Ms Niamh Randall:

It is important to have specialist housing providers working with people who have high-level needs, but there is also an importance in ring-fencing resources from general housing providers in the longer term for people leaving homelessness who might have high-level needs. In such situations we can have models such as the social rental agency model with a three-way relationship between the tenant, landlord and an organisation providing support.

Dr. Michelle Norris of the Housing Finance Agency, HFA, came before the committee earlier this week and she spoke about the fact that local authorities currently cannot borrow from the HFA. This avenue should be explored with regard to finance for local authorities to ensure they can build more.