Ending Rough Sleeping Framework: England

Ending rough sleeping in England

Background

Successive UK governments have made a commitment to end rough sleeping across England, and huge progress has been made despite the significant challenges posed by Covid-19. It is crucial that this positive momentum keeps going, and that you know what is working to achieve success. But without a clear definition, how will you know you are being successful?

As a first step towards this and to help accelerate progress, measure success and celebrate wins along the way, a clearer definition was adopted by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, as announced by Parliamentary Under-then Secretary of State for Rough Sleeping and Housing Eddie Hughes in March 2022.

the definition

Ending rough sleeping means preventing it wherever possible and, where it cannot be prevented, making it a rare, brief, and non-recurrent experience.

Core Indicators

The framework is a set of eight core indicators. These are indicators that are relevant to every part of the country and will allow you to capture the prevalence of specific types of experiences of rough sleeping – for example, someone who is experiencing long-term rough sleeping, or repeated rough sleeping.

They can also help shape effective responses to local challenges by highlighting gaps in support provision, identifying the time people are spending on the streets, and showing where people sleeping rough have been supported into accommodation, and how successful this is.

Prevented

Reduce the prevalence of people experiencing homelessness in the first place

Number of new people sleeping rough

A person is considered ‘new’ if they have not been seen sleeping rough in the Local Authority in the 5 calendar years (60 months) preceding the date they were seen sleeping rough during the current reporting period. If a person was seen more than 5 years previously, they are to be counted as ‘New’. If you do not have historical data for 5 years, people seen sleeping rough for the first time should be counted as ‘New’ while you build a historical database.

Effective prevention should see this indicator decline over time.

Number of people seen rough sleeping after being discharged from institutions

A person is counted as having left an institution recently if they report having been discharged from any of the below within the last 85 days (12 weeks + 1 day):

Prisons (adult and youth)
Other justice accommodation e.g. accommodation provided by the National Probation Service (i.e. Approved Premises)
General and psychiatric hospitals
Discharged from the UK Armed Forces
National Asylum Support Services Accommodation

People under 25 who are care leavers are also included in this estimate using data from existing rough sleeping management information returns.

Effective prevention should see this indicator reduce over time.

Rare

Directly tracking the prevalence of homelessness nationally and locally

Number of people sleeping rough

This indicator should be reported as the number of people seen sleeping rough on a single night using either a count-based estimate, or evidence-based estimate similar to the annual snapshot, as well as the number of people seen sleeping rough across the month, based on work done by outreach teams and other service providers.

Areas should be working towards reducing this number to zero, or as close to zero as possible.

Number of people sleeping rough who have moved accommodation

This indicator is the number of people who had been seen sleeping rough over the month who have moved into accommodation by the end of the month.

Brief

Identify people experiencing homelessness and supporting them into accommodation

Number of people experiencing long-term rough sleeping

This indicator reports the number of people experiencing multiple and/or sustained episodes of rough sleeping. Individuals will meet the criteria for this indicator if they have been seen recently (within the reporting month), and have also been seen out in 3 or more months out of the last 12 months.

Areas should seek to reduce this indicator given the high levels of harm associated with long-term street homelessness.

Number of nights seen sleeping rough

This indicator aims to determine how many nights each person counted in R1 (over the month) was seen sleeping rough over the last 180 days (or previous 6 months) via a bedded down contact.

Non-recurring

Support people who have previously been homeless to not return to it

NR1

Number of people returning to rough sleeping

This indicator reports the number of people who were seen sleeping rough previously and have returned to the streets after a period of time. A ‘returner’ is defined as a person seen sleeping rough again after no contact for 2 or more quarters (180 days), whichever is shorter, measured from the last date the person was seen. This should allow areas to understand how many people are experiencing recurring episodes of rough sleeping.

This number should reduce over time if prevention and off-the-streets pathways work effectively.

NR2

Number of people sleeping rough who had previously moved into settled accomodation

This should be collected by outreach teams to determine which people seen sleeping rough had previously moved into settled accommodation.

Ending Rough Sleeping: Implementation Guide

Download the supporting implementation guide covering the new data framework. It is intended for Local Authorities, Combined Authorities, or commissioned services wanting to understand what data is required to implement the framework, and how it will be used.

Download the guide

A photograph of the printed Ending Rough Sleeping in England Implementation Guide

Additional Reading

blog

March 13, 2023

Using data to end long-term rough sleeping

In this blog, Fraser Nicholson, details the challenges faced by seaside towns like Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole, and how they're using the Ending Rough Sleeping Framework to help tackle the complex issue of rough sleeping.