Interim housing for thousands of rough sleepers taken off the streets during the pandemic is to be provided, ministers have announced.

The additional £105 million will be used to support rough sleepers and those at risk of homelessness into tenancies of their own, including through help with deposits for accommodation, and securing thousands of alternative rooms already available and ready for use, such as student accommodation.

The funding unveiled today takes the total amount provided this year by government to support rough sleepers and those on the brink of becoming homeless to over half a billion pounds.

The government-led drive has brought together councils, charities, the private hospitality sector and community groups with the joint aim of protecting some of the most vulnerable people in society from Covid-19, and helping them turn around their lives and get them off the streets for good. It has come during one of the most challenging periods we have ever faced as a nation.

The announcement comes as plans to provide 6,000 long-term, safe homes continue at pace, to ensure the work being done to take society’s most vulnerable off the streets during the pandemic has a lasting impact.

Last month, the government unveiled transformative plans to support thousands of rough sleepers currently housed in emergency accommodation to move on to more sustainable, long-term housing, with 3,300 additional supported homes to be provided this year.

A further £16 million is also being provided so that vulnerable people currently in emergency accommodation can access they specialist help they need for substance misuse issues, in order to rebuild their lives and move towards work and education.

Housing Secretary, Rt Hon Robert Jenrick MP said:

In recent months, I have seen a huge effort across the country to keep almost 15,000 vulnerable people off the streets. This has been vital to ensure their safety during the peak of the pandemic and has changed the lives of thousands for the better.

The additional funding announced today will allow us to continue to support these individuals – giving them access to the accommodation and support they need now while we continue with plans to deliver thousands of long-term homes in the coming months.

Together, this takes the funding provided by Government for vulnerable rough sleepers and those at risk of becoming homeless to over half a billion this year – an unprecedented commitment as we move towards ending rough sleeping for good.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Steve Barclay MP said:

It’s vital we do everything we can to support the most vulnerable people in society – especially during challenging times like these. 

This funding will not only mean that thousands of rough sleepers continue to have a roof over their head, but it also provides a platform to unlock new opportunities to improve their lives for the better.

Chair of the Covid19 Rough Sleeping Taskforce, Dame Louise Casey said:

’Everyone in’ has been an extraordinary effort from councils, charities and many others to provide a safe haven for almost 15,000 homeless people who were either on the streets or at risk of rough sleeping during this Covid-19 pandemic. I want to thank again the hotels and other providers who have opened their doors to some of the most vulnerable people in society at this most difficult time

We now have an extraordinary opportunity to help keep them in and turn their lives around if we get the next steps right. I am clear that there can now be no going back to the streets as people begin to move on from the emergency accommodation that has been put in place.

The government is committed to ending rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament, and has taken unprecedented steps to protect thousands of vulnerable rough sleepers and those at risk of becoming homeless through the pandemic, including:

• Working collaboratively across government, and with councils, health providers and charities, to offer emergency accommodation to almost 15,000 vulnerable people known to councils at the beginning of the pandemic;
• Accelerating plans to put in place over 6,000 new supported homes as a landmark commitment to end rough sleeping – backed by  £433 million of government funding – with 3,300 of these becoming available in the next 12 months;
• An initial £3.2 million given to councils at the beginning of the pandemic so they could take immediate action to support rough sleepers off the streets, and a further £3.2 billion of additional funding to help with the immediate pressures councils are facing
• The creation of the new Rough Sleeping Taskforce – led by Dame Louise Casey – which will lead the next phase of the government’s support for rough sleepers during the pandemic.

These figures are for England only but would result in up to £19.8 million of Barnett consequentials for the devolved administrations.

The £105 million is made up of £85 million of new funding from HMT and £20 million from refocusing existing homelessness and rough sleeping budgets.

The additional £16 million for substance misuse is money already announced but brought forward due to the challenges of the pandemic. This takes the total funding for substance misuse this year to £23 million.

In April the Communities Secretary appointed Dame Louise Casey to spearhead a specialist taskforce to lead the next phase of the government’s support for rough sleepers during the pandemic.

The taskforce is working hand-in-hand with councils, charities, faith groups and other partners across the country on plans to ensure rough sleepers can move into safe accommodation once the immediate crisis is over.

The taskforce is also ensuring that the thousands of rough sleepers now in accommodation continue to receive the physical and mental health support they need over the coming weeks and months.

As a Chartered Mechanical Engineer, Hannah Kozich could comfortably be a role model for women contemplating a career in engineering.

In the early 1980s, LLW Repository Ltd’s current Head of Strategy was a rarity when she opted to go down the same engineering route as her late father, with the full support of her mother.

Late into a darkened lecture theatre on a university engineering faculty open day, Hannah found that, when the lights went up, she was the only woman in a room of 40 males.

