Baroness Louise Casey

Brilliant job.

about how to fix britain fixing britain did some of your solutions in that series which is still available to listen to on bbc sounds um touch on this so um we did look sorry just answer yes and also when i was responsible for homelessness or sorry solving homelessness or doing our best

Just old homelessness.

Really, I'm not very good live at all.

This is a car crash so far.

Although, to be fair... Fortunately, nobody is minding me here.

I don't have anybody with me from my team.

And they're like, we're never letting you go anywhere on your own again.

Well, we've done it twice, actually.

So first time round in 1999, we reduced the number of human beings sleeping out on the streets.

Basically, our last number was 354.

I remember like it was yesterday and it was the target was to reduce by two thirds over a three year period.

And in it, because the only reason I got into homelessness, because I was working down the Department of Health and Social Security in Brixton.

And I was there in 1988 when they changed the benefit rules to something called income support.

So I am old.

And essentially what the then major government did was enact welfare reform that removed benefit or support entirely from

for 16 to 18-year-olds.

And that seems quite attractive, doesn't it?

Because the theory behind that is that you then encourage kids to stay in education or to go and get a job.

What it did was start to rise the number of kids out on the street.