Homelessness Inquiry
Under agenda item 2, we continue our homelessness inquiry with an evidence-taking session on progress towards meeting the 2012 homelessness commitment. Our witnesses are Robert Aldridge, chief executive of the Scottish Council for Single Homeless; Gordon MacRae, head of communications and policy at Shelter Scotland; and David Ogilvie, policy and strategy manager of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations.
Gentlemen, I apologise for keeping you waiting and thank you for your patience. Timing of committee items is not an exact science.
I have two general questions. As you would expect, one of them looks to the future and is about difficulties and challenges with meeting the target. Before asking about that, however, I would like to look back and ask how the progress towards meeting the 2012 commitment has impacted on the way in which homelessness services are delivered across Scotland, and in particular what impact it has had on homeless people.
Robert Aldridge (Scottish Council for Single Homeless)
In the past 10 years, there has been a dramatic change in the way in which homeless people are treated. The legislation that came in between 2001 and 2003 heralded a change in culture with regard to the way in which we deal with homelessness. To a large extent, local authorities and the other partners have really stepped up to the plate.
Ten years ago, homeless people were treated very differently from the way in which they are treated now. Today, we are not rationing people out of the system but are seeking to find solutions for them. For example, the homelessness officers in local authorities used to be a sort of Cinderella service—they would simply tick boxes to determine whether someone met certain criteria—but they are now enablers who try to get a range of services involved in meeting the long-term needs of homeless people.
The situation is not ideal, and there have been some hiccups along the way, but there has been a dramatic move forward. Although the number of people who apply as homeless took a leap up after the legislation came in, that was mainly due to hidden homelessness being revealed. We are now seeing a slow but quite steady decline in the number of people who apply as, and are found to be, homeless. I think that the approach is having some success on the ground.
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Gordon MacRae (Shelter Scotland)
I agree. The 2012 homelessness commitment—we stress that it is a legislative commitment and not simply a target, which means that, rather than being something that should happen, it is something that has to happen—has been a profound catalyst for change in local authorities across Scotland. From our perspective, it has been one of the success stories of devolution, as it would not have happened if the Scottish Parliament had not come together with cross-party support for the principle and if successive Scottish Governments had not reaffirmed the commitment. However, the 2012 commitment is not an end point; it is the beginning of a new way of delivering homelessness services that puts the person at the centre of the service.
In preparation for today, we did a quick survey of local authorities. The national statistics have a quite significant lag and do not always show a completely up-to-date picture. Since we submitted our written evidence to you, we have had a couple more responses. Twenty-seven of the 32 local authorities responded. Nine of them have removed priority need assessments from their homelessness teams, and one has not undertaken a priority need assessment since February, although it has not reached a point in its corporate policy at which it can say that it is fully 2012 compliant. Seven others have set a date by which they will be compliant with the 2012 commitment. Of those, five aim to comply by April next year. The other 10 have said that they will deliver the 2012 commitment. That is a good-news story for Scotland.
As Robert Aldridge said, the commitment has brought about a real change in the way in which homelessness services are perceived in local authorities. The challenge now is to find ways of going beyond the letter of the commitment, which involves removing priority need assessments and starting to provide extra support and access to lets. That is where we are starting to see a real difference for individuals, which answers your question about the impact on homeless people.
More people are in temporary accommodation, but the evidence shows that there is not necessarily a correlation between a local authority that has a higher number of people being assessed as being in priority need and a spike in temporary accommodation. Local authorities that have good prevention strategies, good allocation policies, good investment in their staff and good local leadership are able to assess more people more effectively and house them more successfully in the long term.
David Ogilvie (Scottish Federation of Housing Associations)
We said in our written submission that the Parliament can justifiably be proud of the 2012 homelessness commitment. It stands as possibly the single most significant achievement of the Parliament since devolution. It has attracted international acclaim, having been praised by France and other countries across the world.
The 2012 commitment has changed the dynamic that exists between the homeless applicant and housing providers on the front line. That has helped with the work that is being done to tackle the stigma of homelessness, but we still have quite a way to go. We have started a process, but it has to roll forward. As the other witnesses have said, we cannot regard 2012 as the stopping point.
The 2012 commitment has undoubtedly also changed the ways in which local authorities, housing associations and housing co-operative partners view and deal with homelessness at the strategic level. In the early phase, we had homelessness strategies in place, but latterly that approach has gone into abeyance as a result of the concordat between the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities in 2007.
We are now at a point where housing associations and co-operatives are increasingly looking at what contribution they can make, such as by offering tenancies to people who have become homeless, and what they can do from an associational standpoint to promote the sustainment of tenancies. We are now engaged much more in sustaining tenancies and preventing homelessness, which is a substantial change from 10 years ago.
That is all very positive, but I will now turn to the future. Are there any persistent barriers that will make the 2012 commitment difficult to meet or sustain? Gordon MacRae said that the letter of the law refers to the abolition of priority need, but surely it also refers to settled or permanent accommodation. I imagine that that is where the problem may arise. For example, there was a report last week that Edinburgh could not meet the commitment, and I presume that it was referring to that aspect. No doubt you will be asked for more details of that in subsequent questions, but will you give us an opening statement on the potential barriers to meeting the commitment in full?
You touch on the key barrier. The single biggest issue—for not just homelessness but the housing sector as a whole—is supply and the lack of available social rented properties in communities across Scotland. We are in the second budget round in succession in which we have seen a disproportionate cut in the capital budget for new-build supply compared with the overall capital budget cut. That is a regrettable position.
Looking back from where we are now to where we were when the legislation was put in place, we have simply not built enough homes across all tenures. Social rent is clearly where we keep our attention for our client group, but it is part of an overall housing sector that has fallen significantly behind in meeting demand.
There are other barriers underneath the big supply issue. We would like a broader group of stakeholders to take a greater leadership role, including registered social landlords, other local authority departments and the health sector. There are professionals outwith housing who come into contact with people who are experiencing or facing homelessness or housing problems, and they could be key contributors to resolving those people’s problems before they become homeless.
