Covid and Rough Sleepers. The Costs.
The government urged councils to ensure that rough sleepers were not left on the streets during the first Lockdown. This was a good public-health policy designed to meet the needs of rough sleepers in any locality and ensure that they did not contribute to spreading the Covid virus.
If they had wanted to avail themselves of the opportunity it gave the council an identifiable group with which to work to support them in moving on from sleeping on the streets. It is unclear whether any of the east London authorities did this. We will be making enquiries.
By use of FOIs, we have ascertained the numbers housed by east London local authorities and the costs associated with the first Lockdown. They are illustrated in the table below.
The first thing that is clear is that there was no pattern or coordination. It may be that there were no rough sleepers in Barking and Dagenham. The feedback we have received from those working with rough sleepers is that B&D were reticent about moving on this, unlike Newham who were hot off the mark.
So, a genuine WELL DONE for both wanting to support this vulnerable group and reacting to the public health emergency.
Not so well done for planning, communications or budgeting.
Better than Tower Hamlets though, who don’t seem to know how much the exercise cost them. And better than Hackney who didn’t bother to respond.
Our communications with voluntary groups working with rough sleepers have confirmed that individuals are not self-restricted to one borough. They may sleep in one borough on Sunday, have breakfast at a church in another borough on Monday and sleep on the sofa a friend in a third borough on Tuesday. Tying rough-sleepers to one borough is therefore an inexact science.
Stratford Mall has been a magnet to rough sleepers who spend time across London during the day, ironically because it is much safer than other places (or it was for much of the time).
So it was that Newham, which normally saw 60-80 people sleeping rough per night, housed 157 people during the Lockdown period at a cost of nearly £1.1m. Roughly double the number of regular rough sleepers. Moreover, it was done at a cost that was higher than any other borough in East London. (We are aware that the press has reported higher numbers, but these are the figures given under an FOI and the same FOI request was given to several east London boroughs.)
This does not speak well of Barking and Dagenham, but nor does it show Newham in a good light. A little bit of planning across borders by our “full time” councillors, a zoom meeting and a few emails might have spread the burden a little more fairly. It seems to confirm what we were told informally. “It was like people had been told ‘come to Newham’, they’ll sort you out”. And they did.
It was big hearted of the Mayor, but she was using money that she did not have to take on a burden that should have been shared. Not only was the absolute cost astronomically high, but the unit cost was as much as five times that of a neighbouring borough.
We have assumed roughly similar patterns of residence and lengths of stay across the boroughs.
Waltham Forest housed people at a cost of £1471 per person, but only housed 85 people.
Redbridge was more comparable, their costs came in at £4651 per person and they managed to house 20 more individuals than Newham.
Newham spent £6998 per person, one third more per person than the next highest borough.
So, a genuine “well done” to Newham for being quick off the mark and for finding shelter for 157 people.
We hope that you will do better next time and here are some suggestions and comments that might help.
Why was no-one in Newham aware of the disparities in costs between boroughs? Surely, monitoring and benchmarking your spend should have been part of the bread and butter of the service. Otherwise your costs would spiral out of control…as they did.
Given the number of regular rough sleepers in Newham, we would have expected the borough to house between 60-80 people. You housed 157, roughly double. Why did you not liaise with neighbouring boroughs to ensure an equitable distribution of the burden? It seems that Newham was chasing numbers. You deserve credit for helping, but none for virtue signalling at the cost of Newham council-tax payers.
Will you ensure that there is some form of liaison and joint planning between boroughs in the future?