Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:21 pm on 28 September 2016.
Well, I think the strongest message that the Welsh Government can give is that they would not be committed to making any cuts to this scheme, because then local authorities will not feel that there’s any ambiguity in the process of making sure that these services are vital to what they’re doing on the ground, because, if they do not have a clear signal from Welsh Government that this is being protected, they may well see fit, potentially, to do things in a different way and then may unroll some of the good work that some of the charities in the sector are currently doing.
I just wanted to finish briefly and I wanted to raise one last point that has come to me from the sector. Priority-need acceptances may have fallen by 63 per cent, but, as the Cabinet Secretary knows, measuring homelessness demand according to how many are in priority need is no longer an accurate metric. The Housing (Wales) Act 2014 is requiring local authorities to work with all eligible households and relieve homelessness. Analysis conducted by Shelter Cymru has concluded that traffic to homelessness services has in fact increased by around a quarter since the law changed. It’ll be interesting therefore to hear the Welsh Government’s response to this. Diolch yn fawr.