The two biggest things that we can do are to prevent people from losing their home in the first place and to drive up the supply of property so that we can meet the demand, but those apparently simple tasks mask a complex system in the background.
We need far more investment and housing options that put people at the centre of how they are supported and managed through times of housing crisis. We need that to be rolled out in a fair, equitable way that guards against gate keeping so that it is not about driving down homelessness applications but about getting a house for someone. We need far more investment in support and tenancy sustainment that ensures that RSLs and the voluntary sector can play an active role in devising local housing strategies and prevention work.
I supplement Gordon MacRae’s evidence with a renewed plea for the committee and the rest of Parliament to take another look at the joint statement that we released in July with the Scottish Building Federation and the Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations called “Making Housing a National Priority”. When, according to the figures for 2010-11, we have 36,440 people in Scotland identified as priority homeless and as many as 335,000 on housing association waiting lists, housing has to come far higher up the spending priorities than it does.
As Gordon MacRae has alluded to, we have made a strong case in every submission that we have made to Parliament since the budget announcement was made that housing is taking a disproportionate cut. We find that surprising and disappointing.
We talk about the progressive side of the Parliament—the good things that it has done that mark Scotland out from the rest of the United Kingdom—and the Christie commission is a prime example of that. Much store was placed by the message of preventative spending, and the SFHA can think of no greater form of preventative spending than spending on tackling homelessness. The savings that could be made to a number of public service budgets that are already under significant pressure—whether housing support, care, criminal justice, policing or what have you—are significant. We therefore renew our plea for additional investment in the supply of affordable housing.
There is no disagreement from me with what has been said. When the proposals were put forward, it was made clear that they depended on a number of things, the two key elements being an adequate supply of affordable housing and appropriate levels of support. Others have alluded to the levels of housing investment that we believe are required. We also need to consider the housing support element, as we need to prevent people from becoming homeless whenever that is possible. To a great extent, that involves ensuring that low-level housing support is provided. We must ensure that tenancy sustainment is maximised, which includes providing housing support.
We are concerned that the loss of the ring fence around the supporting people budget, which put a dramatically increased amount of money into housing support, has led to a reduction in some of the important housing support areas that help to prevent homelessness and lead to tenancy sustainment. When budgets are tight, the easiest areas to cut are those of low-intensity support that ensure prevention further up the line rather than those at the crisis point of homelessness. We are concerned that we need to keep a close handle on what is happening with housing support and ensure that it is maintained.
In my written evidence, I mention one or two smaller issues. In particular, there is a persistent problem that is easily solvable. Around 5 per cent of homeless applications are from people who are leaving institutions, whether hospitals, prisons or, to some extent, the armed forces. In all those cases, the people are in the care of institutions and plans can be made for them; therefore, it seems totally unreasonable that anybody leaving any of those institutions should be homeless. We can reduce the level of homelessness at a stroke by getting our policies, plans and so on in relation to institutions better co-ordinated and dealt with.
I have a related question. The SFHA’s submission mentions operational barriers to achieving the target. It states that some communities believe that
“all ‘their houses’ are going to ‘the homeless’”.
As a councillor, I have heard that many times. One of my interests is about how we meet both the housing needs of the applicant and the needs of the community and how we overcome that perception. Do you have any ideas on how we can do that? Has the removal of local connection and waiting time led to some people being transferred from the mainstream list to the homeless list, or made them transfer themselves in that direction? Is there any evidence of that?
The simple answer is no. The evidence shows that the majority of social lets go to people on the mainstream list. In our written evidence, we set out the most recent statistics, which show that 45 per cent of social lets across local authorities and RSLs go to homeless applicants. However, that masks the fact that some RSLs play a disproportionate role in providing homes for homeless people. I am sure that they would welcome a broadening out of that responsibility whereby every social provider of housing would play a greater role. That would also remove the perception to which you refer. There may well be a bottleneck in some areas, where the proportion of social lets that go to homeless people is far higher, but we would argue that that is because some providers are not taking on their responsibilities.
The other main thing that we can do is to ensure that, when that perception bubbles up in a community, people are armed with the facts. The facts clearly show that, as Robert Aldridge said, homeless applications are beginning to decline and that someone who makes a homeless application is likely to end up in temporary accommodation and not in a settled flat or home. The idea that becoming homeless is a way of jumping the queue is demonstrably untrue.
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The issue that seems to arise, particularly in communities that are made up of villages, where people are territorial and parochial, is that people are allocated tenancies in places where they do not want to be, and others go in the opposite direction, to places where they do not want to be. How do we overcome that issue, which feeds into people’s perception of homelessness?
From a housing association perspective, we want to ensure that nothing comes out of the committee’s considerations that suggests that allocations should be controlled at a national level. A degree of discretion should be retained for local housing providers, because they are best placed to know the balance of allocations in their communities.
I want to add to what Gordon MacRae said about homelessness being the only route into housing. Housing associations are all too aware of that situation and are doing what they can to avoid it because it would be contrary to the aims of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 and the interests of all public sector service providers. Local authority housing providers also want to avoid that situation. We need a bit of respect for the democratic control of allocations policy at the local level.
I agree. The housing options approach that is being developed is another way of dealing with the problem that Neil Findlay mentioned, when people are allocated housing in places where they do not want to go. If two people have been allocated housing in the wrong place and they want to be in the opposite place, a proper housing options interview could identify that quite early on and deal with it pragmatically. Techniques can be employed locally to manage allocations sensibly.
There is also a misplaced perception in the community about who homeless people are—they are often considered to be somebody else. In fact, most homelessness arises from relationship breakdown. People who apply as homeless are often people from the community who have fallen into difficulties. We all need to be involved in ensuring that homeless people are not stigmatised and are recognised as being part of the community.
There is another common misunderstanding. People often look at someone new who arrives and think that they got their let because they were homeless, but that is often not the case. As Robert Aldridge says, there is a difference between the perception and the reality in small communities, where people want to know who is moving into the area and to understand what is happening.
