Chamber and committees

In preparation for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, sportscotland invested a total of £15 million into the Emirates Arena and Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.

More recently, the South City Way in Glasgow was the first winner in 2016-17 of the Community Links PLUS competition for cycling infrastructure projects. Glasgow City Council will receive over £3 million in funding from Scottish Government which it will match.

The Scottish Government takes a strategic approach to addressing homelessness in Scotland. At a national level, the Scottish Government and COSLA’s Homelessness Prevention and Strategy Group’s membership involves a range of stakeholders, including health, who meet to develop policy and promote practice in tackling and preventing homelessness. 

This Group’s priorities include working to address homelessness for people with more complex needs, including those who may be sleeping rough. Another priority is improving the provision of temporary accommodation, which is a statutory duty for local authorities, against the background of the UK Government’s welfare reform agenda which is reducing the funding available for temporary accommodation. 

Additionally, there have been a series of bilateral meetings between the Minister for Local Government and Housing and other Ministers in recent months to identify how best to work across policy areas to address homelessness.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of relationship support, given the impact that divorce and separation can have on children. That is why we provide significant funding to enable mediation services to be provided, including for couples who are separating and who have children. As we did in financial year 2016-17, in 2017-18 we will provide nearly £2 million to Relationships Scotland and The Spark through the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention Fund, enabling them to deliver a range of services to support separating families, including mediation and counselling. 

We have also funded Relationships Scotland to establish and promote a ‘Parenting Apart’ service, designed specifically to help separating or separated families support their children.  

The ‘Divorce, separation and living apart’ section of our mygov.scot website provides parents with a range of helpful information, including a specific section on ‘Using mediation after a separation’. 

In the coming months we will publish a refresh of the ‘Parenting Agreement for Scotland’, a guide to help parents who live apart or are separating make practical arrangements for their children. 

Family mediation costs may be met through the legal aid budget. In addition, where legal aid funding is being sought for a contact or a residence action the Scottish Legal Aid Board ask for information on the steps taken to avoid litigation including details on whether mediation has been considered. 

The Scottish Government encourages mediation in appropriate cases but also recognises that there will be cases where mediation is not appropriate.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

SPS does not have any current plans to launch a review of rehabilitation schemes which operate across the prison estate.

Scottish Government funding for community justice services across Scotland remains at record levels following the 2017-18 Spending Review. This investment includes £99 million which is distributed through local authorities for the delivery of criminal justice social work and support services from the third sector aimed at preventing and reducing further offending. 

Under the new model for Community Justice, local authorities, working with other statutory community partners and the third sector, have flexibility to use this funding to deliver statutory services and local priorities aimed at reducing reoffending including the provision of throughcare services. This partnership approach and decision making will help facilitate more collective discussions between key stakeholders and for partners to ensure improved alignment and sustainability of funding and the effective commissioning of throughcare services. 

In addition, over 2012-17, the Scottish Government has provided £15.5m to support third sector services delivering practical, one to one mentoring to women offenders and prolific young male offenders. 

Given this significant investment by the Scottish Government over a significant period, third sector organisations should also be working to attract funding from other sources including local authorities.

With strong statutory rights to housing for homeless households already in place, we are focusing with local authorities and a range of partners on preventing homelessness before it occurs. We are continuing to fund five local authority led Housing Options Hubs across Scotland to promote prevention activity and facilitate regular national seminars in this regard involving the third sector and RSLs. 

This approach will be strengthened further with the development of a housing options training toolkit for local authority officers enabling a consistency of the housing options approach across Scotland and involving a range of partners in different areas including health, justice and children’s policy.

Households with children are placed in temporary accommodation while they wait for appropriate, sustainable permanent accommodation. We want time in temporary accommodation to be as short as possible. As most temporary accommodation is in social housing it should be at the same standard as for permanent accommodation.

In the latest figures, the vast majority (86%) of households with children or pregnant women were given temporary accommodation in social housing, with less than 1% placed in B&B accommodation and then for very short periods of time.

The Unsuitable Accommodation Order serves to ensure appropriate quality of temporary accommodation for families with children. We have strengthened the Unsuitable Accommodation Order to ensure accommodation is wind and watertight and we have plans to strengthen this further. We are committed to introducing a cap of one week, down from the current cap of 14 nights, for families with children and pregnant women living in B&B accommodation unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Scottish Government statutory guidance on the Best Interests of Children Facing Homelessness also makes clear to local authorities the importance of ensuring temporary accommodation for households with children is suitable. The Guidance highlights that full consideration should be given as to how children will be affected by moves between accommodation.

The Scottish Government set up Scotland's Adoption Register to increase the number of children who are adopted, particularly those who are more difficult to place. A national programme of Adoption Exchange Days and Activity Days runs in parallel with the register to support successful matching of potential adopters with looked after children and young people.

Adoptions of looked after children increased to its highest level on record in 2016 with a total of 341 children being adopted.

The first Adoption Week Scotland was held in September 2016 and there are plans to make this an annual event to highlight the successes and challenges of adoption in Scotland.

Local authorities have the duty to accommodate those released from prison who require accommodation. All those assessed as homeless are entitled to a minimum of temporary accommodation and advice and assistance. Temporary accommodation will include a range of accommodation, including furnished flats and hostels.

The allocation of social housing is a matter for the social landlord concerned. However we recognise that there are particular difficulties for people leaving prison in accessing social housing and have been working with partners to consider how to improve the coordination and planning of offenders’ housing needs while in custody and on liberation.

Alongside increasing housing supply to help reduce the time spent in temporary accommodation, where hostels are used the Scottish Government encourages the use of smaller scale provision with person centred support. We also support innovative approaches to improving outcomes for those with more complex needs, including those that have been in prison, to settle in mainstream tenancies with appropriate support.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting prisoners to secure appropriate housing on release and to addressing homelessness amongst prisoners and their families. All those assessed as unintentionally homeless by local authorities, including prisoners upon liberation, are entitled to settled accommodation as a legal right.

The Scottish Government recognises the particular challenges that may be faced by prisoners and their families and the support that may be required. The Scottish Government and the Scottish Prison Service, together with a number of partners, are supporting on-going work to develop a consistent and shared approach to housing provision for prisoners across the country. This work focusses on the coordination and planning of offenders’ housing needs while in custody and on liberation.

Local authorities help prisoners with their immediate housing needs and, through the housing options approach, may consider other issues such as employability, need for mediation and the life skills needed to sustain tenancies.