Local Strategies and Partnerships Are the Key to the National Plan to End Homelessness

By Nick Sedgwick · 27 February 2026

The Government’s new National Plan to End Homelessness, published in December, marks the most ambitious cross‑government commitment to tackling homelessness and rough sleeping in over a decade. It recognises a truth long understood by councils, frontline services, and people with lived experience: homelessness is not inevitable. It is the result of policy choices, structural inequalities, and systems that too often react to crisis rather than prevent it. National leadership matters. The Government has announced a series of policy changes and funding initiatives especially aimed at increasing housing supply including affordable housing. The shortage of suitable housing is fundamental to many of the reasons for the increasing numbers of people whose lives are damaged by homelessness and rough sleeping.

The real test of this plan will be what happens locally. Success will depend on the strength of local strategies, the quality of partnership working, and the ability of councils and services to shift from crisis response to prevention. At ARK we have worked with many local councils and their partners to develop strategies but also to deliver the range of solutions included in those strategies.

The Scale of the Crisis

The plan acknowledges the scale of the crisis: record numbers of households in temporary accommodation, rising rough sleeping, and growing numbers of people discharged from hospitals, prisons, and care into homelessness. It also recognises that councils are trapped in an expensive, unsustainable cycle of emergency response.

What the National Plan Introduces

To break that cycle, the Government is introducing:

• New national targets on prevention, temporary accommodation, and long‑term rough sleeping
• Multi‑year funding to give councils stability and flexibility
• A new duty to collaborate across public services
• A requirement for every council to publish a local homelessness action plan aligned with national outcomes

Strengthening Local Strategies

Local homelessness strategies have often been constrained by short‑term funding, fragmented responsibilities, and limited levers to influence wider public services. The new plan aims to change that by giving councils:

• Longer-term certainty to invest in prevention
• Clearer accountability through local targets
• A stronger mandate to convene partners
• Support to improve temporary accommodation standards and supply

Partnership: The Backbone of Effective Local Plans

Homelessness does not sit neatly within one department or service. It is shaped by health, justice, welfare, education, housing markets, and local economic conditions. That’s why partnership is the backbone of effective local plans.

Effective partnerships will require:

• Shared outcomes
• Clear roles and responsibilities
• Data sharing and joint planning
• Leadership at every level
• Trust and collaboration

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A Turning Point

The National Plan to End Homelessness is ambitious, detailed, and grounded in evidence. But its success will depend on what happens in towns, cities, and communities across the country. If local strategies are strong, prevention‑focused, and co‑produced with partners and people with lived experience, this plan could mark a turning point. ARK Consultancy can bring a wide range of expertise to support local partnerships to develop and deliver the new local action plans. Our projects with clients have included developing supported housing delivery plans and acquiring and improving temporary accommodation.

Get in Touch

We work with councils and their partners to develop and deliver local homelessness action plans.

Contact us today