Turning to the homelessness prevention agenda, I had the experience of visiting one of the hubs and hearing about the housing options approach, which seemed to be working well in the hub that I visited. What are your views on how the housing options approach is working?
My own experience—and SFHA’s experience—so far has been mixed. There are five housing options hubs covering all 32 local authorities. In due course, the committee might want to look at how they have been set up and how they have been working so far.
Our sector has been involved on a patchy basis. That is not through a lack of interest from us; it is through a lack of invitation. That is partly because even though local authorities have gone through considerable culture change over the past 10 years as a result of this agenda, they are still finding it hard to get their heads around what it means for them logistically, particularly given that they are operating in a challenging budgetary environment.
Associations are telling us that they have not been involved in their local housing options hub. We are looking to address that at the COSLA 2012 steering group, on which SFHA has a seat. A communications sub-group is looking to take forward some work early in the new year—around February—to roll out a communications strategy to address the shortfalls in housing association awareness or involvement and to patch all that up.
From a holistic point of view, the housing options hub approach has to be welcomed, because it is another progressive and unique approach to tackling homelessness in Scotland.
We need to be clear that the housing options hubs approach is in its infancy in Scotland. It is still being rolled out and local authorities, voluntary sector organisations and landlords are really starting to get to grips with its potential.
The experience of some of our Shelter colleagues in England of the approach down south shows that we need to guard against gate keeping, to avoid situations in which people think that they have made a homelessness application but have actually had a housing options interview and have therefore not entered the system. We need to be clear about what we are trying to achieve with housing options. We think that, done well—that is a big proviso—the approach is good and should be welcomed, because it keeps the focus on the outcome of a sustainable, long-term tenancy that meets the individual’s needs. However, in the context of 10 years of culture shift in homelessness services, we should not underestimate the cultural change that still has to take place when we are moving housing officers from managing access to a system to providing a very personal service with real expertise in the local community.
We are exploring the role of independent advice as the first port of call in a housing options system to ensure that there is no incentive—implicit or otherwise—within the system for people not to keep homelessness as an option on the table. If we are approaching housing options purely as a means to drive down the number of homelessness applications, that is not housing options in the interests of the individual; it is housing options in the interests of the producer. There are some good examples out there, but we want to ensure that it is about the person coming through the front door, rather than about the organisation running the interview.
Our experience of the housing options hubs is extremely mixed. Some are motoring ahead very well and others are at quite an early stage of development. One thing that some might welcome but others might not is a little more hands-on oversight of the hubs at the national level to make sure that there are some consistent benchmarks against which they are all trying to achieve.
The Scottish Council for Single Homeless was concerned that there was not much interaction between the hubs. We have set up a network of the lead officers with the housing options hubs to give them a space where they can share their experiences and learn from one another, which has proved successful so far. The hubs have tremendous potential. Some of them are still at a very early stage of development and they need to broaden out the stakeholder involvement—we were talking about that in the coffee lounge before coming to give evidence.
Gordon MacRae made an important point about what is understood by housing options. There is a very great danger that people see housing options as a means of driving down numbers and they focus simply on the numbers that come out of the end of the sausage machine, rather than the quality of the approach. It is quite tricky to find a means by which we can measure good-quality prevention of homelessness—which is what we are all after—against the barriers that are put up to people going through the system. A lot more work is needed to develop that measurement tool.
The hub that I visited was very much aware that, as it did not want to operate in a silo, it needed to engage with other agencies, particularly when dealing with the difficult problems around people with complex needs such as mental health issues. On the earlier point about moving towards more preventative spending, it seems that although we can provide resources, people must be willing to work together on the ground. The inclusive nature of the thing is very important.
I was surprised and disappointed to hear that RSLs were not engaged—
They are not engaged yet, but they will be.
I would have thought that their engagement would be a key feature of the hub approach.
I totally agree. We are concerned about that, and we will raise it at the 2012 steering group. As I said, we have plans in place to work with the Scottish Government on that issue in the new year.
That is my observation—I will put it into a question. I ask Robert Aldridge to expand on his earlier point about people moving out of institutions or formal care situations—for example, looked-after young people who are coming out of throughcare into a tenancy, or those who are moving out of prison and seeking accommodation.
Okay. I have some examples of people who are in some form of institutional care and for whom we know that there must be some provision. A considerable amount of work has been done on throughcare and aftercare for young people, but a number of local authorities still find it easier to make the children for whom they are the corporate parent homeless, and then to accommodate them. They find it easier to get the services to wrap around them than to arrange a proper and phased transfer into an acceptable housing situation with the appropriate support in place. That is totally unacceptable. So much work has been done, and clear guidelines have been produced, but the actions are not happening everywhere on the ground. In some areas they are, but in too many areas that is still going on.
There is a way through. People know what to do; it is a matter of having the will and prioritising to make it happen. Very good arrangements are often made for people who have had long prison sentences. A lot of preparation can be made in advance of liberation with regard to transferring people into accommodation.
However, all too often in the Scottish Prison Service, for various operational reasons to do with overcrowding or someone being moved, the planned release date is different from the actual date. A range of local authorities have spoken to us about suddenly finding somebody on their doorstep who has been released from prison with no money and nowhere to go. With a literally captive audience, it seems that better joint working between the Scottish Prison Service and local authorities, and better co-ordination of the release, would help to avoid unnecessary homelessness.
A relatively small number of people—250 or so—are still made homeless when they leave hospital. That simply should not happen at all. It is a small number of people, but it should be zero. It is perfectly possible to make proper arrangements to ensure that there is an orderly transfer of someone from hospital into accommodation. That is one element of the homelessness statistics. Work can still be done to improve co-ordination, which could result in reductions in the figures and a better outcome for the people involved.
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We run a prisons project in the north-east of Scotland and our experiences are similar. We look at the issue from the point of view of what we call life transitions, which are transitions not just from the formal institutions, but from the armed services. We run a project with Scottish Veterans Residences across the road from the Parliament to give people the support that they need.
