Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. A home of your own is at the heart of a happy and productive life. This Government believes everyone should have a warm and decent home, but for many this is not the reality.

For many, homelessness and the threat of homelessness is very real. How to pay their rent, how to manage a benefit claim or simply how to find a bed for the night can be a source of constant worry and stress. The causes are varied and complex. It might be the result of a background in the care system without the support networks of family and friends, it might be the result of a change in circumstances, such as a job loss or relationship breakdown. The trauma of homelessness can often result in, or be exacerbated by, existing mental ill health or substance misuse issues. One of the key policy principles that underpin our approach to homelessness prevention is that we take a person-centred, trauma-informed approach to understand the root causes and prevent homelessness becoming a reality.

The housing support grant is one of Welsh Government’s most significant grant programmes, aimed at tackling homelessness. It puts over £126 million into the hands of local authorities every year. In turn, they commission thousands of projects, providing services to tens of thousands of people to reduce the worry and stress they face, helping them to avoid homelessness and providing ongoing support where needed to ensure a home can be maintained in the longer term. It delivers services to prevent homelessness wherever possible and, where that cannot be achieved, to ensure that homelessness is rare, brief and unrepeated. 

The housing support grant brings together three previously existing grants: Supporting People, elements of the homelessness prevention grant, and Rent Smart Wales enforcement funding. It is part of a wider funding alignment project that seeks to create more coherent programmes that reduce bureaucracy and increase innovation. The housing support grant is characterised by a more flexible specification, allowing authorities to create and adopt new approaches. Importantly, it requires authorities to take a whole-system response to homelessness—a response that focuses not only on statutory definitions of homelessness, but also on the underlying causes. This facilitates the earliest interventions, which we know to be both the most effective and the most economical.

The housing support grant has been designed to provide sustainable impact that can address the adverse childhood experiences that often lie behind the vulnerabilities that lead to homelessness. In doing so it allows local authorities to focus on real prevention, the impact of which reduces demand on health, social care and criminal justice services. It has been designed to support the policy principles set out in our strategy for preventing and ending homelessness.   

Today, I am pleased to announce new guidance for the housing support grant, which will change the way we approach this important public service. The new grant is based on a single strategic planning mechanism, which builds on the existing duty of local authorities to produce a homelessness strategy. This ensures that resources can be targeted at the point in the housing system where they have the most impact. We know it is not enough to provide funding; we must also have a framework that allows good decisions to be made.   

My confidence that the housing support grant delivers such a framework has been bolstered by the extent of the engagement with stakeholders. We have worked hard to make sure we are working in the spirit of the well-being of future generations Act's five ways of working. The subsequent advice can be described as co-produced and therefore has fully tested the question: can this be delivered in practice?

This advice has led to a framework that is built on integration and collaboration. The guidance requires local authorities to consult with stakeholders to inform their local strategy. It also requires local authorities to work collaboratively across their regions and with key partners to achieve a cross-sector vision. The new regional housing support collaborative groups include a wide membership including police and crime commissioners, substance misuse area planning boards and service users. This very much acknowledges that homelessness is a public service issue and cannot be addressed by housing alone. The result will be that services are joined up and offer the user a more seamless response to their needs. 

I am also keen to ensure that we have a vibrant and sustainable provider sector, that important relationships between the provider and the user are not broken without purpose, and that contracts reflect the real costs of service provision. I'm particularly pleased that the guidance reflects our fair work principles. In a funding environment that has been so constrained, the pressure has often been felt in the terms and conditions of the committed workers at the heart of services. Whilst I'm committed to offer services to as many as possible, I strongly believe it is a false economy to do so at the expense of a living wage for the people who staff them. We will use housing support grant as a test bed that commissioning and procurement can deliver fair work.

The housing support grant changes the relationship between central and local government in a way that supports cultural change within authorities. It creates the space for them to shape the service response to homelessness and homelessness prevention. This cultural change starts with the framework but will require ongoing support and challenge to make it a reality. The work of the homelessness action group will provide vital input to support this change. I know Members will want to play their part in that process and I want to test our success against our intention to make homelessness rare, brief and unrepeated in Wales. Diolch.