relatives can be found.

Public health funerals in England and Wales are governed by the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. Local authorities are obliged to arrange a funeral where no arrangements are being made or have been made. Local authorities are permitted to recover the costs of such funerals from the estate of the deceased under the Act.

In some circumstances where a person dies in hospital the relevant NHS trust may arrange a funeral for the deceased; however, ultimately the duty to arrange the funeral rests with the local authority.

 

Note to Northampton Borough Council and it’s ALMO Northampton Partnership Homes 

My current understanding is that in the period from 7th February 2016 to 3^rd November 2017 a number of Northampton Partnership Homes tenants died and thirteen of the late tenants had public health funerals, the next of kin for all of them were traced, BUT it needed a tracing agent to find four of them?

Are you making the endeavours to capture such information as next of kin on your tenants (or are they now called customers) so that tracing agents were not needed?

Mr Norman Adams – August 2018 – Northampton

Right to Buy – HELPING THE FEW NOT THE MANY

Right to Buy – HELPING THE FEW NOT THE MANY

Public Assets in excess of £64 million (market value) have been sold by Northampton Borough Council since 2012… helping the few (595) not the many (the  3,000 poor sods on the waiting list) why should the few get aprox 50% discount on the value?

 

GOVERNMENT STARTS CONSULTATION TO DUMP HOUSING REPLACEMENT COMMITMENT

GOVERNMENT STARTS CONSULTATION TO DUMP HOUSING REPLACEMENT COMMITMENT

Scope of the consultation

1) Options for reforming the rules around the use of Right to Buy receipts

2) Reforming the replacement commitment

This is a case of we are NOT currently managing to replace homes sold so we would like to move the goal posts

Take Northampton for instance: Sales total 595 replacements 187

This consultation seeks views on options for reforming the rules governing the use of Right to Buy receipts from the sale of council housing, and whether we should reform the commitment that every additional home sold (as a result of the increase in discounts in 2012) is replaced on a one-for-one basis nationally.

Link to the consultation document Right_to_Buy_consultation

 

Authorities MUST investigate homeless deaths

Authorities have been told they must investigate homeless deaths, as part of a new government Rough Sleeping Strategy.

The announcement comes just months after the Bureau revealed that homeless deaths are hardly ever reviewed in England and Wales, with, on average, just one official review a year being logged since 2010.

 

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/blog/2018-08-13/government-announces-homeless-deaths-must-be-investigated-following-reports-from-the-bureau-local-network

Leave no stone unturned for the £32 million

Leave no stone unturned for the £32 million

Much has been made of the missing £10million football club stand money …

Housing campaigners would like to look under a few stones, and down the back of a few sofas to see how Northampton Borough Council fully account for the £32 million from the sales of council homes since 2012?

 

 

Norman Adams – August 2018 – Northampton

Council Homes on average are going for £63k

The average price paid by tenants for a Northampton council property in 2017/18 was £63k