For too long, responsibility for dealing with homelessness has resided in the housing sector, which has acted as a safety net. We are talking about areas of the public sector that have a profound impact on the housing needs of their clients. We take the view that, with the 2012 commitment coming into place and with the exception of some reforms that are still needed in the private rented sector, the real challenge now is how we can improve practice, not just within housing, but within areas such as health, education, justice and social work. In our view, for people who leave prison, it should be the justice department that puts the resources, the time and the framework in place; it should not be a case of waiting for the housing agency in that locality to pick up the phone. Too often, people become homeless because no one received the fax. That is the kind of situation that results in people sleeping rough.
In its submission, Shelter said that a key part of preventing homelessness was to give people the support that they need to stay in the home that they have. Yesterday, Jamie Hepburn and I visited Glasgow to get evidence for the committee’s report. We heard from Glasgow Housing Association that absconds make up 26 per cent of its problem. It would appear to be cost effective for GHA to put resources and people into preventing absconds, given the extra costs of those houses being empty, no rent coming in, properties having to be refurbished and so on. What are the challenges in providing effective prevention and housing support services post-2012?
The single biggest challenge is corporate buy-in. We are running a rent arrears pilot with GHA; Stirling Council is also running such a pilot. Because some hard-to-reach tenants do not always welcome a knock on the door from the landlord, GHA is working with us to highlight people who are in danger of falling behind. Our support workers go out to those people, do a benefits check and try to get in place a payment plan so that they can stay in their home. Those pilots show that it is more cost effective to the landlord to put in place such a service than it is to pay the court costs of evicting someone and then have them turn up, the same day, at the front desk to be rehoused. They also demonstrate that there is no link between the use of eviction and a low arrears book, and that it is possible to reduce arrears through early intervention without waiting for a problem to become a crisis, thus reducing the use of eviction.
There is a real good-news story here. Three years ago, we did a report on the use of evictions across the social sector. It showed that, at the time, a social tenant who fell behind on their rent was more likely to lose their home than an owner-occupier who fell behind on their mortgage. There has been a significant change, as we have halved the number of evictions in the social sector in the three years. That is a testament to the corporate buy-in of GHA, Stirling Council and many others. However, we still have some way to go.
Trying to encourage that best practice is a role that the housing options hubs can play. They can share best practice and experience and encourage continual improvement in practice to ensure that the housing sector is embedded in the broader aspect of the welfare state and how we provide support for troubled individuals. They can ask whether there are things that will make a real difference. That is not just the right thing to do but the economical thing to do.
I do not want to open the can of worms that is welfare reform, but one of our concerns is that, if some of the proposed reforms go through, such as those on underoccupation, local authorities and housing associations will face a considerable increase in rent arrears, because so many social tenants are underoccupying by, say, one bedroom. We need to get in place a really good programme on rent arrears, under a preventative approach, to make people aware of what could happen so that they prepare their policies now.
I back up what Gordon MacRae said about the cost-effectiveness of preventing tenancy failure rather than allowing it to happen. We can furnish you with some research that we have done that shows that, typically, the cost to a local authority of the failure of a tenancy for a single person is a minimum of £12,000. Money that is put in to prevent tenancies from failing is money well spent. That work is cost effective.
On tenancy sustainment, or the prevention of homelessness in the first place, SFHA had some funding last year from the Glasgow homelessness partnership that allowed us to produce a guidance document called “Preventing and Alleviating Homelessness”. It is a good-practice guide that is provided to all our members and is available at a small charge to non-members. It highlights the excellent practice in which some parts of our sector are already engaged in order to show those who are struggling with the agenda what they can do.
It is almost invidious to pick out examples, but off the top of my head, I think of Dunedin Canmore in Edinburgh, which works with a project in Southhouse on the south side of Edinburgh called CHAI—the community help and advice initiative. It gets a return on its holistic approach to housing support in terms of lower levels of tenancy turnover and higher levels of sustainment. We should not underestimate how onerous it can be for someone who comes out of homelessness to take on responsibility for a tenancy. That is a significant undertaking for anybody, but particularly for people who are 16 or 17 or who come from a background of vulnerability.
Another example is the DVD version of a tenancy agreement that two housing associations—Link and Dunedin Canmore—have produced jointly. People who cannot read or who cannot understand a tenancy agreement can get it in a format that they do understand, and the DVD helps them by giving advice on paying rent on time and how not to annoy the neighbours with noisy parties or what have you. That sort of work is becoming more common. Would it have happened 10 years ago? Possibly, but not to the extent that it is happening now. It is a pleasing by-product of having the commitment in place.
Robert Aldridge said that he did not want to open the can of worms that is welfare reform, but we cannot avoid it. When the commitment was made almost a decade ago, no one had any idea that we were going to end up with the financial crisis that we have had. It is on that premise that the Government has set about restructuring the welfare system. When the committee commendably held its inquiry into the impact of the Welfare Reform Bill in Scotland, it took evidence from the SFHA. I will not recount that evidence again, but we need to be mindful that homelessness is more than likely to increase from the 36,000 base to beyond 40,000 in the next three to five years as a result of the changes that have been set out.
An important amendment on underoccupation will be considered in the House of Lords this afternoon, and we hope to make some inroads in that regard. The bill’s provisions on underoccupation alone could cause significant amounts of homelessness, because there is not enough supply of smaller affordable properties. That is another issue that we have to bear in mind.
I will finish at that point. I get too excited when people talk about welfare reform.
Your answer has pre-empted a question on your general concerns about welfare reform that I was going to ask later. Witnesses at last week’s meeting were asked whether they sensed that the UK Government had given any consideration to the homelessness commitment or indeed housing policy generally in its approach to welfare reform. The clear answer last week was no, not just for housing policy in Scotland but for housing policy in the rest of the UK. What is your perspective?
We are all dying to answer that.
We all want to answer that.
I will take David Ogilvie first because his microphone is on.
SFHA has its own housing benefits campaign called the campaign for a fairer system. We have corresponded with the Scottish Affairs Committee but have not even had the courtesy of a response. That shows the lie of the land regarding how much scrutiny has been given to the issue from a Scottish perspective.
