Chamber and committees

Marketing for the Open Market Shared Equity scheme is carried out by the administering agent as part of their contract to administer the scheme on behalf of the Scottish Government.

It is the responsibility of Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) who deliver the New Supply Shared Equity scheme to carry out marketing for each of their developments.

The Scottish Government works closely with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to support local authorities to accommodate and support unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) arriving in Scotland through the National Transfer Scheme (NTS).

In light of the unprecedented rise in UASC arrivals the Scottish Government has provided additional revenue funding of £0.5 million to local authorities and funded extra age assessment training for local authority staff.

I wrote to the Home Secretary on the 25 of November ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/mandatory-participation-in-national-transfer-scheme-letter-to-the-home-secretary/ ), and jointly with the Welsh Government on 14 December ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/nationality-and-borders-bill-joint-letter-to-the-home-secretary/ ) setting out the serious concerns of the Scottish Government regarding the decision to mandate Scottish local authorities to participate in the NTS and calling for urgent additional financial support.

The Scottish Government continues to press the Home Office to provide the necessary financial support. Work is ongoing to monitor UASC arrival numbers in Scotland and the need for additional financial assistance is being kept under review.

Following our consultation in 2019, a short-life working group was established in October 2021 to help produce a new temporary accommodation standards framework, identify if legislative changes are required, consider how the framework can be applied and regulated and produce the processes to support this.

The working group has met five times to date and aims to produce a temporary accommodation standards framework later in 2022.

Following our consultation in 2019, a short-life working group, chaired by Jim Hayton, was established in October 2021 and has met five times to date. So far, the working group has considered:

• Amendments required to the existing advisory standards and how the new standards can be incorporated into a temporary accommodation standards framework.
• What the processes are to ensure the framework is implemented by local authorities.
• Whether legislative changes are needed to implement the framework.
• What the timescales are for the framework implementation.
• The support local authorities may require to fully implement the standards framework and to ensure compliance.
• How the standards will be assessed.
• How the standards framework can be monitored and regulated.
• Whether sanctions are necessary and, if so, how they will be enforced.

The working group aims to produce a temporary accommodation standards framework later in 2022.

Since the Gypsy/Traveller Accommodation Fund was launched in June 2021 there have been three successful applications.

It is a condition of grant under the Gypsy/Traveller Accommodation Fund that projects are developed in line with the Interim Site Design Guide, published by the Scottish Government in December 2021 to assist in the development of high quality accommodation. Grant offers are being phased, based on tendered costs, to help manage the risks attached to current supply chain issues. Local authorities will report regularly to the Scottish Government on progress and draw down funding in line with evidenced spend on their projects. Plans for learning from and evaluation of the Gypsy/Traveller Accommodation Fund include a comparative cost analysis, to improve our understanding of the costs of modern Gypsy/Traveller accommodation.

An option for new rail line between Aberdeen, Ellon and onwards to Peterhead and Fraserburgh was assessed as part of the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2). The outcome of this was that this option did not form part of the strategic transport investment recommendations within STPR2. Instead, recommendations set out in STPR2 focus on the decarbonisation of the remainder of the rail network; measures to increase the amount of freight travelling by rail and on improving connectivity between our 7 cities.

However, there remains a path for regional or local rail projects to come forward, and Transport Scotland will consider these subject to a strong business case being developed in accordance with Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance (STAG) and suitable funding being available.

Improving wider public transport accessibility in the North East is a key STPR2 recommendation and Transport Scotland continues to work with Nestrans, Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council in developing plans for Aberdeen Rapid Transit further appraisal of which is already being progressed through our Bus Partnership Fund. The rapid transit system would prioritise buses and connect key destinations on the outskirts of Aberdeen to the city centre via busy radial corridors. Bus priority is also being looked at through the Bus Partnership fund, including to Ellon. The proposed bus based rapid transit system for the region would provide a more competitive and efficient public transport into and around the Aberdeen City region. This would improve region wide connectivity and encourage a switch from car to public transport and other more sustainable travel options.

The Scottish Government does not gather information on the affordability of rents in the Build to Rent sector.

Build to Rent is recognised as a mainstream housing delivery mechanism and can complement existing housing models.

Build to Rent can be characterised by:

• Single institutional ownership and professional on-site management of the entire development;
• Individual units are self-contained and separately let;
• Resident access to shared, communal facilities and on-site amenities integrated as part of the development.

The Scottish Government collects snapshot information through the HL2 aggregate data collection on the number of households in temporary accommodation placements at the end of each quarter, by accommodation type. This information is available for all Local Authorities from 2002. This information is published as part of the Homelessness in Scotland Statistics publications. Table 29 of the ‘Main tables’ associated with the 2020/21 publication – the latest full year available – provides the number of households in bed and breakfast accommodation placements as at 31 March 2021, by local authority.

Supporting documents - Homelessness in Scotland: 2020 to 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

By its nature, snapshot data cannot provide a true reflection of the entirety of temporary accommodation usage across a period of time.

The Scottish Government also collects record level data relating to individual temporary accommodation placements through the HL3 data collection. The HL1 data collection gathers information on the number of homelessness applications and number of people associated with households making homelessness applications. Information relating to the number of people within temporary accommodation placements is not collected via the HL3 collection. Therefore, to provide an estimate of the number of people in temporary accommodation placements, this must be derived by linking household records between the HL1 and HL3 data collections.

However, it is important to note that it is not necessarily the case that all household members associated with a homelessness application will enter the associated temporary accommodation placement(s). For example, a household may make alternative arrangements for children so the children are never present in the temporary accommodation.

Comprehensive HL3 data is only available for all local authorities from 2017-18, which can include temporary accommodation placements which commenced prior to 2017-18. While some local authorities have provided HL3 data prior to 2017-18, coverage is variable across local authorities with some not providing any data prior to 2017-18 and some providing a much smaller number of placements compared to subsequent years, suggesting this data is incomplete. Therefore, only B&B placements that were live from 2017-18 onwards have been provided to give robust comprehensive statistics across Scotland and a consistent time series over the past 4 years.

Data is provided up to 2020-21 as this is the most recent full-year data available.

Temporary accommodation placements in hotels are captured within a broader ‘other’ category (via the HL2 or HL3 collections) and so this data cannot be provided separately.

The following table shows the estimated number of people in Bed and Breakfast (B&B) temporary accommodation placements by year and local authority. Where the same household has had multiple B&B placements within the same year, the people within that household have only been included once. Where the same household has had multiple B&B placements in different years, the people within the households have been included in each of the years they were in a B&B placement. his includes instances where B&B placements have spanned multiple years, with the people being included in the figures for all years in which the B&B placement was live.

Values of 1, 2, 3 or 4 are denoted by ‘<5’ for disclosure control purposes.

Estimated number of people in B&B temporary accommodation placements, by local authority: 2017-18-2020-21

Recruitment of firefighters, whether whole-time, retained or control is a matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service therefore figures on recruitment are not held centrally.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) came into being as a national service on 1 April 2013. In its first year of operation (2013/14) employment statistics were collated by the Scottish Government and at 31 March 2014 SFRS had, by headcount, 4,001 whole-time, 2,940 Retained, 223 control, and 961 support employees and 359 volunteers. For reporting year 2014/15 and onwards, SFRS has been responsible for producing these statistics and employment figures are published annually on the SFRS website www.firescotland.gov.uk as part of its Organisational Statistics.

Prior to 2013-14 fire and rescue services were provided by the 8 regional fire and rescue services which formed part of local government. Statistics on the number of employees in these services are not held centrally.