Testing the effectiveness of personalised budgets

Action Homeless are pleased to be working with the Centre for Homelessness Impact, Greater Change, and King’s College London on a project to evaluate the effectiveness of the use of personalised budgets to reduce the length of people’s experiences of homelessness; reduce the likelihood that homelessness recurs; increase wellbeing and life satisfaction; improve financial security; and secure or maintain employment.

This project supports the introduction or extension of innovative responses to homelessness, and includes an independent evaluation of its impact, using a randomised controlled trial.

The research project started in August 2024, and as of the end of February 2025 has now closed to new referrals. Individuals experiencing homelessness had to meet the following criteria to participate in the project; being 18 years old or older, currently living in temporary accommodation, having experienced rough sleeping, having less than £4,000 of savings, and being supported by Action Homeless at the time of the trial start.

Individuals were then referred to Greater Change, and randomly assigned to either the new service group, or the business-as-usual group. The new service group received the intervention of having a personalised budget of up to £4,000, established with their caseworker, to be used for an agreed purchase or purchases, while the business-as-usual group did not receive a personalised budget.

The new service group worked together with their case worker and Greater Change to define what it is they needed to reduce the length of their experience of homelessness and improve their financial stability, and how the personalised budget could facilitate this. Examples included rent and securing deposits for a property, work equipment, family well-being activities and children’s school costs, as well as digital devices such as laptops and phones.

Those in the business-as-usual group were informed of the outcome, and continued to receive the usual support from their Support Worker. All of those who participated were asked to complete surveys, and some will participate in a more in-depth phone interview, to support project evaluation.

As of the end of February 2025, Action Homeless have made 42 referrals to Greater Change. 23 individuals were randomised into either the new service group, or the business-as-usual group. Of these, 11 have or will shortly receive a personalised budget.

A randomised control trial (RCT) is the most rigorous method of evaluating the causal relationship between an intervention and outcomes. In this kind of trial, one group of people will receive the new service and one group will receive whatever support they would have received if the trial was not taking place (‘business as usual’). Random selection is used to determine which group each individual participating in the trial is assigned to. This approach is designed to provide reliable and unbiased evidence.

Everyone who was eligible to participate in this randomised controlled trial as part of this programme was informed that they may or may not get the service or intervention being tested before they decided whether to participate.

The Centre for Homelessness Impact (CHI) is a member of the What Works Network and advocates for an evidence-based approach to ending homelessness for good. CHI supports organisations in the field of homelessness and beyond to make evidence-led decisions and to adopt evidence-led practices.