The Scottish Affairs Committee is not even at Government level but at the level of parliamentary scrutiny.
Yes—then we went up to the ministerial level. We highlighted a parliamentary question that we had put through. The question was not about direct payments; we wanted to find out how many housing benefit recipients in housing association tenancies have their housing benefit mandated directly to the landlord. The figure that came back was 96 per cent. We wrote to Lord Freud to explain that that is because of choice but were told that it was evidence of benefit dependency. That is the level of acknowledgement that we have had so far on the issue right across the piece.
Such is the urgency—if I may use that word—with which the welfare reform agenda is being pursued that the UK Government is not stopping to take the time to work out its full impact. It is a peculiar situation because—I will try to tread carefully on the politics of this—the Scottish Parliament is the body that has responsibility for housing policy in Scotland under the devolution settlement. However, whatever the Scottish Parliament determines on the issue is highly affected by decisions of the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions. I do not want to go through the evidence that my director Maureen Watson gave the committee, but all of it must be borne in mind because the welfare reforms will have significant implications and we are going to have to start thinking rapidly about mitigating strategies.
Is it fair to expect housing associations and council landlords, at a time of immense budgetary pressure, to think about how they will make good the shortfall that will arise because the link with rents is being broken? Just about everyone on housing benefit over the next few years will find themselves facing a shortfall. That absolutely fundamental issue will impact on the viability and sustainability of tenancies. When the homelessness commitment was set out all those years ago nobody, including the Council of Mortgage Lenders, would have thought that we would be in this position. The fundamental basis on which housing association development has been financed and structured is also placed at risk as a result of the reforms. I imagine that that is a major concern for this committee.
I totally endorse those comments. A number of other things have come forward that have disturbed us. One is that no account seems to have been taken of the homelessness legislation in Scotland, whereby local authorities in Scotland have a legal duty to provide temporary accommodation, which is not the case in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, proposals are being considered that would fundamentally alter how temporary accommodation is funded and lead to significant shortfalls that will have to be met by local authorities in Scotland. There will be a direct cost for local authorities because of our different housing policy, which I do not think the DWP has taken into account at all.
In addition, very little account has been taken of issues of rurality and remoteness. I understand the ideology that, if somebody is occupying a property that is too large in Lambeth and there is a property of the right size in Camden, they can go from Lambeth to Camden. However, that is very different from a situation in which somebody is living in a property that is too large in Golspie and the nearest property of the right size is in Lochaber, or a situation in which a person would have to go from one island to another island. There are issues of rurality and remoteness in parts of the UK—not just in Scotland, but in Wales and parts of England—that have not been fully acknowledged.
My third significant concern is that the direction of the welfare reforms seems to be to underpin the change in the role of social housing that is foreseen in England without recognising the role that, by consensus, it has played in Scotland for a long time in providing permanent housing for those in need rather than a place to stay in the short term before people move on to something else.
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I share those views. However, we need to start thinking about mitigation. Our understanding through colleagues in Shelter down south is that the legislation is pretty much locked down now. A lot of the policies will be rolled out through guidance, and there are still significant policy decisions to be taken on the role of housing benefit within the universal credit. It is important for committee members to be aware of just where that will impact on Scottish housing and homelessness policy. For instance, the houses in multiple occupation element of the recent housing legislation gives local authorities the ability to limit the amount of shared accommodation. That is in direct contrast to what local authorities will now need to do—they will need to find more shared accommodation because otherwise housing will become unaffordable.
The single room rate and underoccupancy are, for us, the two issues that require urgent consideration. How do we source the necessary accommodation? If we cannot source that accommodation in the short term, what short-term measures need to be put in place? The relatively small amount of funding that has been allocated for transition is in danger of being gobbled up by the far greater disparities that exist within the M25, and what will be left over for the transitions in Scotland—where, as Robert Aldridge points out, the lack of shared accommodation and the lack of one-bedroom accommodation in rural and remote communities are more profound—remains to be seen, as does how the Scottish public sector will be able to respond. The Scottish Government will have to take a leadership role to make that happen.
I add one technical point. The Scottish secure tenancy does not make provision for shared tenancies. If the welfare reforms go through and move us towards a position whereby social landlords will have to consider shared tenancies, we must ensure that there is proper protection of tenants who have to share, and that proper arrangements are made for them.
You have pre-empted another of my questions.
I offer a further point of clarification. In your original question, you asked what account is being taken of the Scottish context. We talk about the 2012 homelessness commitment. The way that the DWP currently conceives that it will pay housing benefit to those in temporary accommodation—it is only at what the DWP calls a think-piece stage, which makes me gravely worried—is, in common with the rest of the universal credit, by paying the rent four-weekly in arrears directly to tenants coming from a crisis situation or a vulnerable position. Any temporary accommodation provider who is asked to fund their service on that basis will tell you that it cannot be done. We have talked about absconds from housing association tenancies, and the rate of absconds from temporary accommodation would be far higher. That is coming not through the bill, but through secondary legislation.
That is helpful and reflects what we have heard from other witnesses. Thank you.
I feel that I should preface my remarks by saying, “I am a big fan of housing associations, but—”.
At our meeting last week, witnesses suggested that there was a mixed picture in terms of RSL involvement in meeting the 2012 commitment. How has progress toward the 2012 commitment impacted on the use of RSL stock? Do RSLs need to do more to ensure that the 2012 commitment is met and maintained?
I anticipated that question after reading the Official Report of last week’s meeting. Some of the language that was used by some people at that meeting was slightly inflammatory. That is perhaps due to the fact that they represent organisations that are under pressure and have a huge and politically significant target to meet through partnership working. We are concerned about the risk of finger pointing in all of this.
By and large, housing associations have been co-operative and helpful in their attitude to local authorities. We regularly go beyond the referrals under section 5 of the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003 and are, in any case, housing people off waiting lists. As has been mentioned, there are plenty of examples in the good-practice guidance of housing associations doing much more than just housing people with section 5 referrals. They are ensuring that there are no further homelessness presentations through their tenancy sustainment actions.
