As Sir Geoffrey Howe once famously observed, when Governments are seen to undermine their ambitions by their own actions, ‘it's rather like sending our opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find that before the first ball is bowled, their bats have been broken by the team captain'.

Local government might well feel that when it comes to their new statutory duties to prevent homelessness, the tools they have been given are not up to the job at hand. One year on from the Homelessness Reduction Act (HRA)  The New Local Government Network's (NLGN) latest Leadership Index set out to assess how well-equipped councils are to prevent homelessness.