If one thing should be clear by now, it is that we need a plan to tackle homelessness. Latest figures from the government show that in England alone nearly 15,000 homeless households were registered as homeless in the first quarter of 2016 and are still waiting to be rehoused – a 9% increase on last year.

In addition to that there were an astonishing 71,500 households in temporary accommodation at the end of March 2016. That’s an 11% increase on last year, but a 49% increase on the same period in 2010. (The Chartered Institute of Housing, 2016)

As anyone in local government will know, the duty to adequately accommodate all of those people rests with local authorities. We are under no illusions as to the difficulties faced in meeting those obligations. The question is, will devolution help local authorities, or it will it simply provide another layer of unhelpful bureaucracy that homeless people have to penetrate?

The answer to that question lies in the degree to which local authorities are prepared to work in partnership and pool resources. Here in the West Midlands seven councils have formed the West Midlands Combined Authority. In Greater Manchester the combined authority will comprise ten local authorities. These are large areas with significant housing stock within them. If councils are prepared to work together, combined authorities could look to pool those housing resources and bid to Department Communities Local Government (DCLG) for the power to discharge their homeless duties across the whole combined authority area. This opens up a much wider range of housing options for people who are in desperate need of a home.

But it also makes sense because as part of the devolution deal additional funding is being provided to combined authorities through a strategic housing fund. This will look to ensure that future housing needs are met across whole city regions rather than just in individual council areas. This makes more sense but must inevitably lead to the social housing element of that housing being allocated across the city region too. This will need local councils to work collaboratively if we are to start reducing homelessness.

However, making such a bold move will only truly work if the support is in place to ensure that people can move through the homeless system and not merely be shunted around it. In the early years of this century the UK saw an unprecedented fall in homelessness. From 2003 to 2010 homelessness declined by over 70%, and the number of families in temporary accommodation declined by 37%. Since 2010 we have seen a reversal of those trends. This is not coincidental. In 2003 Supporting People funding was introduced and over the next seven years it transformed homelessness services. Yet every year since 2009/10 we have seen draconian cuts in Supporting People funding as a result of austerity. (The Chartered Institute of Housing, 2016)

But as the figures above demonstrate, this has not saved local councils money. The money they have ‘saved’ in Supporting People grants has simply been diverted towards dealing with the consequences of those cuts. Instead of funding well-resourced services, commissioned on a strategic basis, which local authorities themselves monitor and inspect, vast quantities of money are being paid out (largely to private landlords) for low-quality, temporary accommodation which offers nothing by way of integrated support for highly-vulnerable people.

Again, if local authorities want to deal with this they will have to come together to ensure that homeless services are commissioned strategically across entire combined authority areas – and that these services are properly resourced.

Devolution will release resources, but these are for combined authorities to use strategically, not for individual councils to use to try and prop up ‘business-as-usual’.

Alan Fraser is CEO of YMCA Birmingham