Slough faces ‘built in loss’ of £22m from temporary accommodation costs

Temporary accommodation in Slough has a ‘built in loss’ forecast to reach £22million this financial year, councillors were told.

An overview and improvement plan for housing demand and temporary accommodation was presented at a Slough Council cabinet meeting on Monday (November 17).

Slough Borough Council has a statutory duty to provide temporary accommodation to its residents. Currently, the borough provides services to over 2,800 homeless households.

The report said that, as of September this year, the forecast spend on temporary accommodation was £34.8million per year.

Pat Hayes, the council’s executive director for regeneration, housing and environment, said that temporary accommodation will inevitably have a ‘built in loss’ of money.

For this financial year, the loss is forecast to be £22million because of the housing benefits Slough Borough Council is unable to claim back.

Mr Hayes said: “The main problem driving the financial shortfall, of course, is that the rate at which we can claim [money] back from the Government is set at 2011 prices.

“The only way we can bring that down at the moment is by reducing the number of people that we’re happy to pay rent for.”

The main reason people become homeless in the borough is that they are evicted from the rented sector.

But Mr Hayes believed that the Renters’ Rights Bill should help control the number of people entering temporary accommodation.

He said: “When the legislation comes into effect next year, it will become a lot harder to evict tenants and our flow in should become less.”

Councillor Robert Stedmond (Con, Cippenham Green) agreed and said that the factors driving homelessness are ‘out of our control’.

He said: “We have a statutory duty to house [people] yet the pressures driving homelessness are largely outside the council’s control. Demand is rising nationwide.

“This level of demand combined with high rental costs has made a temporary accommodation budget that is placing a critical strain on our sustainability.”

Cllr Ejaz Ahmed (Con, Slough Central) said the council needs to move from ‘catching up’ to ‘delivering’ more temporary accommodation.

Mr Hayes said: “We now have a very small number of people in B&Bs, which previously was a historic problem for the council; that’s the root cause of the problem.

“The challenge is moving people who we’ve accepted quite rightly [in temporary accommodation] out.

“The only way you can move them out is to either get them into employment so they can afford to pay private rent or find them something in the private sector which they can afford.”

The report said that more temporary accommodation is being built to work towards the council’s target of reducing the number of people in temporary accommodation to 900 by 2030.

Garrick House – one such development mentioned in the report – is expected to bring between 10 and 15 homes into use every year from 2026/27 onwards. By 2030, it could deliver up to 75 homes.

Cllr Paul Kelly (Con, Haymill) said: “Bearing in mind the urgency and the situation that we find ourselves in, I think possibly reporting [about temporary accommodation] every six months isn’t good enough.”

Cllr Dexter Smith (Con, Colnbrook and Poyle), the leader of the council, agreed and said he would feel ‘comfortable’ with an increased frequency of reporting.