News, Politics

‘It is frustrating the lessons don’t last’: Outgoing boss of Nottingham homelessness charity reflects on 30 years in post

By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter

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“Eventually we will learn again – but it is frustrating the lessons do not last.”

Andrew Redfern, the outgoing chief executive of Nottingham homelessness  support charity Framework, has this to say when asked to sum up the history of the city’s rise in the number of people sleeping rough.

Reflecting on almost 30 years in his post ahead of his retirement in December, Mr Redfern said he once witnessed homelessness in Nottinghamshire – and the wider region – almost solved through preventative work.

“Things do go in cycles and there was a period between about 2000 and 2010 when services were improving, when the system was becoming more together and rational,” he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Mr Redfern put this down to the £1.8bn Supporting People programme, launched by Tony Blair’s Labour Government in 2003, which helped keep vulnerable people in their own homes, out of worsening crises, and ultimately away from costlier public services.

But in 2010, under the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition, the funding began to be slashed.

Around the same time the ring-fence for the funding was removed, allowing councils to spend the money in other areas they believed to be under greater pressure.

“In 2010 austerity hit and at first it was a massive shock,” Mr Redfern added.

“There were some huge initial cuts, particularly to prevention work. And since [Covid] it has progressively gone down hill.”

According to Nottingham City Council’s new homelessness strategy, published towards the end of 2024, 739 different people were found rough sleeping in the city throughout the year, while the annual street count shows 56 people have been found sleeping rough each night on average.

Not only this, but the number of households in temporary accommodation has increased significantly by 122 per cent from a snapshot of 349 households in in the 12 months to April 2020 to 776 households in the 12 months to April 2024.

Mr Redfern said the cause of the sharp rise in people becoming homeless – or facing homelessness – is predominantly down to the cutting of preventative work.

He emphasised this is because it can take several years before any impact is seen.

As successive governments and councils hurry to make clear change over short, four-year terms, it is often preventative services that are put under the axe first.

“There is a bit of a tendency to think services like ours are used by people who just happen to have got homeless for a while,” Mr Redfern continued.

“I think not understanding in many, many cases there are quite severe mental health or addiction issues, often with some very long-standing roots.

“The depth of psychological issues people face is not understood.

“There is a culture that is created by scarcity because everyone is working to a budget, and actually the easiest thing to do is avoid that responsibility.

“But that does waste resources. One of the things that happened in austerity and has really continued is that we have gradually, gradually de-funded supported housing and housing-related support.

“The impact has taken a long time to show, but it has actually shown in things like people not being able to be discharged from hospital.

“People turn up at A&E again and again and again because they are in distress and there is nowhere else for them to go.

“Too many people are in prison because, actually, they are suffering from mental health problems. They are not hardened criminals, they are just people who need to be looked after.

“In the end, there are bigger costs, there is more trauma, and I’ve got that 30 year view and I’ve seen those cycles.”

In the late 1990s, when he was a director at Nottingham Help the Homeless Association (NHHA), Mr Redfern was an architect of a merger with Macedon, a similar Nottingham-based charity, which resulted in the creation of Framework in 2001.

He described the Supporting People programme as a “significant, forward-looking and adventurous” initiative, and as one of his most notable moments as chief executive of Framework.

“It’s that thing about learning from history, sadly, as the people who were there at the time and remember it, as like me they retire, we lose that knowledge,” he said.

“And we have to learn it all again.”

Framework is now advertising for a new chief executive. Mr Redfern says he now hopes to have a “blank sheet of paper” for some time and spend his time travelling with his wife.

A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson previously told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “We have inherited devastating levels of homelessness, and we are taking action to get back on track to end this issue for good, which is why in the budget we took the total spending on reducing homelessness to nearly £1 billion in 2025/26.

“Reducing social inequalities is also vital to fix this problem. Our balanced and proportionate approach will help us raise the money needed to fix public services so that they can benefit everyone, as well as fund the delivery of up to 5,000 social homes.”

The department said increasing employer National Insurance contributions will raise more than £25 billion to help fund the NHS and protect working people’s payslips from higher taxes.