I would like this issue to be seen in the round. Let us not forget that housing associations are independent social businesses that are regulated by the Scottish Housing Regulator. We should consider what they are doing beyond section 5 referrals, and what their general demeanour towards local authorities is. There is a corollary that also needs to be borne in mind. A few months ago, I was having a conversation with the chief executive of a large housing association. He said that, as a result of the concordat, the nature of the housing association’s relationship with the local authorities with which it works has changed fundamentally. It used to be far more friendly and based on partnership working. However, by necessity, housing associations are now seen by local authorities as possible contractors or business partners, which has shifted the basis on which the relationship is founded.
Housing associations are doing lots of good work on tenancy sustainment and homelessness prevention. The fact that roughly 30 per cent of new lets are being allocated to homeless provision is important. We do not want all new lets to go to homeless people, as that would prevent housing associations from balancing their stock profile.
We take the view that RSLs can and should do more to house homeless people. Undoubtedly, some of them are doing a huge amount, and should be commended for that, but it is right to point out that only 36 per cent of RSL lets go to homeless households, which means that the vast majority do not. Councils have a much higher level of lets to homeless people. Approximately 50 per cent of social rented stock in Scotland is managed by RSLs and 50 per cent is managed by councils, so RSLs undoubtedly can and should do more. However, we should not take a pejorative view of RSLs and say that they are failing. There are good examples of best practice, particularly with regard to tenancy sustainment.
We would welcome more transparency being brought to the process through section 5 of the 2003 act. If RSLs tell us that they feel that they are taking too large a share of the responsibility in their community and there are other providers that are providing a smaller share of lets to homeless people, we can identify that situation and bring a bit of transparency to it through the use of section 5. Those are technical things, but it is just about bringing in a bit of transparency so that we can see the flow of homeless applications and can see which lets are provided by which landlords.
More can be learned from leaders in the RSL sector about rent arrears and tenancy sustainment work. There is an important job to be done to support the specialist providers in the housing association movement. The need for innovation will be on-going and there is no lack of willing to make that happen.
There is a big job for councils to engage RSLs far more effectively. We think that a regrettable number of local housing strategies are put out to consultation without the largest housing providers in an area being involved in the drafting process. Local authorities are missing a trick. If a local authority is going to determine how it houses people in its area, the formulation stage should engage the people with the stock.
I have nothing to add to that.
Should Government funding of RSLs be more closely tied to meeting the Government’s policy objectives on homelessness?
I would argue that the funding of RSLs is already sufficiently tied to Government objectives.
I return to Gordon MacRae’s point that just 35 per cent of RSL lets are to homeless people. Who are the other 65 per cent we are housing? They are people who would otherwise be at risk of homelessness. They are people whose circumstances have changed and who need a different form of housing. That is what fundamentally underpins the issue.
I would not want the committee to make any regrettable decisions about the need to be more stringent with housing associations as a result of some remarks that were made last week. The figures speak for themselves. A proper understanding of what the figures mean beyond the 35 per cent is that 65 per cent of our lets are meeting other forms of housing need. For me, that means that no further action is required on grant funding.
The question relates to the Scottish social housing charter, which is under consideration at the moment, and the new role of the Scottish Housing Regulator in relation to that. The charter offers a good opportunity to define the prime objectives of social landlords and set some clear objectives against which they will be measured and regulated. That is better dealt with through the housing charter and the Scottish housing regulator than by linking it to the funding.
We would take the view that the funding that RSLs get from the Scottish Government should go where there is the most potential to meet existing need. If an RSL in an area is best placed to provide homes, that is the basis on which funding should be directed.
I do not want this to get down to finger pointing at RSLs, but the point about the other 65 per cent applies to councils, too. Councils are still housing the same number of people. The issue for us relates to people who have become homeless while they have been on the waiting list and are therefore identified as being in acute need to a greater degree. How do we address their settled accommodation needs across the range of available stock in the Scottish housing sector? Although, in our view, there is more that the RSLs could do on that, we do not want to see homelessness as the only route to a tenancy. However, whether it is RSLs or local authorities, that is already not the case. That is a perception not a reality, and not even a marginal increase in lets from RSLs to homeless people would change that dynamic.
Last week, COSLA suggested that a move towards common housing registers and common housing allocations policies would be beneficial in this area. What do you think?
I think that they are two different things. A common housing register is a useful way to go. It saves bureaucracy for the applicant and allows providers to apply their own allocations policies to that register. I have some concerns about a national allocations policy. I know that there is something similar in Northern Ireland, but that is for specific reasons, to ensure equality.
There is no single, absolute definition or ranking of need. It is sometimes better to have the different perceptions of variations in need reflected in the allocations policies of social landlords. So long as those policies fit with the overall framework whereby reasonable preference is given to people who are homeless and to various other people and so long as the policies comply with the new Scottish social housing charter, I am more in favour of there being an element of diversity in allocations policies within a common framework than I am of having a national or standard allocations policy.
12:45
I absolutely agree with Robert Aldridge. We would be reluctant to suggest a national allocations policy. That is far more problematic for us than common housing registers, with which many housing associations are already fully engaged.
I reiterate those points. A national policy is attractive from an administrative view, but we would need to consider what the impact would be locally.
Neil Findlay’s second question—his first has been answered, I think—is perhaps relevant to the issue.
My question is on housing supply and has two elements. David Ogilvie talked about inflammatory comments by witnesses at last week’s meeting, but those witnesses were rather more passive on the issue of housing supply and the significant budget cut. What are your comments on that?
I will add the second element now, to get through this quickly. It is about the emphasis on the private rented sector. Are we overreliant on that sector and will it deliver?
On overall supply, we welcomed the fact that, in May this year, the SNP set a target of 6,000 new builds for social rent. However, we were concerned that the Scottish Government’s housing strategy did not reflect that.
That was for affordable homes.
