Agenda item

Report of the Director of Adults, Health, and Communities. To be introduced by Cabinet Member for Housing Services, Private Renters, and Planning.

Approval will be sought for short-term meanwhile use of Osborne Grove Nursing Home to change from temporary accommodation to the Rough Sleeper Night Shelter and SWEP (severe weather emergency protocol) accommodation. There will be a further decision on Insourcing the Rough Sleeping Night Shelter support provision.

The Cabinet Member for Housing, Private Renters and Planning introduced the report, emphasising the challenges faced by people experiencing homelessness and the borough's commitment to ending street homelessness. The report highlighted the need for high-quality supported accommodation to help vulnerable individuals rebuild their lives. A night shelter was seen as a crucial step towards achieving this goal, aligning with Haringey's ambition to provide quality services that meet the needs of residents facing street homelessness. The Cabinet Member stated that Haringey Council would now be delivering this service directly for the first time.

Councillor Emery asked if there was a long-term plan for the service to relocate if the Osborne Grove redevelopment proceeds. The Cabinet Member responded that there were existing commitments concerning the site and highlighted the opportunity for thorough evaluation within the two-year timeframe that this decision provided.

Further to considering exempt information at items 29,

RESOLVED

1. To approve the meanwhile use of Osborne Grove Nursing Home, 16 Upper Tollington Park, N4 3EL, as a night shelter to be delivered by Haringey Council, starting in April 2024 until March 2025, whilst options for the long-term use of the building and site are subject to further consideration.

2. To terminate the current DLUHC ring-fenced funded Thames Reach Ltd contract and to bring the night shelter service provision in-house.

Reasons for decision

The London Borough of Haringey is committed to utilising assets in a way that dynamically and flexibly responds to need. The use of Osborne Grove as supported housing commenced in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Government’s Everyone In directive to accommodate everyone at risk of rough sleeping. This was a valuable, positive and cost-effective use of the building, and the service was mobilised at pace to minimise any risk of transmission in this vulnerable cohort.

London Borough of Haringey was awarded £3,871,429 in the Rough Sleeping Initiative 2022 – 2025 (See Appendix 2). Of this £1,194,188 of this provision was awarded on the basis of the borough providing a night shelter. Thames Reach were identified as a partner organisation in the original report approved by Cabinet Member on 22/8/22 and due to them delivering the existing Haringey Street Outreach Team, it was felt that it made sense for them to also deliver the night shelter accommodation. An additional £230,000 was awarded to fund the fit out of a suitable building as a night shelter. The previously identified building at the Clarendon Recovery College did not become available within the required timeframe and the Council was then unable to meet this commitment. Due to the delay there was a significant risk that the Council would not be in a position to deliver a night shelter at all, which could have led to the council being asked to return the grant. Instead, approval was sought from DLUHC to deliver the service in another building and change from a commissioned provider model to self-delivery. Written confirmation was received from DLUHC on 22/01/24 to proceed on that basis. (See Appendix 3)

Over the course of the last year the borough has seen a significant increase in the number of people rough sleeping, with numbers on the streets not seen since 2018. The Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) considers Haringey a borough of concern due to the higher number of people rough sleeping when compared with boroughs of a similar size. Repurposing the existing service as a night shelter would create nearly 35 beds of off the street accommodation, giving a safe and stable accommodation option whilst work is done to identify appropriate move on into other pathway accommodation services.

The Osborne Grove building is currently in meanwhile use as a supported accommodation service and already has a team in place. This proposal ensures that there is no gap in provision for people experiencing single homelessness while discussions are held on the long-term use of the building and the cohort it should accommodate. The Capital Projects and Property Team have confirmed that there is no other alternative meanwhile use of the building. It is considered that there will not be a longer term application deliverable over the proposed meanwhile use period. This request has also been considered using the Corporate Property Model’s Asset Performance Assessment.

The benefit of delivering the service in-house will be a streamlined recruitment process. Osborne Grove already has the majority of a staff team in place, though there are some vacant posts that would be filled by any TUPE’d staff. The TUPE liability only applies to two members of staff within Thames Reach. The team at Osborne Grove are already familiar with the client group, as well as having an excellent grasp of existing Council processes and services. Additionally, they have an understanding of the wider supported accommodation pathway and move on options, which is fundamental to delivering a successful night shelter. What’s more, delivering the service in house will ensure enhanced continuity of support to those accommodated temporarily in the night shelter as they move on into more settled forms of accommodation provided by the Borough.

The Housing Related Support Team would be able to deliver the service for comparable staffing costs as Thames Reach but with the additional benefits of being able to repurpose additional funds to add an additional case coordinator to the team. It would also prevent the loss of an experienced staff team and the additional liability of severance pay.

Delivering the service in-house is income generating for the Council through the collection of rent and service charges. These projections are shown in Appendix 1. - Part B (exempt information). We have confirmed with Haringey Benefits Service that the change of use of the building would allow it to be classified as an LA Hostel as defined by HB Regulations 2006. Under those regulations there are three criteria that must be satisfied for the building to be classified as a LA Hostel: (a) the building comprises non-self-contained accommodation and is not a care home, (b) the service either provides food or has adequate facilities for the preparation of food, and (c) the claimant receives care, support, or supervision that is “more than minimal”. The proposed scheme would satisfy all these criteria. Moreover, the council would cease to be capped to 2011 level of Local Housing Allowance (LHA).

