Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has taken a number of actions as a result of delivering the workplan and recommendations of the Homelessness Prevention and Strategy Group:

• We are working with local authorities to identify models of temporary accommodation which can improve outcomes for homeless households. This is against the background of a reduction of funding made available for temporary accommodation as a result of UK Government welfare reform. A formula for distribution of funding for 2017-18, which was transferred from UK Government to the Scottish Government for temporary accommodation to local authorities, was agreed with COSLA in March 2017.

• A number of steps have also been taken to strengthen links between homelessness and health services, including work to link data to improve understanding and inform policy responses. This has been alongside supporting the promotion of innovative approaches to addressing homelessness amongst those with more complex needs such as the Housing First approach and the need for Psychologically Informed Environments.

• All of this is also linked to our continued promotion of the Housing Options approach and financial support for local authorities, including providing additional funding for the development of a training toolkit which will involve a number of different policy areas beyond housing. The toolkit will assist to ensure a consistent response on Housing Options across Scotland.

The following table shows the average (mean) time in weeks from date of application to date of duty discharge/case closure, for homeless applications assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness and closed in 2015-16, by local authority.

Source: HL1 dataset as at 25-05-16

The Scottish Government does not keep this level of information. It is for the local authority-led Housing Options hubs to plan and facilitate their own meetings and develop and implement their own workplans. Scottish Government officials attend where required.

The Scottish Government organises regular National seminars for Housing Options hubs and other local authority representatives, with the involvement of third sector organisations.

Homelessness legislation sets out the steps local authorities must take in investigating homelessness and this includes the ‘local connection’ test. The local authority has a power, but not a duty, to refer an applicant to another local authority if it thinks the applicant does not have a local connection with it and does have a local connection with another authority.

Legislation is supported by the statutory Code of Guidance on Homelessness, to which local authorities must refer when making decisions. This includes stating that in exercising its discretion to use its power on local connection, a local authority should take particular care to operate in a non-discriminatory way.

The HL1 statistics collected by local authorities and published by the Scottish Government, also provides more detailed information on homelessness applications.

The Scottish Government do not collect data on the geographical location of where homeless people have been housed by a local authority.

The responsibility for the allocation of housing in the social rented sector lies with the local authority or housing association concerned. In law social housing landlords are required to give reasonable preference, or priority, to people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness. Social landlords must allocate housing based on an assessment of an applicant’s housing needs against its allocation policy and within the legal framework.

While it is for the landlords to decide who is allocated any particular house, an overall increase in a landlord’s social housing stock will enable the landlord to house more applicants in need of social housing. We as a Government are working hard to do just that. We have committed to delivery of 35,000 social rented homes over this Parliamentary term, a 75% increase on our previous social housing target which we not only achieved but exceeded. These sit within our wider 50,000 affordable homes target, to which we have pledged over £3 billion of funding.

The number of social rented homes within each local authority area over the current target period will depend on the priorities of local authorities as identified in their Housing Need and Demand Assessments (HNDA), Local Housing Strategies (LHS) and Strategic Housing Investment Plans (SHIPs).

Local authorities are required by law to prepare an LHS, supported by an assessment of housing need and demand. The Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 places a statutory duty on each local authority to carry out an assessment of homelessness in its area and to prepare and submit to Ministers, a strategy (as part of the LHS) for the prevention and alleviation of homelessness.

Data on the number of homeless people using temporary accommodation in each year is not currently available.

The HL2 data collection provides a snapshot of the number of households in temporary accommodation at the end of each quarter. This is published on a
bi-annual basis. The most recent published data is from 30 September 2016 and is available in Table 8 of the publication Homelessness in Scotland: Update to 30 September 2016 http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0051/00512963.xls.

Scheme administrators must hold a tenant's deposit in a designated account until it falls to be repaid at the end of the tenancy. If it is unclaimed, they must hold it indefinitely in case it is claimed at a later date.

I have decided that a review of tenancy deposit schemes should take place. The issue of unclaimed deposits will be considered as part of the review process.

The Scottish Household Survey (SHS) team is currently assessing all the bids received for the SHS 2018 and 2019 questionnaires. This includes a bid for a question on the willingness for older people to downsize their home. The SHS steering group will consider the SHS questionnaire at their next meeting in June at which final decisions on content will be made. The Scottish Government will publish a report in July which details the outcomes of the review and which questions will be included in SHS 2018 and 2019.

The Scottish Government has long held the view that the UK Government should look to strengthen their consumer protection frameworks and industry standards in the energy efficiency market and therefore we welcomed the review when first announced.

Now that it is published we will carefully consider the review’s recommendations as part of the development of Scotland Energy Efficiency Programme (SEEP). We are currently consulting on programme and policy options for SEEP until 30 May 2017. As part of this consultation we are asking how best the programme can build consumer confidence, ensure quality delivery and how it can integrate with the findings of the Each Home Counts review.