Petition For an Independent Review of Camden’s Rough Sleeping Services

We are demanding that Camden Council fulfil its public pledge to carry out an independent review of its rough sleeping services, as agreed on 16 November 2023.

Our well-attended public meeting at St. Michael’s Church on November 16 2023 was graced by the presence of Georgia Gould, Leader of the Council; Jenny Rowland, Chief Executive; Pat Callaghan, Cabinet Member for Safer Communities and Deputy Leader; and several Camden Council officers.

It was agreed, following the events on Huntley Street on November 10, that an independent review of rough sleeping services in the borough should be carried out by an external organisation, not an internal review by Camden Council.

This was also assured to be urgently put in place. Disappointingly it’s now nine months later!

Unless we can truly recognise the problems that may exist within the borough’s rough sleeping services, we can never hope to remedy any issues.

It can be viewed as unethical and unprofessional for a Council to investigate itself as this will naturally accommodate accusations of a lack of impartiality.

Other local boroughs such as Haringey and Islington have engaged external bodies to scrutinise similar situations.

The internal review is due to be presented to the Housing Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday, July 16, 2024, at 6:30 p.m., where we also hope to make a deputation to highlight our concerns.

We encourage you to join us at this meeting to demand an independent review and more urgent support for the borough’s rough sleeping services.

The main outcome of the internal review states:

6.1.1 The review has found that rough sleeping services work well in Camden, despite the scale of the challenge that the services face, with Camden having the second highest number of people who sleep rough in England.

Currently we have 539 signatures.

We need a lot more. Please share the link to this page as widely as possible.

Thank you to all the people who have signed.

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