DD2301 SWEP Fund and coordination 2018-19

The Mayor funds and commissions a range of pan-London rough sleeping services and other initiatives. These are services for rough sleepers, or initiatives to tackle rough sleeping, that cannot or would not be provided at a London borough level, as they are pan-London or multi-borough in their remit. A budget of £33.8 million for these services was approved (through MD1532) for the period 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2020.

The Mayor recently secured funding of £3.3m from the Government for extensions to current services and additional projects. This included £600,000 for a winter night shelter project, grant-funding Housing Justice to support existing winter night shelter provision, by funding five regional co-ordinator posts and a small grants programme.

The shape and nature of these services and initiatives are underpinned by the pan-London Rough Sleeping Commissioning Framework. This includes priorities ‘to meet the physical and mental health needs of rough sleepers’ and ‘to ensure the availability of appropriate accommodation, including emergency accommodation’. Further, the Framework establishes that the Mayor’s services and initiatives will ‘complement and supplement those provided or commissioned by boroughs’, and that the GLA ‘will seek to ensure greater co-ordination of the work of boroughs’. The Mayor’s Rough Sleeping Plan of Action also commits to resourcing an improvement in the coordination of SWEP across London.

During summer 2018 the GLA undertook a comprehensive review of SWEP services in London. Based on the findings of this review, in autumn 2018 the Mayor issued revised guidance to councils regarding SWEP best practice, including asking them to agree to new ways of working which would improve the service offer made to people during extreme weather.

The SWEP fund, SWEP coordinator role, and the wider work of the GLA to coordinate SWEP, supports meeting these priorities by equipping councils to provide additional SWEP capacity, and ensuring a minimum level of SWEP activation. This will mean that more people are protected from the dangerous effects of sleeping rough during freezing weather, and the efforts of the GLA and all 33 councils are better coordinated.

SWEP is a humanitarian response to rough sleeping. It aims to prevent serious health impacts and deaths that could otherwise result during severe weather conditions, by providing temporary shelter from the elements at short notice. It is an important and high-profile element of the range of services provided for people sleeping rough in London. In recent years SWEP has provided potentially life-saving shelter for hundreds of people, and is also an opportunity to begin longer-term support interventions to resolve a person’s rough sleeping.

SWEP is provided locally by councils, and pan-London ‘overflow’ is provided by the GLA – this is a ‘safety net’ mechanism to ensure that there are always SWEP spaces available, even once council provision is full.

The pan-London aspect of SWEP is provided as part of the GLA’s existing contract with St Mungo’s dated 4 July 2017 (the Contract). The initial value of the Contract was £14,719,983. The Contract was subsequently varied in the financial year 2018/2019 so as to include a further £1,482,014. The initial contract and the variation were approved by MDs 2031 and 2333 respectively. Given the value of that variation, the GLA is currently in the process of publishing a notice in relation to same in the Official Journal of the European Union as required by the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The GLA now intends to undertake a further variation of the Contract of a value of £18,000 in order to ensure that the pan-London overflow service is appropriately resourced to coordinate mobilization and referral during the Winter period. The services the subject of the variation amount to further coordination of the SWEP service and accordingly fall within the original scope of the Contract.

Pan-London overflow SWEP has been heavily used in recent years and will continue to be provided this year (2018-19). However, by supporting councils to expand and enhance local provision it is expected that people sleeping rough will receive a better service and the increase in demand for pan-London overflow spaces will be minimised. Delivering a SWEP coordination role through expansion of the NSNO service will improve coordination between councils and outreach services.

It has been agreed both with MHCLG (which has provided the funding) and with Housing Justice (the original intended recipient) that of the initial allocation of £600,000 only £450,000 was required to meet the objectives of the Housing Justice project, and that up to £150,000 could therefore acceptably be reallocated to support SWEP initiatives.

It is therefore proposed that £150,000 be repurposed as follows:
• to provide a SWEP Fund to support the provision of enhanced SWEP services by London councils (£132,000 in 2018/9) - see Appendix 1
• to expand the Mayor’s current No Second Night Out service (NSNO), provided by St Mungo’s, to coordinate SWEP across London (£18,000 in 2018/19).

1. The overarching objective of the SWEP fund is to support local authorities to provide expanded and enhanced SWEP services in line with GLA SWEP review recommendations.

