Read the committee’s report here.

Read our submitted evidence here.

We were pleased to see the Senedd Local Government and Housing Committee’s findings on their inquiry into housing support for vulnerable People (May 2025.) The recommendations and conclusions made reflect our own evidence to the committee.  

The committee’s findings support the need for continued HSG ringfencing, for greater evidence to be drawn from services around front-line pressures, for an evaluation of large-scale supported accommodation, and for commissioning practices to better support multi-agency support.  

We’re particularly encouraged to see the committee note the need for an evaluation of large-scale temporary accommodation, and for tenants to be heard within this. We welcome, too, the calls to engage with providers to greater understand front-line pressures.  

We support the committee’s comments around the difficulties with moving people on from temporary accommodation, and also the conclusion that the Welsh Government should conduct an independent evaluation of large scale, temporary accommodation projects. We have previously stated that such projects, broadly adopted, would not be a safe development, and that this would run counter to the principles of rapid rehousing. We also welcome the committee’s conclusion that there is a need for good practice models for young people’s accommodation with affordable rents. 

We would like to state again the need for social housing provision to be increased rapidly and at scale, reducing the need for temporary accommodation. 

The committee has noted that the lack of affordable housing supply is affecting vulnerable people, and that long-term stays in temporary accommodation are actually adding, in the long term, to people’s distress – and therefore, to their support needs. The committee also notes that this situation is worsening the level of pressure on frontline support staff within temporary accommodation; our evidence to the committee highlighted the high levels of burnout seen within staff in these roles. The roles are rewarding but demanding, requiring an almost constant supply of exceptionally talented people to staff them, while staff turnover remains high. This is unsustainable. We look forward to seeing the Welsh Government’s action in response to the Workforce Task and Finish group. 

At this juncture, it is worth restating our concerns around the National Insurance rise and the lack of third-sector exemptions; this makes it more difficult to offer financial stability for staff funding these services; as we and other providers have evidenced, supported accommodation staff can, at times, be at risk of homelessness themselves. As we noted in our evidence, there are still Real Living Wage Accredited commissioners who commission at a level that does not allow services, in turn, to deliver the Real Living Wage to their staff. 

We note the committee’s views on joint-working, and the Cabinet Secretary’s comments on the importance of organisations working together and share data. The need for multi-agency collaboration for a rapid rehousing approach must be met with realistic commissioning deadlines for organisations to effectively collaborate. We welcome the committee’s suggestions that Welsh Government develop effective data sharing protocols to help facilitate multi-agency working. 

It is worth, as ever, restating the importance of continued ringfencing for HSG funding, and we welcome the committee’s comments on this. The funding is what makes the support offered by housing and homelessness services possible. But if we want those services to be sustainable, we need to be able to support the people delivering them, too. 

A safe place to call home is one of the key cornerstones of our mental health. The Welsh Government’s new mental health and wellbeing strategy puts an emphasis on prevention and community resilience; this can only happen if people are provided with the conditions to feel safe, to have a stability in their lives, and to be supported when that safety and stability isn’t there.