Speeches by Kane.

“Can I talk about the service modernisation programme, please? It is an 11-year programme moving you from paper-based assessments into the modern, digital world. It is a pretty daunting thing that you are trying to do, and I do not envy the task that you are in the middle of. I am conscious that your own assessment says…”

“Just to push one last time on this, you have described the world that we are aiming for—this wonderful destination that we are heading to—but we still have to navigate the journey to the airport and then get through security. What I am hearing from you is that with this cultural risk, which you have identified as one o…”

“Thank you for clarifying that, but it also means that they are not getting to spend an awful lot on prevention activity.”

“You have talked about the homelessness prevention grant. When I look at paragraphs 3.9 and 15 in the Report, I wonder why local authorities are spending so much of this homelessness prevention grant on temporary accommodation. You have touched on that quite a bit, but I just want to ask that question and then I have a …”

“Now that you have all that information, are you feeding it into a funnel to learn lessons and put them into practice here? Is that all happening, or is it just a talking shop? We have different approaches, and that can be helpful, so are we taking that learning and doing something with it?”

“That is explaining what the ability to talk to one another is; I am just wondering what lessons you have actually learned. What have you got from these discussions with the devolved nations?”

“That does not really give me an answer, but okay. I want to ask about interaction between the devolved Administrations in tackling homelessness. Penny has talked about sharing best practice among local authorities, but what lessons are you learning from the devolved Administrations? How is that all working? There are a…”

“2.12 and 2.13.”

“Sometimes it is important for us to look back. Why has there not been one?”

“As a Scottish MP, and a Scottish council leader until the election, I am used to dealing with this with the Scottish Government through COSLA, so it is interesting to come down and see it with the UK Government. I note that each of the UK devolved Administrations has an overarching homelessness strategy or action plan,…”

“Just as one of the new boys round the table. Could you explain how that works, in terms of when you are coming up with a project plan? It strikes me that, given the complexities of this, you would have at least a basic project plan. Does that exist, with indicative timescales, at the moment?”

“I think it is important to protect the space to fix the dam, as opposed to plugging the dam, which seems to be what is happening an awful lot. I am getting an assurance that you are at least protecting that space for these conversations to happen.”

“How squeezed is this? It is more an opinion that I am asking you for, but how much is the ability to look at prevention being squeezed, given how big the scale of the homelessness problem is?”

““Actively considering” is one thing, but I would imagine that it has been on your radar for a while that the prevention side is getting squeezed. If you are going to incentivise local authorities to do this, the more you incentivise them, the more they will come up with interesting ideas; there are enough of them there…”

“So what can you do to incentivise more prevention activity when they are currently dealing with such a big problem? That is the bit that is getting squeezed.”

“Can I move on to paragraph 1.10 of the Report, which talks about funding in relation to covid-19? This is a general question for Amanda and Julian—a big one at that, I grant you. How well would the NHS cope financially in the event of another pandemic? That is to Amanda, Julian or both of you.”

“You are going from three measurements to five. I am interested in why five is the right number. Also, were the local authorities involved in designing this? What information can they provide now that does not create the additional burden of moving to a different standard? Is there more that we could get more quickly if…”

“How do you ensure greater consistency across schools in identifying children? Is greater consistency possible?”

“Can I pick up on a point you made earlier, when you said that you are working hard to improve data? What does that look like? What is the work that is being done? What is the timescale before you would expect to see improvements in data collection? Can I ask Susan and Jonathan that?”

“It does.”