Councils in England are paying millions to relocation companies to help them permanently move homeless families out of big cities and the south-east in a practice that has been called a “national scandal”.
A Guardian analysis of local government spending data shows that councils in the UK’s two biggest cities, London and Birmingham, and more than a dozen local authorities across the south-east of England have given more than £5.2m to firms that facilitate moves to cheaper parts of the country since 2020.
