Burnham used his first speech in Downing Street to launch a national drive to end rough sleeping “at the earliest opportunity”.
What does that mean in practice? There is no date and therefore nothing to measure.
The money exists. An additional £340m will provide 1,200 homes and intensive support for at least 3,000 people. It is described as the opening investment in a wider five-year programme.
Plenty has not been said. There is no finish date. Which parts of the country get the homes? How much of the £340m buys housing and how much pays for support? The announcement gives no answer. Nor do ministers give the number of long-term rough sleepers they are starting with.
The latest one-night count for England was 4,793, a record. But Burnham is talking about people sleeping rough long term, which may be a different number. Ministers have not said who falls into that group or how many people are in it.
Apparently, the rest turns up before autumn. Until it does, there is only the announcement.
Does “UK” really mean UK? Burnham’s words did. But the 1,200 homes and 3,000 people are not divided between the four nations. Some briefing only refers to England.
Housing policy is run separately in each nation. So far, ministers have not said what Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland is getting.
Then there is Burnham’s record in Greater Manchester.
When he became mayor in 2017, he promised to end rough sleeping in the region by 2020. That promise came with a date. In November 2019, he admitted he was likely to miss it.
Now he is making the same promise for the whole country, but this time there is no date to miss.
He deserves credit for the progress that was made. The count for Greater Manchester went from 268 in 2017 to 89 in 2021. That is a drop of 179, achieved by people in councils and charities, volunteers and staff dealing with it day to day.
The count of 89 came while Everyone In and A Bed Every Night were in place. They clearly helped, but 89 was not where the figure stayed.
Once the emergency support receded, the numbers began climbing again. There were 149 people in 2023, 154 in 2024 and 197 in autumn 2025. The annual snapshot has now risen for four consecutive years. It remains below the 2017 level, but it is moving in the wrong direction.
Ask Burnham and his former officials and they have a list. Housing allowance stayed frozen as rents went up. People were turned out of asylum accommodation with nowhere to live. Local services could not deal with some people’s health, addiction or care needs.
They are not wrong. Those are national failures, and they are good reasons for a national programme.
That list is exactly why the deadline matters. Burnham cannot fix every part of it, but he can say what success would look like and when he expects to get there.
The announcement points to Everyone In as evidence that rough sleeping can be ended when the political will exists. Burnham is right that the programme worked. But it also helped produce the Manchester figures now cited in his defence, and the improvement did not last.
The question is not whether he should be given time. Of course he should. A government cannot reverse years of homelessness on its first morning.
Nobody expects him to do it tomorrow. The government should publish the starting number, the points it expects to reach along the way and the date it expects to finish. Without that, any delay can be called unfinished work.
The ambition is right. The scrutiny is earned.
He has made this promise before. The Greater Manchester deadline passed. This autumn, he needs to explain the rise there and say, with a figure, what success now looks like.