Question reference: S6W-25482
- Asked by: Pam Gosal, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 14 February 2024
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Current status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 6 March 2024
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what support it is providing to any local authorities that are experiencing growing pressures on housing and homelessness services as a result of its decision to remove local connection requirements for accessing homelessness services.
Answer
There is growing pressure on homelessness services and for some local authorities, including Glasgow and Edinburgh, the pressure is most keenly felt from the impact of the Home Office’s streamlined asylum process which is increasing demand for homelessness support.
The latest homelessness statistics released on 27 February 2024 do not indicate that there is growing pressure on local authority homelessness services due to the changes to local connection legislation. Between April and September 2023, 3% of households that were assessed as homeless had no local connection to the local authority to which the application was made, but had a local connection to another Scottish local authority. This is similar to the proportion of households in previous years:
- 2021-22, 5% of households (1,535)
- 2022-23, 2% of households (705)
[Note: The statistics above are over a 12 month period, whereas the statistics from February 2024 cover a six month period. The April to September 2023 statistics is the first bi-annual collection to include local connection data following the legislative change to local connection in November 2022.]
A Local Connection Solutions Group comprising Scottish Government and local authority officials was established last year to co-produce guidance to support local authorities with the legislative changes and to address emerging issues.
To date, there is no evidence of a disproportionate impact on any local authority; rather, we are seeing a pattern of people moving across the country, exercising choice about where they want to live, as the legislation intended. We will continue to monitor the flow of people both into and leaving local authorities to inform our understanding of the impact of the legislative change.