1. The objectives of varying St Mungo’s existing contract with the GLA is to expand the scope of the No Second Night Out service to take on a coordination function with outreach teams and local authorities across London. This will take the form of a part-time SWEP coordinator role, and is expected to improve the flow of information between services and the efficiency of SWEP provision.

Under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, as public authorities, the Mayor and GLA are subject to a public sector equality duty and must have ‘due regard’ to the need to (i) eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation; (ii) advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not; and (iii) foster good relations between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not. Protected characteristics under section 149 of the Equality Act are age, disability, gender re-assignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, and marriage or civil partnership status (all except the last being “relevant” protected characteristics).

Of those seen rough sleeping in 2016/17:

• 53 per cent were non-UK nationals
• 47 per cent had a mental health need
• 15 per cent were women
• most of those seen rough sleeping (56 per cent) were in the 26-45 age group
• nine per cent were under 26 years old
• 11 per cent were over 55
• four people were under 18.

As rough sleepers are over-represented among those with the protected characteristics of race and disability, the proposals in this paper are likely to have positive impacts on these groups.

Key risks and issues

Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities

The objectives of the proposals are in line with the pan-London Rough Sleeping Commissioning Framework priority 8 and priority 9, as well as the Mayor’s draft London Housing Strategy which includes a commitment to ‘fund and commission a range of pan-London services and other initiatives. These will focus on identifying rough sleepers and intervening rapidly to support them off the streets, providing specialist support for particular groups, and helping rough sleepers stay off the streets.’.

​​​​​​​Impact assessments and consultations​​​​​​​

The pan-Rough Sleeping Commissioning Framework was made available for consultation with key stakeholders and partners and was subject to a full equalities impact assessment. The draft London Housing Strategy has been subject to a full-integrated impact assessment and statutory consultation with the public was recently undertaken.

This decision requests approval for revenue expenditure of up to £150,000;

a) £132,000 to set up a London SWEP Fund to support London councils to resource local provision (see Appendix 1 for detailed listing), and
b) £18,000 award to St Mungo’s to pay for a coordinator to manage the expanded No Second Night Out (NSNO) SWEP service, GLA’s pan-London ‘overflow’ provision. This funding is in addition to existing NSNO service provided by St Mungo’s with approved expenditure of £16.2m through MD2031 and MD2333 from 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2021.

The above expenditure will be funded from within the £600,000 receipts for winter night shelters approved in MD2333 (total receipt of grant funding of £3.3m from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) for rough sleeping services and projects) and the expenditure will be incurred in the 2018/2019 financial year.

The foregoing sections of this report indicate that the decisions requested of the director fall within the statutory powers of the Authority to promote and/or to do anything which is facilitative of or conducive or incidental to social development within Greater London and in formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought officers have complied with the Authority’s related statutory duties to:

(a) pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people;
(b) consider how the proposals will promote the improvement of health of persons, health inequalities between persons and to contribute towards the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom; and
(c) consult with appropriate bodies.

In taking the decisions requested of him, the director must have due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty; namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010, and to advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment) and persons who do not share it and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the director should have particular regard to section 3 (above) of this report.

The proposed grant funding of various London-based councils (as broken down in appendix 1) relates to the enhancement of their existing provision of SWEP assistance to the rough sleepers in their respective boroughs. To that end, the expenditure may be viewed as funding rather than a contract for services. The officers must ensure that funding agreements be put in place between the Authority and the councils, before any funding is transferred to those councils.

The original value of St Mungo’s contract with the Authority was £14,719,983. However, the contract was subsequently increased by £1,482,014; making a total current value of £16,201,997. In compliance with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, the Authority is currently in the process of publishing a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union regarding that variation in the value of the contract.

The officers now propose to vary the contract a second time by a value of £18,000. This amount is less than 10% of the both the original contract value and of the revised contract value including the variation. Furthermore, as set out in paragraph 1.8 above, the services the subject of the variation fall within the original scope of the contract. To this end, the proposed variation is permitted by the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The officers should ensure that the variation be agreed in writing and signed by both the Authority and St Mungo’s prior to the commencement of the additional services.

The SWEP Fund will be allocated to London councils, and outcomes monitored, by the GLA’s Rough Sleeping Team.

The SWEP co-ordination role will be delivered by St Mungo’s, as part of the NSNO contract.

Outcomes will be reported to the Rough Sleeping Internal Governance Group convened by the Deputy Mayor for Housing and Residential Development.