ADD2796 - NSNO floating hubs and SWEP

1.1.    In 2024-25, outreach workers in London saw 13,231 people sleeping rough. This is a 10 per cent increase compared to 2023-24. Of those seen sleeping rough in 2024-25, 3,028 had also been seen sleeping rough in 2023-24, indicating longer-term rough sleeping. This is 27 per cent higher than the number of long-term rough sleepers seen in the previous year (i.e., across 2022-23 and 2023-24). 
1.2.    The Mayor’s Rough Sleeping Plan of Action was published in May 2025. It sets out his commitment to end rough sleeping by 2030, by working with partners including central government, London Councils, boroughs and civil society. Within the plan of action there are three initiatives that the Mayor will undertake in collaboration with partners: 
•    provide leadership to join together services and make sure people can get the help they need, as early and as simply as possible
•    prevent rough sleeping wherever possible
•    deliver rapid, sustainable routes away from the streets. 
1.3.    In August 2025, Mayoral Decision (MD) 3386 approved the establishment of the Accommodation and Wider Support for Those Who Need it Most programme; the Assistant Director, Housing Programmes and Partnerships, is the Senior Responsible Owner for this work. MD3386 also approved the delivery plan for the Accommodation and Wider Support for Those Who Need It Most programme. 
1.4.    MD3386 Decision 7 states: 
“where not already covered by a delegation to the Assistant Director, Housing Programmes and Partnerships in an existing Mayoral Decision, delegates authority to the Assistant Director, Housing Programmes and Partnerships (in consultation with the Executive Director for Housing and Land, the Executive Director for Communities and Skills, and the Mayoral Delivery Board), to approve expenditure funded by decisions two, three and five for delivery of the projects listed in paragraph 1.15.”
1.5.    Paragraph 1.15 of MD3386 lists, among other projects, the Rough Sleeping Programme (GLA core budget). This was approved under MD3135.
1.6.    MD3135 approved the procurement of the No Second Night Out (NSNO) service, with a possible value up to £47.94m including all options. It also approved the expenditure of £17.27m within the procured NSNO contract. 
1.7.    The NSNO contract was awarded to St Mungo’s, and commenced delivery in April 2024. There is a specific optional service within the contract to coordinate and provide pan-London Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) provisions; and a general optional service for floating hubs. 
1.8.    MD3331 approved the expenditure, in 2024-25, of £192,893 from the GLA Rough Sleeping budget, to exercise an option in the NSNO contract to deliver SWEP in 2024-25. MD3331 also approved the receipt and expenditure, in 2025-26, of £10,630,681 of revenue funding from the MHCLG under the Rough Sleeping Prevention and Recovery Grant (RSPARG). The allocation of £2,422,651 to NSNO enhanced services in 2025-26 was approved, through delegated authority, by the Executive Director of Housing and Land. 
 
Floating hubs
1.9.    St Mungo’s, on behalf of the GLA, successfully delivered floating hubs (as part of NSNO) between September 2018 and February 2020. MD2333 approved £1,536,231 for the expansion of NSNO to include two additional NSNO staging posts and the creation of floating hubs and MD2481 approved £480,000 expenditure for floating hubs in 2019-20. In the first year, 282 people were supported by a floating hub; 67 per cent of clients left with a successful outcome. The majority of clients who accessed the hub had been sleeping rough for more than a year. Floating hubs ended in March 2020, as resources were redirected to the GLA’s emergency COVID-response. 
SWEP
1.10.    SWEP is an emergency humanitarian response enacted when temperatures drop to freezing, with the primary aim of preserving life. In previous years, the GLA has provided additional pan-London bedspaces to support people off the streets during freezing temperatures. This additional capacity ensures that the most vulnerable people sleeping rough in London are safeguarded during winter. GLA SWEP accommodation is provided with accompanying onsite support from St Mungo’s; and operates under the ‘In for Good’ principle. This means no one is asked to leave until there is a support plan in place to end their rough sleeping, regardless of whether temperatures have risen. Through this support, the emergency accommodation is often a catalyst for ending people’s homelessness for good, as well as a humanitarian response during severe weather. 
 

Floating hubs
2.1.    Time-limited hubs provide intensive intervention to targeted cohorts of people sleeping rough and/or rough-sleeping hotspots. The Floating Hub team works closely with boroughs and local services to identify who will benefit most from the service, based on local need. Usually, it is people who have slept rough for longer periods; and for whom other interventions have failed. Hubs will sometimes be focused on a specific group, such as women. The hub space provides a safe space off the streets where people’s needs will be assessed, and a move-on plan will rapidly be identified. 
2.2.    This ADD seeks approval to spend – via exercise of a specific option in the NSNO contract with St Mungo’s – up to £1.7m from the GLA Rough Sleeping budget, on floating hubs, between January 2026 and May 2027. St Mungo’s will deliver 17 hubs in this time. These will be based in a different location each month, and will support approximately 300 people per year.  
Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP)
2.3.    Every year, the GLA funds SWEP overflow provision to support the provision of sufficient capacity in emergency accommodation systems during severe weather. 
2.4.    This ADD seeks approval to spend – via exercise of a specific option in the NSNO contract with St Mungo’s – up to £192,893 from the GLA Rough Sleeping budget on SWEP accommodation, between 1 November 2025 and 31 March 2026. This is to safeguard people sleeping rough during cold weather. 
2.5.    The expenditure will also provide relevant related services for those accommodated – including food, laundry and accompanying support to identify a longer-term route off the streets. These services fall within the original contract; the option will be exercised in accordance with the contract’s requirements. 
 