The Rough Sleeping Initiative (RSI) additional grant of £230,000 will be part spent on essential repairs and maintenance in advance of the building opening and during running. It is currently estimated that we will spend approximately £60,000 for building mobilisation. Any balance remaining from the £230,000 element of the grant can be transferred to form part of the services revenue funding. The modelling of this is contained in Appendix 1. This offers value over continuing to commission the service which would incur additional costs around staffing that would use the whole of the available grant but not generate any surplus which would be used to offset maintenance costs in the building, or alternately where the lease was to cover maintenance, would likely require additional funding from the council. This is currently not identified. Insourcing this service would align with the council policy of insourcing services where it makes sense to do so.

This option is cost neutral to the Council. Ring-fenced grant funding is available via the Rough Sleeping Initiative to deliver a night shelter at Osborne Grove until March 2025. It’s very likely that this grant funding would continue to be made available after March 2025. Haringey have a track record of successfully delivering services as a result of grant funding allocations, and it is important that we are able to deliver a night shelter following the inability to deliver a service at the Clarendon Hub due to delays at Canning Crescent which was supposed to have been ready to allow the decant of the services based at the Clarendon Hub which would in turn allow building works at Clarendon to start. The issues at Canning Cresent are still to be resolved which has led to the Housing Related Support (HRS) service considering alternative buildings. As a result of the short-term nature of the funding and proposed use to March 2025, we do not think any alternative meanwhile use could be operationalised in a way or timescale that would be beneficial to the Council. DLUHC have confirmed in writing that there would be no impact on the grant awarded if LBOH took the decision to insource this service complying with Annex D of the grant terms & conditions.

If the building were to be emptied and remain empty until the next use was determined there would be a cost associated with building security as well as the continued cost of building compliance works. This cost is hard to specify and would depend on the level of security needed. A conservative estimate for this would involve once daily visits by a mobile security operative and Sitex on the ground floor doors and windows which would cost approximately £33,560 per annum. This would increase significantly if the first-floor windows were covered too. These figures are based on publicly available information and information provided by the councils preferred security firm.

The current shortage of affordable nightly paid accommodation in the Borough has resulted in additional financial pressures for the Council. This forms the rationale for the proposed £3.0m growth in budget for Temporary Accommodation in 2024/25 as brought to Cabinet in December 2023. Delivery of a night shelter at Osborne Grove whilst it does not form part of that growth, a night shelter will, however, help to alleviate demand for short-term temporary accommodation including commercial hotels for single adults.

A Night Shelter provision at Osborne Grove would allow us to accommodate people who currently have No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF). Haringey currently has a very high proportion of people rough sleeping with NRPF. Often, this cohort has significant mental or physical health needs which are unmet while street homeless. When left street homeless for months or years, these needs tend to escalate and often this results in pressure on expensive services elsewhere in the NHS or Council, including on Adult Social Care. There is strong evidence to show that those who are brought into accommodation are quickly supported to regularise their status and source appropriate accommodation.

Alternative options considered.

Cabinet could choose to not agree with the request for the repurposing of Osborne Grove. This would likely result in the building continuing in its current use as supported accommodation, but this would explicitly mean that the council continues to lack appropriate off the street accommodation for people rough sleeping in the borough and would also potentially lead to DLUHC asking for the awarded grant money to be returned. This could also cause some reputational damage with DLUHC as Haringey has already been flagged as a borough of concern due to the number of people rough sleeping and there would be challenging questions as to why we chose not to make use of an existing building and awarded grant in a way that could positively impact this.

Cabinet could choose not to bring in-house the commissioned Thames Reach night shelter service. The quote received from Thames Reach would be met by the grant but does not include the cost of maintenance. These costs would likely continue to be met by LBOH or a negotiation would need to take place with Thames Reach about these costs being met by them. This would take some time and adds a risk of the delivery date slipping significantly. As there would be no TUPE obligations on Thames Reach if they were to start delivering the night shelter out of Osborne Grove it would likely lead to job losses in the existing team at Osborne Grove and acting as an experience drain in a situation where a new team would need to get up to speed quickly around the different processes and accommodation options in the borough. Generally, embedding a new service takes between 3-6 months, which would leave only 6 months remaining on the contract. There would also be challenges around decanting the existing building to a fixed handover date which would add additional pressure to the pathway which is already near capacity.

The Council could choose to continue using The Shelton Hotel as off the street accommodation. Accommodation provision in commercial hotel accommodation offers less than optimal value for money and can impact on health, wellbeing and support outcomes for residents. In addition, the lack of dedicated office space for support staff on site and the layout of the building makes delivering support difficult. In comparison, the cost to accommodate 15 people at any time in the Shelton Hotel would allow the council to offer 35 bedspaces in Osborne Grove. There are also significant community and police concerns around anti-social behaviour (ASB) emanating from the hotel and its commercial function. It is in the Council’s interest to cease use of Shelton Hotel at the earliest opportunity.