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The Scottish Government is committed to addressing homelessness amongst ex-prisoners and their families. All those assessed as unintentionally homeless by local authorities, including prisoners who face homelessness upon liberation, are entitled to settled accommodation.

The Scottish Government recognises the particular challenges that may be faced by ex-prisoners and their families and the support that may be required to help sustain tenancies. Local authorities work with ex-prisoners through the housing options approach, which looks at an individual’s full circumstances. Housing options may consider issues of particular importance in preventing homelessness amongst ex-prisoners and their families, such as employability, the need for mediation or the development of life skills.

The housing options hubs and individual local authorities, have developed a range of links to prisons and practice across Scotland to help prevent homelessness on liberation.

The vast majority of the funding the Scottish Government provides to Glasgow City Council is through the annual local government settlement, including all of the funding for most of the services requested.

All of Scotland's 32 local authorities, including Glasgow City Council, make annual service level expenditure and income statistical returns to the Scottish Government and these are published on the Scottish Government's website and are available via the following link: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Local-Government-Finance/PubScottishLGFStats

Despite the significant cuts that Westminster has imposed on the Scottish Budget, local government funding has been given a degree of protection with core funding protected and new money provided for additional responsibilities in each of the four years (2012-16). The total settlement for 2016-17 still amounts to over £10.3 billion and, taking into account the addition of £250 million to support the integration of health and social care, as a percentage of estimated total revenue expenditure, this year’s reduction in local authority overall estimated expenditure is less than one per cent. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

I believe, therefore, that such a marginal reduction should have minimal impact on poverty rates as Scotland's councils should be able to address these challenges from a healthy base.

In 2016-17 Glasgow City Council is receiving its fair share of total funding which this year will amount to almost £1,344 million.

The vast majority of this funding is provided by way of a block grant and it is the responsibility of each local authority to manage their own budget and to allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, including any funding to combat homelessness, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Scottish Government recognises that young people can be at particular risk of homelessness and that preventing and tackling the reasons for this are a priority.

Recorded homelessness amongst young people aged 16 to 24 has been falling in Scotland since 2009-10. In 2015-16, approximately 7700 young people (28% of all applicants) made a homelessness application to local authorities, a reduction of 9% on the previous year. This compares to over 15,000 applications (35% of all applicants) back in 2005-06.

The Scottish Government supports the five regional local authority led housing options hubs to progress the prevention of homelessness across Scotland. This is supported by recent guidance, which addresses the issue of youth homelessness, and will be strengthened by the forthcoming Housing Options Training Toolkit.

The Homelessness Prevention and Strategy Group has the issue of youth homelessness as a standing item on its agenda to ensure homelessness policy maintains links to developments in other policy areas working to address the needs of young people, such as those leaving care.

The Scottish Government also funds a number of third sector organisations addressing youth homelessness.

The Scottish Government does not collect statistics on the impact of fuel poverty on children’s academic attainment.

This Government remains committed to tackling both fuel poverty and child poverty and ensuring that children from low income households live in high quality sustainable housing.

Our national fuel poverty scheme Warmer Homes Scotland recognises that children are amongst the most vulnerable in our society. Applicants can benefit from energy efficiency measures available under the scheme that will make the property warmer and more sustainable where a member of the household is pregnant, or has a child under the age of 16 years of age. This is subject to all other scheme qualify criteria being met.

We have also committed to extend the eligibility for the Winter Fuel Payment to families with children in receipt of the highest care component of Disability Living Allowance.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-01389 on 27 July 2016. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

 

At my instruction, Transport Scotland are undertaking an intensive review of the Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme. This work is expected to conclude in September 2016. In my statement of 5 July 2016, I made clear my intention to bring the review findings and senior Network Rail officials before the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee to answer any questions and to set out clearly when they will deliver the promised improvements and how much they will cost.

 

Financial considerations are not the reason for the delays to the electrification of the Edinburgh Glasgow line now being reported by Network Rail. The reasons will be set out in full following the conclusion of the Transport Scotland led review.