asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many local authorities in England and Wales had not transferred responsibility for providing accommodation for homeless people from social services to housing departments by 1st April 1975.
While details about individual authorities are not available. most housing authorities have already accepted or are in the process of accepting prime responsibility for the accommodation of the homeless. My hon. Friend proposed to seek further information from authorities on this specific point.
asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many families are currently homeless in (i) the county of Dorset and (ii) the borough of Bournemouth; and how this compares with the national average for homelessness.
There are no precise figures for the number of people who are homeless. However, 30 families were in temporary accommodation in Dorset because they were homeless on 30th September 1974, the latest date for which figures are available. Separate figures for Bournemouth are not at present available. Equivalent figures for England as a whole, for 30th June 1974, show that 29 families were in temporary accommodation in Dorset, and 7,020 in England. On the basis of the number of people in temporary accommodation at the end of June 1974, and the Registrar-General's projected population figures for mid-1974, there were 2.·45 people per 10,000 in temporary accommodation in Dorset, and 6·15 people per 10,000 in England as a whole.