FOI request details

Request

Subject: Spending housing homeless applicants TA

Reference: WBC-FOI-00616

I write to make a request for information relating to the total NET (rather than gross) spending on the provision of temporary accommodation for those registering as homeless made by this council between the years 2017 and 2022. As part of this request I would like the information to be broken down into the following:

(i) The number of people placed into temporary accommodation after making a homeless application, broken down into year-by-year?

(ii) The average length of stay in temporary accommodation after making a homeless application?

(iii) The total cost of temporary accommodation to the council, broken down into costs per night, per month and per year?

Response

Part Disclosed - 27 February 2023

(i) The number of people placed into temporary accommodation after making a homeless application, broken down into year-by-year? - Section 21: The information for this question is available online in annual committee reports as follows:

22/23 - Paper no. 22-254

21/22 - Paper no. 21-140

20/21 - Paper no. 20-180

19/20 - Paper no. 19-166

18/19 - Paper no. 18-163

17/18 - Paper no. 17-175

16/17 - Paper no. 16-278

(ii) The average length of stay in temporary accommodation after making a homeless application? - Please refer to the below. Note that this is the average length of stay for those housed in the respective years. E.g. 234 days in TA before being rehoused permanently for those housed in 2016.

2023 (as at 23rd February 2023) - 1287 days.

2022 - 1204.

2021 - 1205.

2020 - 1050.

2019 - 977.

2018 - 798.

2017 - 486.

2016 - 234.

(iii) The total cost of temporary accommodation to the council, broken down into costs per night, per month and per year? - refer to the below table (Gross figures). This is gross spend as we do not record net spend in a reportable format. Note that we cannot break down the spend into per night, per month, per year:

April 2022 - current

£30,289,865 (as at 16th February 2023)

2021/22

£30,400,196

2020/21

£25,326,848

2019/20

£22,853,308

2018/19

£31,867,844

2017/18

£26,378,817

2016/17

£22,448,454

Please note that our responses were accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of release, and have not subsequently been updated. This information should be considered an historical record only.