The establishment of the Rough Sleeping Support Service (RSSS) was announced as part of the Government\u2019s Rough Sleeping Strategy in August 2018. The RSSS was set up to act as a central point of contact for local
authorities to help them to establish the immigration status of non-UK national rough sleepers and for the Home Office to prioritise any outstanding immigration cases, which might unlock entitlement to support and enable them to get off the streets. The service is not an enforcement approach but the Home Office may consider action on a case-by-case basis where individuals have exhausted all other avenues and are unwilling to leave the UK voluntarily. This is in line with existing immigration law.<\/p>
Removals of non-UK rough sleepers cannot be disaggregated in the published statistics on the removal of those without lawful status. It is also not possible to directly attribute removals to interaction with the RSSS because a range of factors will have affected how decisions were reached in these cases. A person\u2019s removal from the UK is determined by their immigration status and circumstances, including unwillingness to depart voluntarily, not by contact with the RSSS.<\/p>
The Home Office has engaged with a wide range of local authorities and charities in and outside of London to explain how the RSSS can assist with swift immigration status checks, help those here lawfully to evidence this fact to unlock access to support and assist with those who wish to leave the UK.<\/p>
Most of the cases referred to the RSSS have been internal referrals from within the Home Office. We have been developing processes to ensure all data sharing with other organisations is fully GDPR-compliant. This includes the requirement to ensure that rough sleepers are advised and informed about the possible use of their information by the Home Office.<\/p>
The RSSS is a mixed grade team of fewer than five staff, none of whom is from Border Force. It does not undertake any enforcement action. It has an administrative role, conducting status checks, identifying cases for
prioritisation and ensuring that other parts of the Home Office are able to provide assistance to those who require evidence of their lawful status or assistance in leaving the UK.<\/p>
The Home Office assigned existing staff to the RSSS team and no extra resources were required.<\/p>"} , "answeringMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4048", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Caroline Nokes"} } , "answeringMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Romsey and Southampton North"} , "answeringMemberPrinted" : {"_value" : "Caroline Nokes"} , "dateOfAnswer" : {"_value" : "2019-07-11", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "groupedQuestionUIN" : [{"_value" : "274615"} , {"_value" : "274617"} , {"_value" : "274618"} , {"_value" : "274619"} ], "isMinisterialCorrection" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "questionFirstAnswered" : [{"_value" : "2019-07-11T14:31:26.45Z", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} ]} , "answeringDeptId" : {"_value" : "1"} , "answeringDeptShortName" : {"_value" : "Home Office"} , "answeringDeptSortName" : {"_value" : "Home Office"} , "date" : {"_value" : "2019-07-08", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "hansardHeading" : {"_value" : "Sleeping Rough"} , "houseId" : {"_value" : "1"} , "legislature" : [{"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/terms/25259", "prefLabel" : {"_value" : "House of Commons"} } ], "questionText" : "To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which charities his Department has consulted in developing the Rough Sleeper Support Service.", "registeredInterest" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "tablingMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4656", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Layla Moran"} } , "tablingMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Oxford West and Abingdon"} , "tablingMemberPrinted" : [{"_value" : "Layla Moran"} ], "uin" : "274616"} ], "itemsPerPage" : 10, "page" : 0, "startIndex" : 1, "totalResults" : 1, "type" : ["http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#ListEndpoint", "http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#Page"]} }