Homeless deaths will be officially counted for the first time by the government following a regional daily’s investigation.

The Manchester Evening News has won praise after the Office for National Statistics revealed the policy, which comes less than two months MEN politics and investigations editor Jen Williams ‘The Deaths They Don’t Count’ exposé.

The investigation examined the difficulty in tracing how many people have lost their lives while sleeping rough or living in temporary accommodation in Manchester, and Jen’s findings were then passed to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which came up with a national estimate of homeless deaths – 440 last year alone.

Jen’s investigation was part of a wider collaboration organised by the Bureau’s Bureau Local unit, with similar probes being run by titles including the Bristol Post, The Ferret, The Detail, Yorkshire Post, Wyre Life, Brighton daily The Argus and Leeds Live.

Now Ben Humberstone, ONS deputy director for health analysis and life events, has confirmed the department will start counting homeless deaths on a trial basis – although the ONS says it had begun working towards doing this since November 2017.

Among those to praise the MEN’s involvement in the trial being launched is Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester.

He said: “It was the intelligent and incisive journalism of the Manchester Evening News back in the summer that first shone a light on this issue.

“Strong, independent local reporting is the lifeblood of news in this country, and on this story the MEN changed the national conversation.”

Christa Maciver, strategic lead for research and policy at Manchester-based homelessness charity Justlife, added: “The M.E.N.’s investigation has really made a difference for us and has had such an impact.

“It has definitely played a part in pushing this issue up the agenda nationally. There are so many people we’ve spoken to who have read it – it’s been amazing for us to be able to say that we were involved in it.”

MEN editor Darren Thwaites told HTFP: “This was a brilliant piece of social journalism by Jennifer Williams. It’s a great example of the need for a strong and vibrant regional media holding authorities to account in the public interest.”

An ONS spokeswoman said: “ONS is preparing to publish England and Wales’ first official statistics on deaths of homeless people as part of a new range of work which we started in November 2017. We are now in the final stages of ensuring these experimental figures on deaths are accurate and reliable ahead of their release later this year.

“The project involved analysing our death registrations using new methods and looking at other sources of information including a crowdsourced database set up by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. These sources will not be used for our official statistics, but they are helping us develop the most accurate method of identifying all the deaths that should be counted.”