Question reference: S6W-26321
- Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 4 April 2024
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Current status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 22 April 2024
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of how its (a) children’s social work, (b) Homelessness in Scotland and (c) youth homelessness statistics differ with regards to capturing the experiences of care experienced young people.
Answer
The scope and purpose of the data collections associated with the children’s social work and homelessness statistics are very different. Additionally, this means that the sources cover different periods of the lives of care experienced children and young people.
The looked after children data collection (which is used for the Children’s Social Work statistics) relates to all children and young people who are in the care of their local authority. It includes information on placement type and care plans of children who are looked after.
The HL1 homelessness data collection (which is used for both the Homelessness in Scotland and youth homelessness statistics) relates to all households making an application to a local authority for homelessness support. This includes information on whether any adult member, aged under 25, of a household making a homelessness application was looked after as a child by their local authority.
Looked after status captured within HL1 will largely be self-reported by applicant households. Applicants can choose whether to answer the question. It should also be noted that it is not necessarily the case that the looked after status of all adults aged under 25 in the household will be known.
The Homelessness in Scotland series publishes data on former looked after status of households assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness. The youth homelessness workbook presents the former looked after status for households specifically with a main applicant aged under 25.
The HL1 data collection also captures information on the outcome of the application, and circumstances related to the application (such as reason for homelessness, property homeless from etc.). It can also be linked to the HL3 (temporary accommodation placement) dataset. Due to the small number of homeless households with a former looked after status (less than 1,100 in a year), further breakdowns are not published routinely.