The Homeless Reduction Act came in to force in April 2018 at the same time the MinDepartment for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) introduced new reporting requirements to monitor the impact of this new legislation.
DLUHC want to collect much more information on households who have become homeless to better understand:
- the reasons people become homeless
- a person’s housing history and journey
- what support needs homeless households have
- how homeless households link with other public services and / or the benefits system
In order to identity individuals under H-CLIC we are now required to provide more information such as a person’s name. Information provided is kept confidential at all times and the researchers analysing the data will not know whose information they are looking at.
It is also guaranteed that any information provided for the H-CLIC reporting will not affect or impact on any other services and will not be used to try and identify fraud.
If you make an application for assistance you will be advised by your casework that your information will be recorded and provided as part of the H-CLIC requirements.
You can refuse to share information as part of H-CLIC, but it is not possible to give clients a full assessment or service without keeping records, collecting detailed information and making appropriate enquiries.
For more information please see homelessness statistics on the GOV.UK website.