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Concerns over plan to cut homeless services by £2m

Paul Moseley
BBC political reporter, Norfolk
EPA A homeless man with his back to a wall, sitting on a street. He's wearing a dark grey hooded jacket. He has a blue striped duvet blanket and a bag with some unopened socks.EPA

Concerns have been raised about plans by Norfolk County Council to cut support for homelessness services by £2m.

The Conservative-controlled authority is expected to approve a reduction in its annual spending of £4.7m, which provided accommodation to more than 1,100 people in the last financial year.

Questioning the proposal, Liberal Democrat councillor Dan Roper said "bad things happen" to people when homeless.

Deputy council leader Andrew Jamieson said district councils were overall responsible for homelessness and some were due to receive extra money through a second homes tax to help them out.

A report for councillors said in 2023-24 there were 838 people accommodated by the county council's homelessness services, and 309 young people (aged 16-25) in hostels.

Its funding was also used by other authorities to help people at risk of becoming homeless and to reduce rough sleeping in Norwich.

But the council said it was looking to cut spending due to its overall budget gap of £44.75m for the next financial year.

The report said the savings could lead to a drop in the number of beds available or a reduction in the support people received in hostels.

Dan Roper is wearing a dark green/brown tweed jacket over a blue shirt, with a patterned tie.
Dan Roper said he was concerned that "we are storing up future costs with these types of cuts"

Challenging the plan at a meeting of the authority's scrutiny committee, Roper warned that less support for people could lead to more problems in the future, and any savings could be "a false economy".

"Homelessness tends to come about because bad things have happened to people," he said.

"Bad things happen while they're homeless. And human distress and trauma create inevitable demand on our services of Norfolk County Council."

Norfolk County Council Andrew Jamieson is looking at the camera. We can see he has a blue jacket over a white shirt.Norfolk County Council
"These are difficult decisions to be made" said Andrew Jamieson

Jamieson told him that homelessness services were not a legal obligation for the council and Norfolk's district authorities would receive money from a new council tax on second homes.

Under that deal, councils in Great Yarmouth, North Norfolk and West Norfolk would share an additional £2.89m to spend on housing and homelessness services.

"We have to make savings, and some of those savings are not popular," he added.

"Obviously we seek to mitigate, wherever we can, the impact of the proposals."

Councillors are expected to vote in favour of the saving at a meeting later, as well as an increase of 4.99% on council tax.

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