Social service departments are failing homeless, warns Shelter

Three-quarters of the 28 housing departments surveyed for Shelter's research said they needed better working arrangements with social services to meet the demands of the Homelessness Act.

The Act says social services should help housing departments with their homelessness reviews and strategies, which have to be produced by July.

A spokesman for Shelter said some social services and housing departments were suffering through not sharing information. He said: "Homelessness is not seen as a priority in some social services departments."

He said there were particular communication problems in some two-tier authorities where social services and housing were run by different councils. Some stock transfer authorities did not have enough staff to work on the strategies, he added.

Shelter plans to write to social services departments to encourage them to work more closely with their housing colleagues.

Shelter's report recommended that the government tell social services departments how to work with housing departments to implement the Homelessness Act, and give councils more help with their reviews and strategies.

Shelter's warning comes hot on the heels of an Audit Commission report (HT 30 January, page 10) that said local authority performance on homelessness was "disappointing". It was also just a week after the Victoria Climbié inquiry found that the failure of police, health, housing and social services departments to work together had contributed to Climbié's death. Lord Laming's report on the case urged that joint working between departments be covered in housing training programmes.

David Behan, president of the Association of Directors of Social Services, said some housing and social services departments had joint teams to work with vulnerable people. "I think that shows the way forward," he said.

Shelter plans to do two more reports before July 2003, including work on allocations practices.