Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government’s ambition is to prevent homelessness, where possible, to avoid the need for temporary accommodation. We understand, however, that there is a need for more suitable temporary accommodation, which would include accommodation suitable for the needs of women with children.

The Scottish Government has taken action to increase the supply of suitable accommodation, in particular, larger properties suitable for households with children. Scottish Government investment of more than £83 million in our National Acquisition Programme in 2023-24 delivered almost 1,500 affordable homes. This assisted local authorities’ efforts to ensure households with children who have been living in temporary accommodation for longer periods are supported into suitable settled housing.

The Scottish Government has allocated additional capital of £40 million to the Affordable Housing Supply Programme in each of the next two financial years. As women make up the majority (74%) of single parent households assessed as homeless, this will benefit them most.

In our engagement with local authorities to date, we have been clear that increasing the supply of social housing suitable for families is needed to reduce the number of children in temporary accommodation, a key Scottish Government objective in tackling child poverty.

The Scottish Government recognises the need to increase the supply of affordable homes, including larger properties suitable for households with children. The Scottish Government has allocated additional capital of £40 million in each of the next two financial years to support acquisitions and, where appropriate, to help bring long term empty social homes back into use. This builds on the success of last year’s National Acquisition Programme, which invested more than £83 million in 2023-24 and helped deliver almost 1,500 affordable homes. This additional £40 million takes our total investment in affordable housing to almost £600 million in 2024-25.

The Scottish Government has had a number of exploratory discussions with stakeholders including retailers and public health representative organisations on the possible reintroduction of a non-domestic rates Public Health Supplement on large retailers. However, to date there has been no discussion on this specific matter directly with Scotland’s Improvement Districts.

The Scottish Government currently has no plans to build a high temperature incineration plant in Scotland.

This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

Scottish Forestry is reviewing its approach to assessing Forestry Grant Scheme applications for grey squirrel control. This has been necessary because the Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrel project is no longer able to provide assistance with the assessment of grant applications. This process will be concluded shortly and we hope to be able to continue the processing of grant applications. An evaluation of the effectiveness of the FGS grey squirrel control grant has been undertaken will be shared as part of an overall FGS evaluation report when finalised.

The review of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 is nearing completion and three Findings Reports will be published in December 2024.

A wider review of the Single Point of Contact programme is being led by Healthcare Improvement Scotland and includes a scalability assessment. This commenced in early 2024 and is expected to complete by Spring 2025.

The scalability assessment and an implementation toolkit will be publicly available upon completion of the assessment to support the ongoing programme of work.

Non-domestic rates are administered by local authorities in accordance with the relevant legislation. Under that statutory framework, the award of discretionary reliefs is a matter for individual local authorities. In line with the recommendation from the independent Barclay Review of Non-Domestic Rates to remind councils of the arrangements for reliefs and to provide better public information on reliefs and the legislative framework, the Scottish Government publishes an annual Local Government Finance Circular providing information for each non-domestic rates relief, including discretionary reliefs like Hardship Relief or the discretionary element of Rural Relief.

Work on the review of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 has not yet concluded but is at a final stage. Three Findings Reports will be published in December 2024 which will include details of engagement.