Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the question S6W-02013 on 22 August 2021 All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

I refer the member to the question S6W-01692 on 16 August 2021. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

I refer the member to the question S6W-01692 on 16 August 2021. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

On 11 November 2020, the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning announced in Parliament the continuation of the Rural and Islands Housing Funds beyond March 2021 with up to £30 million available to support this demand led scheme as part of the five year Affordable Housing Supply Programme in the current parliamentary term.

The following table shows a breakdown of breaches of the Unsuitable Accommodation Order from 2017-18 to 2020-21 by local authority. Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 5 for disclosure purposes.

Data on temporary accommodation taken from the HL3 data collection is only available for all local authorities from 2017-18. Although some local authorities have provided data prior to this, there is not enough to provide a meaningful national picture and this data has not been subject to the rigorous quality assurance procedures required to finalise the data to official statistics standards.

Important:

Over the 2020-21 reporting period i) there was a significant change to legislation and ii) temporary exceptions were put in place at very short notice in response to COVID-19, both of which have had considerable impacts on the data. The urgency of having to adapt to the revised legislation without any specific guidance means that local authorities have reported inconsistencies in the information captured regarding breaches which is likely to affect comparability. For these reasons, these figures should be treated with caution.

Changes in legislation:

Prior to 5 May 2020, a breach was encountered when a household with a pregnant woman and/or child is in unsuitable temporary accommodation for more than 7 days. From 5 May 2020, this was extended to all households. Therefore, the total number of breaches across the year 2020/21 will include those based on both old and new legislation.

Covid-19 exceptions:

Temporary exceptions were put in place to allow local authorities to provide households with accommodation in response to COVID-19.

The legislation noted that a placement was not considered unsuitable if:

• a person in the household has symptoms of coronavirus and the household requires to isolate; or
• the accommodation is required to provide temporary accommodation to ensure that a distance of 2 metres can be maintained between a member of the household and a person who is not a member of the household in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus; or
• the local authority is unable to place the household in suitable accommodation as a result of the impacts of coronavirus on temporary accommodation supply in the area, provided that where a household includes a child or a pregnant woman the household is not placed in unsuitable accommodation for more than 7 days.

(To note: the third of these only came into effect on 30th September 2020, halfway through the 2020-21 reporting period.)

A household placed in unsuitable accommodation for longer than 7 days where an exception did not apply must still be recorded as a breach.

Number of breaches of the Unsuitable Accommodation Order, by local authority: 2017-18 – 2021-2020

In accordance with CalMac Ferries Limited (CFL) terms and conditions, and Passengers' Rights Regulations, concerning the rights of passengers when travelling by sea and inland waterway, the operator does not have liability to reimburse passengers for unused accommodation as a result of cancelled ferry services. However, if a sailing is cancelled or delayed due to reasons within the operator’s control, and passengers require to pay for overnight accommodation, the operator will reimburse these costs in line with Passenger Rights regulations.

In circumstances where passengers have paid for accommodation that was unused due to ferry cancellations, they are advised to reclaim these costs through their travel insurance.

A guide to Sailing Disruption and Passenger Rights Claims can be found on CFL’s website at the following link: https://www.calmac.co.uk/travelling-with-calmac/help-for-passengers/passenger-rights .

Due to the pandemic, the work to address the recommendations published by the Parliamentary Working Group was postponed. In January this year a revised timetable was published on the Scottish Government website and the revised timetable can be accessed via this link Tenement Maintenance Timetable .

The full-time equivalent of teachers in temporary posts in each year since 2006 is shown in the following table.

Details of the £10 million grant fund scheme - announced by the Deputy First Minister on 22 June to help tenants who have been financially impacted by the pandemic and are facing homelessness - are being developed at pace and we will provide further information on the delivery and applications process for the fund in due course.

The Housing First Pathfinder programme started in August 2018 across six local authority areas with Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire working in partnership. Up until 30 June 2021, a total of 531 people have accessed Housing First tenancies and support through this programme. Over the course of the final year of the Housing First Pathfinder Programme, which ends on 31 March 2022, each local authority is working on the mainstreaming arrangements to deliver their Housing First programme going forwards.

In line with the objective of upscaling Housing First across Scotland outlined in the 2018 Scottish Government/COSLA Ending Homelessness Together Action Plan (and retained in the 2020 updated Action Plan), local authorities have been asked to consider and implement the Housing First model as a default approach to housing and supporting those with more complex needs as part of their Rapid Rehousing Transition Plans (RRTPs). Information on the delivery of RRTPs, including Housing First, is provided to the Scottish Government by local authorities on an annual basis.

The Scottish Government has also developed a dedicated Housing First monitoring framework to capture progress on Housing First across all 32 local authorities. The monitoring framework will collect information on Housing First tenancies from 1 April 2021 on a quarterly basis. The Scottish Government will publish the first quarterly progress update on Housing First tenancies across Scotland in September 2021.

From the Housing First monitoring framework and RRTP information, the Scottish Government can report that 22 local authorities currently have a Housing First programme in place, and a further 6 local authorities have indicated that they are in the process of developing their programme which will commence during 2021-22.