Camden Council is set to recommission its Rough Sleeping Outreach Service, formerly known as Routes Off the Street (RTS), to provide continuous support for the borough's homeless population. The decision was discussed at a Housing Scrutiny Committee meeting on Tuesday 15 July 2025, where a procurement strategy for the service was outlined.

In 2024, the single night figure for rough sleepers in Camden increased by 9%, from 121 to 131, according to the Camden Rough Sleeping Outreach Service Cabinet Report. The recommissioned service aims to reduce this number across Camden.

The current contract for the service, which assists people rough sleeping in Camden to access housing and support, is due to expire on 31 March 2026. The recommissioned service will run for 72 months, with an estimated total value of £10,416,000, including extensions, according to the Camden Rough Sleeping Outreach Service Cabinet Report.

The strategy recommends maintaining the current service model with specific changes and additions. These include:

  • Increased resourcing to provide additional support roles
  • Provision of essential services such as food
  • Alternative hub opening times to best meet the needs of people rough sleeping
  • An increased focus on person-centred, psychologically informed and strength-based models of support
  • Increased responsibility to achieve positive outcomes for the Target Priority Group of people who have been sleeping rough and are considered to be most vulnerable and have complex needs, often with a long history of rough sleeping
  • Support with rough sleeping prevention for those with accommodation provision that they are not occupying (eg. in adult pathway services)
  • Dedicated women only provision at the hub.

An open procedure, in accordance with the Procurement Act 2023, will be used to procure the service. This involves a competitive process where the opportunity will be publicly advertised to allow various suppliers to submit bids. The process will incorporate responses to service specific scenarios, rota and staffing structures, the approach to equality, diversity and inclusion, and lived experience involvement. The tender award criteria will include both price (30%) and quality (70%), with quality encompassing service outcomes, partnership working, equality, diversity, and inclusion, continuous improvement, workforce considerations, social value, service user involvement, and building environment suitability.

The recommissioning aims to address recommendations made in the Review of Rough Sleeping Services from July 2024, including:

  • Developing a fully costed proposal for an optimum rough sleeping system to meet Camden's needs.
  • Moving away from language that reflects a binary understanding of support for people rough sleeping and enforcement approaches and develop a local framework that describes the right partnership interventions to tackle rough sleeping that correspond to the support needs of individuals and the circumstances of individual cases.
  • Ensuring that current work to improve the health, care and support offer for people who are rough sleeping and recently off the streets is underpinned by a robust approach to evaluation.

The service will continue to operate through a multi-disciplinary hub and assertive outreach model, aiming to:

  • Support people rough sleeping to rapidly access appropriate services and sustainable accommodation solutions.
  • Increase the wellbeing of and minimise harms to people rough sleeping in Camden.
  • Reduce rough sleeping across Camden.
  • Coordinate an integrated response for people with multiple disadvantage that relieves their homelessness.

A full set of refreshed key performance indicators will be developed as part of the service specification to support the delivery of these outcomes through the council's contract management processes. The provisional outcomes for the proposed service are to:

  • Support people rough sleeping to rapidly access appropriate services and sustainable accommodation solutions
  • Promote the welfare of and minimise harm to people rough sleeping
  • Reduce rough sleeping across Camden
  • Coordinate integrated responses for people with multiple disadvantage to relieve their homelessness