Chamber and committees

National Express Dundee, in partnership with Transport Scotland, Dundee City Council and Dundee College has introduced a Smart ticketing product which allows students to use part of their bursary to pay for city-wide bus travel. The product is currently in use by around 85 students and the college anticipate a significant take up by the August/ September student intake. As a result of the success of this project, National Express Dundee have plans to release a range of commercial Smart ticketing products.

While timescales can be subject to change, a policy announcement on right to buy is expected before the end of June 2013.

If someone considers that they are homeless when released from prison after serving a sentence for antisocial behaviour, they can apply to a local authority for assistance.

The local authority will then determine whether or not the applicant is homeless and whether or not they are intentionally or unintentionally homeless. If found to be intentionally homeless then they will be entitled to temporary accommodation for a period and provided with advice and assistance to enable them to secure accommodation. If found to be unintentionally homeless then they will be entitled to settled accommodation.

Current rounds of the Scottish Government’s award-winning National Housing Trust (NHT) initiative for local authorities and developers are supporting delivery of over 1,000 new affordable homes with 13 developers across 10 local authorities, as set out in the table below. Further local variants of the NHT model are in development.

The Scottish Government is also encouraging and supporting the development of a range of other approaches to private finance by the housing association sector and prospective new investors. These include the introduction of bond finance, recycling Housing Association Grant and equity investment. Taken together these innovations are supporting the provision of new housing supply across a range of tenures including social rent.

A total of 1,900 affordable homes have been approved so far from innovative approaches to housing investment, with more units in the pipeline.

We publish the approvals, starts and completions for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme as part of the quarterly housing statistics and we will continue to do this. We are also happy to meet with stakeholders to reassure them that our programme to deliver 30,000 homes over the lifetime of this parliament is currently on track. For example, all of the approvals we plan to make through the three year Resource Planning Assumptions to local authorities are expected to complete by March 2015.

Annual Outturn Reports have been published on the Scottish Government website since 2008-09. Please see link below to the outturn report for 2011-12:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/investment/ahip/AHSP2011-12Report

This question relates to operational matters that are the responsibility of the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR). The question has been passed to the SHR who will reply in writing to you directly.

Social landlords must obtain a court order before evicting a tenant. They can obtain an order on various grounds, which include (amongst others) that the tenant has behaved antisocially towards neighbours or been imprisoned for an offence committed in the locality of the house.

Further information around raising proceedings in court for recovery of possession of a tenancy is set out in Section 14 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2001/10/section/14.

In May 2012, we introduced a new three year resource planning system to enable councils to plan the delivery of affordable housing more efficiently and effectively. This new approach has enabled each council to bring forward strategic local programmes of social and affordable housing based on local needs, identified through the Housing Needs and Demand Assessment and Local Housing Strategy. Councils will therefore decide upon the size and type of housing required to help satisfy these local needs.

For the period 1 April 2012 to 31 December 2012, a total of 309 specialist housing units for older people were provided. During the same period, a total of 61 wheelchair units were provided. Housing statistics covering the whole of 2012-13 are not due to be published until 4 June 2013.

Owners of private property, including private landlords, are primarily responsible under the terms of their title deeds for meeting the cost of any work needed to improve their property. Local authorities have broad discretionary powers to assist owners who need help to improve their properties. Scottish Government funding to help private sector landlords improve the energy efficiency of their properties is available through both SME (small and medium enterprise) Loans and Green Homes Cashback schemes offered through Home Energy Scotland who can be contacted on 0800 512 012. In addition we recently announced our Home Energy Efficiency Programmes for Scotland Schemes which will use £79 million of our funding and leverage in energy company funding to support energy efficiency measures to fuel poor areas and households to create potential funding of £200 million for energy efficiency measures in Scotland.

Registered Social Landlords, working with their partners, such as local authorities and the police, can use a range of powers to tackle persistent antisocial behaviour. These powers can be targeted at the person exhibiting the behaviour, their premises, or other places and can include anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs), closure orders, dispersal notices, seizure of vehicles that are being used antisocially, and Fixed Penalty Notices for antisocial behaviour.

In cases of persistent antisocial or threatening behaviour Registered Social Landlords have powers to:

Apply to the courts for an ASBO; serve a notice on a tenant converting the tenancy to a Short Scottish Secure Tenancy, where the tenant or a member of the tenant’s household is subject to an ASBO and raise proceedings in court for recovery of possession of the tenancy, the grounds for which include cases where the tenant or their household have behaved antisocially to neighbours.