Giles Wilkes

@gilesyb.bsky.social

20963 Followers 1430 Following

Former politico, comment writer, spread betting dealer, editor, now think tanker, consultant, former baker of overly dense loaves.

Policy churn and the cost of instability in homelessness funding
Local government can receive and manage as many as 250 individual central government grants each year.25 The
impact of short-term political and funding cycles is particularly visible in homelessness policy. Here, the complexity
stems from the fact that local government receives a raft of ringfenced and ‘notional’ (non-ringfenced) allocations
that reflect specific council-run services that are related to homelessness, such as welfare, housing and public health,
among others. The multi-year Homelessness Prevention Grant and Rough Sleeping Initiative are key planks of funding.
Yet as homeless people often require services linked to several government departments (e.g., health, Ministry of
Justice and Department for Work and Pensions), numerous additional grants are assigned for specific purposes.
Funding has often been delivered through a patchwork of short-term grants, each with specific conditions and
timelines. For local authorities and service providers, this creates a highly unstable commissioning environment.
Funding decisions are frequently delayed, sometimes arriving late in the financial year, and are rarely guaranteed
beyond a short horizon. As a result, organisations struggle to plan, invest or build sustainable services as project
‘sunsets’ are forever looming.26
One practitioner described managing multiple funding streams that arrived at different times, making coherent
planning ‘tricky and difficult’. In-year uplifts were not infrequent, but this did not help with strategic financial
management, for example in staff recruitment. Another interviewee noted that short-term funding discouraged
providers from committing to longer-term solutions, forcing a continual focus on immediate pressures. Preventative
approaches are deprioritised, temporary accommodation use increases, and costs escalate over time.
This illustrates how short-term funding structures can active…

Most weeks since my eldest child was born three and a half years ago, I have filled in the parenting spreadsheet. At the time of writing, it has over 1,000 rows, with a “P” to mark every morning, afternoon and evening of parenting that my husband and I have done. It also includes a chart illustrating which of us is in credit (me) and by how much (as of today, 7.5 days and 24 bedtimes).