“We had six women out of 65 on my course at Durham, and that was a lot compared to many other universities,” she recalled.

Hannah, speaking on International Women in Engineering Day, believes that her degree, and a decade spent in engineering roles, equipped her well for her subsequent career outside the profession.

“An engineering degree is hard work, but it’s great to have,” she said. “I haven’t worked as an engineer for some time, but the way I work now in many ways is a result of having trained and worked as an engineer. It’s a great all round way of growing your brain, of structuring how you think.”

Managing a team of up to 50 men and 100 subcontractors on a project to complete a submarine lifting facility at the Royal Navy base at Faslane was just one of many highlights for Hannah, who, armed with a First Class Honours degree, found little trouble breaking into engineering.

But it’s only in the last decade that she has started to see many more women in industrial roles.

“When I went to work at Sellafield I saw women in shop floor, technical and managerial roles and thought, this is really good,” she said.

“It was the first place I had worked where I was not in a significant minority as a woman. There were still few women in senior management roles, but that is starting to change.

“All the work being done by LLWR and the NDA on ED&I (Equality, Diversity & Inclusion) makes you more conscious of the positive changes that are happening. But there’s still a long way to go.”

Good afternoon, and thanks for giving me the opportunity to close this Roadmap to Recovery summit.

One of the best things about the Cluster Group is that its members truly reflect the full length and breadth of the United Kingdom’s sprawling tech sector – covering the Highlands and Islands all the way down to Cornwall.

As you’re keenly aware, it’s not all about London, so it’s great to see all of our regions represented here today.

I also know that you’re doing some great work to help tech communities across the country bounce back from COVID, and to use tech more broadly to help your own regional economies recover from the pandemic.

Coronavirus has fundamentally altered our lives and the role that tech plays within it.

Of course it’s turbocharged the digital transformation of almost every part of our days – of our workplaces, our businesses, the way we shop and stay in touch with family, and the way we use public services.

To take a couple of examples, almost half of the UK’s workforce now works from home, and I know many many businesses up and down the country intend to keep it that way.

Remote doctor’s appointments, virtually unheard of before COVID, now it’s become the norm.

At the same time, coronavirus has delivered a sucker punch to our economy – and we really need tech to get us back on our feet. We’re already dusting ourselves off, you’ve seen the announcements from the Prime Minister today, we are getting back into action by slowly reopening parts of the economy.

But to truly get back up and running, we really need tech to power us out of what inevitably and sadly will be a recession and into recovery.

To get us that V-shaped recovery we so desperately want and need to quickly bounce out of this recession, this needs to be done both through the industry’s own growth, but also by helping more traditional industries in order to adapt, survive and indeed thrive.

This is particularly true in a time of social distancing, when many businesses will be forced to change their ways of working.

So we’re living in a different world, and one that requires a different focus. Tech must play a leading part in our recovery, and my department has been working hard over the past few weeks and indeed months to put it in the best possible position to do so.

Of course one of the great things about the UK is that we are a nation of innovators, a nation of entrepreneurs and a nation of inventors, and our tech industry is already very strong.

Many of you already know that we are third globally, only behind the U.S. and China, and consistently outperforming the rest of Europe. But I want us not to be complacent but build on that strength.

With that in mind and during this ‘Rebuilding the UK’ event, I can announce that the government will be publishing a new digital strategy in the Autumn – one that reflects the new post-COVID reality.

Now I know we’ve had previous digital strategies before and they’ve addressed all kinds of important questions and challenges for the tech industry. Such as how to build 21st century digital infrastructure or how to make the UK the safest place to go online

These are all still important questions, and must continue to form a central part of all Government thinking on digital.

Right now, our clear priority must be growth. Using tech to power us out of the recession, to drive productivity and create jobs in all parts of the industry, region by region, and indeed all parts of our economy.

With offices closed and shops shuttered during the crisis, tech has kept our economy ticking over. But now, as we enter recovery, tech will put a fresh load of fuel in the tank, driving a new era of growth.

So what are some of the key areas we’ll need to consider? What might spark a digital drive for growth?

First It means securing adequacy and creating the best data regime possible. One that allows businesses and public services of all shapes and sizes to use and share vital information quickly, efficiently and ethically, as they have during the pandemic.

We’ve seen during this pandemic huge improvements in how data has been used and I want that spirit of innovation and the urgency of change to be one of the positive legacies that we now take forward. And our forthcoming National Data Strategy will reflect that desire.

It also means looking at ways to build a highly-skilled digital workforce across every region of the UK, so that people can shift into the digital or tech sectors or indeed digitise their own businesses.