3.1.    Under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, the Mayor and GLA must comply with the public sector equality duty (PSED) and must have due regard for the need to:
•    eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Equality Act
•    advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not
•    foster good relations between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not.
3.2.    The ‘protected characteristics’ are: age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, marriage and civil partnership (but only in respect of the requirements to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination), race (ethnic or national origins, colour or nationality), religion or belief (including lack of belief), sex, and sexual orientation. 
3.3.    Consideration of the PSED is not a one-off task. The duty must be fulfilled before taking a decision, at the time of taking a decision, and after the decision has been taken, to ensure that equalities impacts are kept under ongoing review.
3.4.    The Rough Sleeping Plan of Action has been subject to an Equalities Impact Assessment (EqIA) (referenced in section 3.7 of the Accommodation and Wider Support for Those Who Need It Most Delivery Plan). Headline insights include the following:
•    Just under half of people rough sleeping in London in 2023-24 had a mental health support need (48 per cent); 56 per cent had an alcohol or drug-related support need; and 30 per cent had more than one support need related to alcohol, drugs and mental health.
•    Homelessness and housing insecurity disproportionately affects people from Black and minority ethnic communities. Research has highlighted how direct acts of racism, racial discrimination and institutional racism contribute to homelessness.
•    In 2023-24, 4.7 per cent of people seen sleeping rough in London were of Gypsy, Roma or Traveller ethnicity – the vast majority being of a Roma background specifically (4.3 per cent of people seen sleeping rough). This compares to 0.004 per cent of London’s general population identifying as Roma in the 2021 Census.
•    Non-UK nationals have consistently represented approximately half of all people seen rough sleeping in London. In 2023-24, 45 per cent of people rough sleeping in London were UK nationals.
•    In 2023-24, 84 per cent of people recorded as rough sleeping (by the Combined Homelessness and Information Network) were male; and 16 per cent were female. However, women are typically underrepresented in traditional rough sleeping statistics due to the often less visible ways in which women rough sleep compared to men.
3.5.    Both floating hubs and SWEP provision are expected to have a positive impact in improving equalities. They will do so by supporting the delivery of rapid sustainable routes away from the streets – one of the key priorities of the Mayor’s Rough Sleeping Plan of Action.
3.6.    Floating hubs will work with the local borough(s) and services to identify who will benefit most from the intervention, with a focus on the following two cohorts: 
•    women who are rough sleeping and who may be less visible 
•    people who have been on the streets for longer, and who may have mental health and/or drug and alcohol needs. 
 

Key risks and issues
4.1.    The key risks associated with the decisions in this ADD are outlined in the table below:

Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities
4.2.    The planned activity outlined in this decision is part the Accommodation and Wider Support for Those Who Need it Most programme. This programme contributes to the core London-level outcomes: Londoners are not homeless; Londoners live in homes they can afford; and Londoners are treated fairly and with dignity.  Specifically, this activity helps provide rapid, sustainable routes away from the streets for people who are rough sleeping (section 1.2 of the Accommodation and Wider Support for Those Who Need it Most programme delivery plan, Appendix 2 of MD3386).  Th planned activity also supports delivery of the following Mayoral strategies:
•    The Mayor’s Housing Strategy, including the key aims to tackle homelessness and help rough sleepers.
•    The Mayor’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, which sets out the strategic objective to work with government, councils, the voluntary sector and communities to ensure rough sleepers are helped off the streets as quickly and sustainably as possible. 
•    The Mayor’s Rough Sleeping Plan of Action, which sets out a new approach to rough-sleeping prevention; increased systems leadership for a ‘no wrong door approach’; and scaling up targeted routes off the streets for those facing additional barriers. 
Consultations 
4.3.    In developing the Rough Sleeping Plan of Action, the GLA engaged over 90 stakeholders across different sectors through consultation events and a call for evidence. In addition, a Lived Experience Advisory Group – made up of individuals with personal experience of homelessness and rough sleeping – were consulted on the Plan of Action. This included through testing principles and interventions. The feedback from these organisations and individuals has informed the development of the Plan of Action.
Conflicts of interest
4.4.    There are no known conflicts of interest for those involved in the drafting or clearance of this report.  
 

5.1.    The Assistant Director’s approval is sought for expenditure, between 2025-26 and 2027-28, of £1,700,000 from the floating hub budget (within the GLA’s Rough Sleeping budget) to exercise an option in the NSNO contract to deliver floating hubs. Approval is also requested for expenditure, in 2025-26, of £192,893 from the GLA Rough Sleeping budget to exercise an option in the NSNO contract to deliver SWEP provision in 2025-26.
5.2.    Forecast profile of the NSNO contract to deliver floating hubs is estimated to be as below.

As part of 2025-26 budget-setting, £2,200,000 was allocated to the GLA Rough Sleeping budget for floating hubs. This was profiled as £1,100,000 in each of 2025-26 and 2026-27 (as shown in the table above). Further approval will be sought once a decision is made on the remaining £500,000 of the total floating hubs budget. 
5.4    Not all the £1,100,00 allocated to 2025-26 will be spent in 2025-26. Therefore, some budget will need to be reprofiled to future years to fund the total value of the NSNO contract being approved on this decision. This will be subject to year-end and budget-setting processes and approvals. 
 

6.1.    The planned delivery approach for each of the interventions within this ADD is set out in the table below: