Drop in Bedford households in temporary accommodation down to "data error"

At this week’s Housing Committee (Wednesday, June 11), Bedford resident Mike Hyden noted a 20 per cent fall in the number of households in temporary accommodation between September and December 2024.

“This is the first significant drop in numbers that I can remember,” he said.

“Is the chair of the housing committee confident that this reduction has been achieved without gatekeeping anyone?

“And could the chair also give an overview of the way in which this reduction has been achieved?”

The chair, councillor Phillippa Martin-Moran-Bryant (Conservative, Great Barford) replied that she was confident the drop had not involved gatekeeping – the illegal practice of denying support to people in housing need.

She said: “Yes, I am confident that it happened without gatekeeping because there’s a further data piece [of work] behind that.”

But Anna Robbani, the council’s head of housing, homelessness and customer services, said while numbers in temporary accommodation do fluctuate throughout the year, the apparent drop was not genuine.

“We have identified an issue with the data that was published in September,” she said.

“We’ve done some work since then to enhance data collection. We’ve actually upgraded our case management system… and completed that in February.

“I can confirm over the last 12 months there has actually been a 10 per cent rise in placement numbers overall.

“So, it’s not a reduction,” she said.

Ms Robbani reiterated that gatekeeping was not part of the council’s approach and stressed the borough had focused on intensive homelessness prevention and relief work instead.

She reported an 18 per cent increase in homelessness prevention cases and a 20 per cent increase in relief cases, where homelessness is resolved after it has already occurred, due to changes in casework and officer training.

“We’re not gatekeeping,” she said. “The reasons that numbers have steadied [are because] we have an intensive programme to prevent homelessness where we can and support homeless [people] to find new homes.”