6. Statement by the Minister for Housing and Local Government: Update on the Housing Support Grant

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:12 pm on 11 February 2020.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 5:12, 11 February 2020

Thank you for that, John Griffiths, I completely agree with you. Chapter 7, which is the commissioning and procurement of housing support grant services chapter, very much reflects the committee’s work on procurement and commissioning, so I'm very glad to hear you welcome it. I think a lot of what's set out in this chapter is what we would all consider to be good ethical practice and procurement. So, I just emphasise that. For example, we're very pleased, in the guidance, to set out our fair work principles and to say that people delivering these services should not be driven into insecure, unfair work because of the need to maximise resource, because that actually has the opposite effect that we want. I know the committee has come to similar conclusions.

I just want to emphasise one short thing, which is that it does say as well that commissioning plans must reflect the most appropriate approaches to market development and procurement in the local area, including different contract forms, grants or in-house provision. So, we're not—. In saying commissioning guidance, that’s just an overarching term for how you get these services in place; it doesn't mean that we're necessarily getting them through one particular structure. And I cannot emphasise enough that each local authority will know what the provision in its area is, and that will be a mixture of in-house, third sector and private sector arrangements. And they should be ensuring, through this grant and this guidance, the best possible combination of those services to deliver the best service on the ground, exactly as the committee report has asked us.

In terms of the quantum, I do think, as I've said in response to a number of other people, of course we'd like more money; we’d like more money for virtually every service, or every service—I don’t know why I’m qualifying it—every service in the Government. I'm pleased that we have been able to do what the Welsh Government said it would do, which is protect health and then the next call was for local government. We’ve just delivered the best local government settlement in nine years, I’m very pleased with that, and, of course, this money goes to local authorities to deliver those services. So, it must be seen within that best settlement.

But, obviously, if there is additional money as a result of the final budget settlement round and also because we've got this somewhat unusual, shall we say, situation with a budget a week after our budget, if that does produce any extra money, then, obviously, homelessness is a top priority of the Welsh Government. But I would say, to put that in context, housing is the top priority, as well, because this is more than the sharp end of homelessness; this is about building the social houses necessary to get long-term sustainability. So it's not just about the acute end. And then, on the acute end, of course we have put an additional £20 million on top of the housing support grant for homelessness prevention this year. You'll know that we did that in response to the housing action group over Christmas, and as I just said in response to David Rowlands, we're awaiting the next report of the housing action group.