No—the manifesto talked about 6,000 houses for social rent, but the Scottish housing strategy did not reflect that and funds were made available for only about 1,500 houses. Since then, there has been a welcome shift to a target of 6,000 affordable homes, 4,000 of which will be for social rent. However, we still think that that is some way short of demand. The last best estimate was that about 10,000 new social rented properties are needed every year just to tread water. That is the situation that we want to reach. However, with the change from using the number of starts to using the number of completions as a way of measuring, we expect that the Scottish Government will meet the target of completing 4,000 social rented properties every year during this session of Parliament, although the number of starts has recently dipped.
On overreliance on the private rented sector, the expectation that the private rented sector will pick up the slack is perhaps too high. If the private rented sector is in effect to replace the social rented sector in many areas—in many areas, it is no longer the tenure of choice but is the only available sector—the protections that were rightly put in place for vulnerable tenants in the social sector need to be put in place for those who can find accommodation only in the private sector. Reform of the tenancy regime and protections for individuals in the private rented sector are the next big issue that the Scottish Government needs to consider.
In my written submission, I comment on the private rented sector. We have hit a difficult issue in that mortgages are difficult to come by for a range of people who would otherwise have moved into owner-occupation, so they are ending up in the private rented sector. That is likely to continue for a number of years. The private rented sector is being asked to take up the slack resulting from the lack of access to mortgages, but it is also being asked to take up the slack resulting from the lack of supply of affordable rented social housing. The private rented sector is limited in some parts of Scotland—it is okay in some areas, but there is a severe shortage in others. There is a danger that either rents will go up in the areas of shortage, which will make it impossible for the social renting tenants to gain access to housing, or—this is also quite likely—landlords will choose not to take social tenants, to use that terminology.
There is a danger that we are putting too much reliance on the private rented sector. There is an assumption that the private rented sector exists to a similar level in all parts of Scotland, but it is very different in each local authority area. In some areas, it is almost non-existent and cannot take up the strain; in others, it will be under a number of different pressures. We need to keep an eye on that—while also taking an account of the fact that an awful lot of people who are renting out properties at the moment are doing so only because they have been landed with properties that they cannot sell and will get shot of them when the market improves. It is an unstable sector because of that.
A lot of planning needs to be done to ensure that we are not putting too much reliance on the private rented sector. It has a crucial role to play, but I endorse what Gordon MacRae said. If we are going to make more use of it, either for longer-term housing—for people who would otherwise be in owner-occupation—or for people who are more vulnerable, we need to look at the tenancy regime and ensure that there is adequate security of tenure.
I do not have too much to add to the messages on the private rented sector that have already been communicated. Much of what you have heard already is correct.
The change coming through the Welfare Reform Bill will probably lead to the exit of a number of small-scale landlords from the private rented sector market in any case, and I will only allude to recent television documentaries on Channel 4 about the quality of some parts of the private rented sector at what I will call the benefits end of the market. We have to ask whether, in our overall approach to housing options hubs, we want to put forward those parts as “an option”. I would argue not.
In the first part of the question, Mr Findlay said that local authorities are somewhat more relaxed about their position on affordable housing funding. That is probably to do with the fact that, as their rents are much lower, they have more headroom on their rent structures for borrowing money for the purposes of development than housing associations do. I speculate that that might account for some of their relaxation on the issue. That does not take away from the fact to which I alluded at the start of my evidence today: we have a housing crisis in this country and we sorely need to put more money into affordable housing.
I noted that a comment was made about the different levels of funding—£30,000 for local authorities and £44,000 or more for housing associations. That is one thing that troubled me when I read the Official Report of last week’s meeting. When someone enters into that sort of commentary while giving evidence to a committee, it is essential to drill down and understand whether they are comparing apples with apples—and in that case I do not think that they are. When we talk about the £30,000 subsidy for local authority builds, we must remember that local authorities can cross-subsidise—they can get hold of free land, they do not have to pay for remedial work on land and so on. There is a story behind the figures that needs to be told, and I want to impress on the committee that it should not accept that evidence at face value but should drill down, have a look underneath and see what is actually going on.
I have a few questions about temporary accommodation.
Has the use of temporary accommodation changed as local authorities make progress towards the 2012 homelessness commitment? Can the use of temporary accommodation be improved? What effect will the Welfare Reform Bill have on the use of temporary accommodation by councils, and how will that impact on the 2012 commitment?
In preparation for today, we did some work to gather information from local authorities. What was striking was the clear evidence that there is no correlation between high levels of priority need assessments—more people being accepted as having the right to temporary accommodation and, ultimately, settled accommodation—and high levels of people in temporary accommodation in a local authority area. That tells us that local authorities that take a holistic approach—to use that terrible term—that covers prevention, supply and good-quality homelessness assessments and support can assess more people and get them into settled accommodation more quickly, which is a good thing.
However, that should not mask the very real problems with the temporary accommodation stock in Scotland. For Christmas, we are running a campaign, which was reflected in the Channel 4 documentary that David Ogilvie mentioned, to drive up the standards in temporary accommodation in Scotland. Very often, the properties that are available for people in the worst situation are of very poor quality.
Last year, in co-operation with the Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland, we published some voluntary guidelines on good temporary accommodation. It is not just about the length of time that people are in there; it is about the quality of the stock, access to information and advice and people’s ability to resolve the issues that brought them there in the first place.
Over the past few weeks, we have been going around Scotland asking people to sign our petition, which we are bringing to the Scottish Parliament next week, to ask the Scottish Government to put those guidelines on to a statutory footing. There is inevitably a reliance on more temporary accommodation as we have less stock available. There has been a noticeable increase as more people have come into the system. That is a patchy reality, but it necessitates our improving the standards. We are putting very vulnerable people into some very horrible situations at present—situations that are harming the health of a number of children in Scotland. About 6,000 children are likely to be in temporary accommodation on Christmas day this year, most of whom will still be there at Easter.
