Five wishes for 2025

With a new government, a raft of reforms, and an unpredictable economy, 2025 is shaping up to be another year of change in our sector. Here are five things the External Affairs team would like to see.

1- Fewer people in prison and better community sentences

The prison capacity crisis last year forced the new government to prioritise long-overdue sentencing reform. Prisons are expensive and ill-equipped to support rehabilitation, often increasing someone’s risk of reoffending by jeopardising their housing, employment, and positive relationships. We hope the Sentencing Review will support a shift towards robust and well-resourced community sentences that are evidence-based and person-centred, tailored to address individual needs and the underlying causes of offending behaviour.

2- Longer-term planning to tackle homelessness

Last year, we campaigned alongside many others for the incoming government to ringfence funding for homelessness prevention services to protect it from being swallowed up by councils’ temporary accommodation expenditure. We’re pleased that the government has now committed to that and that the funding cliff edge of this March has been pushed back. However, local authorities and homelessness providers need longer-term vision and coordination to plan and ensure services are impactful and can cater to diverse needs. The Chancellor’s Spring Review desperately needs a longer-term funding settlement up to the end of this parliament.

3- A meaningful role for lived experience and peer support in transforming community mental health

We welcome the long overdue reform of the Mental Health Act and the government’s ambitions to shift more care away from hospitals and into local communities, where it can be more effective and less stigmatising. In our response to the Health and Social Care Committee’s inquiry into community mental health, we are calling for open-access and flexible services to support people on their terms, not burdened by unwieldy referral and appointment processes that create bottlenecks and disengagement. Services like Solace and Roots demonstrate the power of building a community within a service, where peer support can have a much greater impact than overreliance on overstretched professionals.

4- Action to support social care now!

Last week, the government launched a commission to reform adult social care. The final report will be published in 2028, which may be too late for many providers in a system crumbling around us. The government could address lots alongside the commission, including progressing fair pay, improving dementia training and support, and investing in technology to support more efficient, effective services. The NHS’s 10-year plan won’t succeed without a healthy social care sector to support it. Action can’t wait another three years.

5- Measure inclusivity as a key outcome

In our work in health, justice, and homelessness, we see silos everywhere preventing coordinated responses to the multiple and complex circumstances many people we support experience. Inclusivity is at the heart of everything we do, yet rarely features in evaluating the impact of a service or intervention. Inclusivity metrics should be central to new policies and contracts to ensure the prominence they need. Done effectively, this would drive better information sharing, better partnership working, and greater lived experience co-design of services.