Question reference: S6W-26355
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 21 March 2024
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Current status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 17 April 2024
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many people have been recorded as rough sleeping in each local authority area in each month since January 1999.
Answer
Scottish Government collects information on whether any member of a household making a homelessness application to a local authority slept rough:
a) during the 3 months preceding and b) the night before the application.
This data is collected from all local authorities as part of the Homelessness in Scotland statistical data collection. Annual totals of rough sleeping reported by applicant households, broken by local authority, are published in the main tables supporting the main annual publication, available here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/homelessness-in-scotland-2022-23/documents/
A document has been placed with the Scottish Parliament Information Centre, bib number 64985, containing data related to the reporting of rough sleeping a) during the 3 months preceding and b) the night before the application, broken down by month of application and local authority, from April 2002 to September 2023.
Data is not available prior to April 2002 as this is when data collection began. The most recent data available goes up to September 2023.
The data collection defines rough sleeping as any member of the applicant household who has slept outside, in the open air (such as on the streets, or in doorways, parks or bus shelters) or slept in a building or other place not designed for habitation (such as barns, sheds, car parks, cars, derelict boats, stations etc.).
Data is not gathered for any household rough sleeping who does not make a homelessness application to a local authority in Scotland.