Gordon MacDonald mentioned the potential impact of the welfare reforms. David Ogilvie mentioned the think-piece about how temporary accommodation is going to be paid for, given that people will get their rental element four weeks in arrears and it will be difficult for providers to get access to that rent money. Another issue is that the shared-room rate will apply to under-35s in temporary accommodation, which will mean that substantially less rental money is likely to be available to the providers from a significant number of people in temporary accommodation. A number of local authorities have expressed severe concerns about the financial impact of the changes, should they go ahead, on their ability to pay for the temporary accommodation that is required.
Gordon MacRae is quite right that there is no direct correlation between the various elements, but in areas where things have silted up, the development of housing options work and the prevention of homelessness are really important. Ensuring a smooth transition from people having a housing problem to having that problem sorted, without having recourse to homelessness or temporary accommodation, is best for everyone concerned. It is about driving down the numbers who have to go through the crisis of homelessness, which is what the whole prevention and housing options approach is about. That is the practical way forward.
I have said what I needed to say on temporary accommodation.
Could the absence of a correlation be a bit misleading? Could it not be that those local authorities that have high numbers of people in temporary accommodation are the ones that are least willing to move quickly towards the abolition of priority need? Is there a danger that temporary accommodation will take the strain next year? All councils will be able to say, “We’ve abolished priority need,” but have they really fulfilled the commitment if they potentially have increasing numbers of people in temporary accommodation for too long a period? For how long is staying in temporary accommodation consistent with the legislation?
13:00
On the first point, about correlation and causation, the evidence demonstrates that local authorities that can assess more people effectively as being in priority need are very often the local authorities that are able to put the other protections in place. That suggests that those local authorities with high numbers of people in temporary accommodation are not yet up to pace with some of those other protections and therefore have further to travel towards putting a good homelessness service in place that meets the needs of the local area.
As for legislation, it is difficult. We had correspondence with a local authority that was considering putting a time bar on people in temporary accommodation, because it saw that as a good thing to do. With housing issues, sometimes you pull one thread and another starts to fall out. We do not want to get people out of temporary accommodation quickly just because we see that as the best thing. We want to get people into sustainable tenancies as effectively and quickly as possible but, if the onus is to get people out of temporary accommodation, our fear is that they will be placed in unsuitable tenancies, that they will be more likely to fall into repeat homelessness and that we are just creating another problem for ourselves. Therefore, although we share the perspective that we do not want people to be in temporary accommodation long term—because it has harmful impacts on life opportunities for children, in particular—we need to be careful about pushing in one direction without making sure that we have the other protections in place.
I endorse all that. We said at the beginning that 2012 is not an end point but is the start of the implementation of the full framework. The monitoring that goes on beyond 2012 needs to take account of the length of time that people are spending in temporary accommodation and initiatives to assist those who are finding it more difficult.
On the point about horses for courses, we need to bear in mind that, although in general we all object to the use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation, there could be specific circumstances in which it is the best option. For example, if somebody became homeless on one of the islands and the only accommodation that is available to keep them in contact with their family and social support network was in bed-and-breakfast accommodation on that island, that might be the best option for the time being, until permanent accommodation became available. It is essential that we have a person-based approach, but we must keep an eye on not allowing temporary accommodation to be an excuse for not fulfilling the real objectives of 2012.
We need to remember that when we talk about bed-and-breakfast accommodation for homeless people we are not talking about a nice landlady with rashers of bacon in the morning; we are generally talking about hostels, which are not places that we see as a long-term solution to anything. Sometimes there is a misapprehension about that.
Finally, we have heard some people say that there should be changes in legislation so that, for example, income could be taken into account, and that there should be changes to tenancies in the private and social rented sectors to facilitate more flexible responses to homelessness. Some have asked, as I think that one of you mentioned, whether tenancies should be for life and that sort of thing. Do any of you have any brief comments on that?
We think that there is a need to re-examine the tenancy regime in the private rented sector. Already, if people are using—to use the technical jargon—section 32 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 to house homeless people in the private rented sector, there are additional protections. It is now time to look again at the short assured tenancy—which was never, ever intended to be the default tenancy in the private rented sector—and to have some basic security of tenure for all those in the private rented sector.
Secondly, if the Scottish secure tenancy is to take account of people who are sharing, it needs to be amended to ensure that tenants’ rights are protected. Our view would be that we should not move away from what is a secure tenancy for people who are housed in the social rented sector. In Scotland, we have a proud tradition whereby people who are housed in the social rented sector can choose to make it their home and to build up their links with the community, and I think that that helps to build settled and successful communities.
I agree with that.
On the issue of income, we have never been persuaded that there are any real benefits to be had from bringing in such a control. Indeed, there may be significant dangers in administering such a scheme. The law of unintended consequences would be of concern to us.
I thoroughly endorse what has been said on tenancy reform in the private rented sector. As I have said, we see that as being the missing piece in the housing landscape jigsaw in Scotland.
Our line has probably been anticipated. Point number 1 is that what is happening with regard to housing policy in England is categorically not the way in which Scotland should be going. As I understand it, the Scottish Government is considering introducing a housing bill next year. We await further information on that. We are aware of discussions that are taking place on how landlords can ensure that they make the best use of their stock. Everyone is trying to find ways of making the best possible efficiencies, but that has to be managed against the backdrop of what will happen as a result of the Welfare Reform Bill.
As regards legislation, the one remaining point that the Parliament may wish to consider that would help to pull us, collectively, closer to abolishing homelessness in Scotland is—you would expect me to say this—the abolition of the right to buy. There can be no justification for its retention in an environment in which housing spending has been cut to the quick and in which 300,000-plus people are waiting for new homes. Let us not forget that homes will begin to leave the system again next year, as 2012 is the year when the protection for housing association properties from the right to buy ends. It is a tragic irony that 2012 is the year for the meeting of the homelessness commitment, but it is also the year when the right to buy could start to bite into the housing supply in a major way. The Parliament really needs to consider biting the bullet and abolishing the right to buy.
As there are no further comments, I thank the witnesses for their evidence. If there is anything that you think you missed out, please put it in writing as soon as possible—you can see how quickly one runs out of time.
I suspend the meeting briefly to allow the witnesses to gather their papers and leave the room.
13:08
Meeting suspended.
13:09
On resuming—