We know the GI bill gave American veterans the skills and qualifications to move into new areas of work after World War Two, helping them to readjust to civilian life. Likewise, we similarly need a strategy that will help workers here adjust to a digital-led economy after coronavirus.

It means providing world-class, next generation infrastructure in, so that everyone can take those advantages and those opportunities wherever they live – for example using their 5G network to launch the next killer app.

It means ensuring our regulatory regime for digital is pro-competitive, pro-innovation, agile, and proportionate. We must avoid unnecessary layers of regulations and ensure we have a coherent and consistent approach to drive growth.

It means getting the UK’s best small and medium-sized shops and businesses – stretching from Lands End to John O’Groats – making better use of tech and trading online, expanding their customer base from the local high street or retail park to a national or indeed even international marketplace.

Turnover for small and medium sized businesses has risen by a third on eBay during lockdown. It won’t surprise you that three-quarters of those who trade on eBay are from outside London and the South East and that once you adjust the figures for population, several regions rank higher than London and the South East for ‘digital density’.

But I want to see even more of them online. I want a wave of new micro-multinationals across the UK.

I know Amazon is today launching its Small Business Accelerator, which will help more than 250,000 businesses digitise their services, and through an intensive boot camp will get at least 1000 offline firms trading online within a week. Now that’s exactly the kind of approach I want to see.

And all of this means pushing for ambitious trade deals that will expand digital exports and drive inward investment for all our tech communities.

Now, these are clearly lots of different aims, but they all contribute to the same thing, that same goal: driving growth and creating jobs.

I’ll be seeking ideas from civil society, charities and the wider public, so that they can fully benefit from this digitally-led recovery.

Maybe a charity will have an innovative idea about how they’d like to use data to target support exactly where it’s needed.

Or maybe a small business in Southend or Hexham will lay out exactly what barriers they face to get trading online, and how we can help remove them.

But most importantly, I need all of your help – the guidance of the tech industry itself – to shape our new approach, so that the strategy reflects your needs and the changes you most want to see in the coming years.

You might be a health-tech company in Oxford who knows how much can be achieved by sharing real-time, high-quality medical information.

Or you might be dreaming of becoming the next Wordnerds – Gateshead’s AI start-up sensation but you are struggling to find people in your area with the right skills you need.

I particularly want to talk to the people here today, the grassroots tech communities in all of our regions – in Edinburgh and Cardiff and Brighton and Birmingham – so that we can power growth and productivity across the whole of our United Kingdom.

I know that when a lot of people speak about driving growth in tech, they’re thinking only of London and the South-East. I’m determined to change that.

When it’s published, our new digital strategy will form one of the building blocks of our recovery. A recovery that will be tech-led, but will benefit all.

Thank you very much for your time.

The deadline to submit CRM12 applications for slots on the October 2020 rota is 13 July 2020 at 11.59pm.

The police station duty rota will run for the usual 6 months. But there will be a 3-month court duty solicitor rota which will end on Sunday, 10 January 2021.

Why is it a 3-month court duty rota?

We want to ensure that the Legal Aid Agency can respond flexibly to the changing situation as we move from the COVID-19 (coronavirus) period.

This means that when the October court duty rota expires we will run another one from 11 January to 31 March 2020.

Membership on this second court duty rota period will be based on the October 2020 rota.

Completing CRM12s

Organisations wishing to make amendments to their existing rota membership must submit a fully completed CRM12 by 13 July.

This should detail all the duty solicitors which providers wish to add or remove from rotas starting 1 October 2020.

Details of duty solicitors currently on the rotas can be found in the members’ lists which are published on GOV.UK – see below.

Providers submitting a CRM12 for a new duty solicitor will need to provide a copy of their Criminal Litigation Accreditation Scheme (CLAS) certificate. But, strictly for the October 2020 rota only, we are making exceptional arrangements for the CLAS requirement.

This means providers may submit a CRM12 for duty solicitor candidates unable to complete CLAS accreditation for the 13 July deadline because of COVID-19.

Guidance on the process that will be followed for these applications is set out in the October 2020 duty rotas document, published alongside the CRM12 form.

Concerns relating to COVID-19

We are aware of concerns relating to COVID-19 and duty solicitor compliance. We can confirm the situation is being monitored. We will continue to act reasonably and proportionally when reviewing compliance.

The LAA will not act against those who are unable to reasonably meet the requirements for duty compliance. Our approach is set out in the guidance in the October 2020 duty rotas document.

Those who are currently furloughed will be able to maintain membership of duty schemes, a record of which should be kept by the provider.

Further information

CRM12: duty solicitor application when moving firm – form

Email crm12@justice.gov.uk to submit CRM12 applications by 13 July 2020

Duty solicitors: rotas, information and guidance – for members’ lists showing duty solicitors currently on rotas