Chamber and committees

Local authorities are best placed to allocate appropriate resources from the local government finance settlement to addressing homelessness in their area.

Along with strong legislative rights for homeless households, local authorities and their partners have been developing innovative approaches to preventing homelessness in recent years through the housing options approach.

As well as the Scottish Government announcement of another £150,000 to the local authority led Housing Options Hubs for 2016-17, guidance was recently published to help improve delivery of preventative services. A training toolkit around the prevention of homelessness is also due to be produced in 2016-17.

Funding to local authorities to address homelessness is provided as part of the local government finance settlement for 2016-17. The total funding now amounts to over £10.3 billion.

It is for local authorities to allocate the appropriate funding to address homelessness in their area based on their local housing strategy and local circumstances.

The Scottish Government have announced another £150,000 to the local authority led Housing Options Hubs for 2016-17 to further develop approaches to preventing homelessness and the Scottish Government provides direct funding to third sector organisations to address homelessness in Scotland through funds such as the Housing Voluntary Sector Grant Scheme.

This information is not held centrally.

It is for local authorities to decide the appropriate amount and percentage of spend on temporary accommodation in their area.

The Scottish Government has not carried out research into local authority funding for temporary and homeless accommodation for 2016-17.

The allocation of appropriate funding for temporary and homeless accommodation for 2016-17 is a matter for local authorities, from their overall financial resources.

The funding shortfall of £25 million was identified through a survey of local authorities in Scotland by local authority practitioners, supported by the Scottish Government.

The Minister for Housing and Welfare shared this information with the previous UK coalition government in 2014 expressing the Scottish Government’s concerns about the potential impact on homeless households, but we have been disappointed at the response.

The Scottish Government will continue to highlight its concerns to the UK Government and work with our local authority partners to minimise the negative impact of UK Government welfare reforms on vulnerable homeless households.

The number and proportion of dwellings in the social sector which failed the healthy, safe and secure section of the Scottish Housing Quality Standard since 2010 according to the Scottish House Condition Survey are as follows:

Year	Number	Percentage
2010	100,000	16%
2011	93,000	15%
2012	77,000	13%
2013	77,000	13%
2014	85,000	14%

NHS Special Health Boards received differential funding dependent upon their relationship with directly patient facing services.

In terms of efficiency savings, four of the special health boards generated efficiency savings which were returned to the Scottish Government and reinvested in patient facing services in the other health boards. The other special boards retained their efficiency savings for local reinvestment. Savings are agreed with boards as part of their annual financial planning process.

The following table shows the uplifts(reductions) for Special NHS Boards in 2015-16. Draft Budget figures are also provided for 2016-17.

	2014-15 Baseline	Baseline	Efficiency	2015-16 Baseline	2016-17 Budget	2016-17 Budget
Board		Uplift 1%	Savings		Uplift	Baseline
	£000s	£000s	£000s	£000s	£000s	£000s
NHS National Waiting Times Centre Board	45,495	455		45,950	590	46,541
Scottish Ambulance Service	209,967	2,100		212,066	6,475	218,541
NHS National Services Scotland	282,029	2,820	(1,500)	283,349	10,045	293,394
Healthcare Improvement Scotland	15,454	155	(450)	15,158	336	15,494
The State Hospital	33,859	339		34,197	87	34,284
NHS 24	62,104	621		62,725	1,891	64,616
NHS National Education Scotland	390,156	3,902	(1,500)	392,557	16,100	408,657
NHS Health Scotland	18,898	189	(1,050)	18,037	180	18,217

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-28109 on 16 March 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.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

We are currently engaging with a wide range of stakeholders including people who use services, service providers and professional bodies about the next mental health strategy which will be produced in 2016, and informed by that engagement with interested parties. We will continue to do so as the strategy takes shape. This is an open process and all organisations and individuals who want to contribute can do so. This process is also being informed by stakeholder engagement events being run for the Scottish Government by the Scottish Association for Mental Health and Voices of Experience. We will publish information about this stakeholder engagement alongside development and publication of a new strategy, which will include details of a range of stakeholders that we have met as part of the process.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-28109 on 16 March 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.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.