Question reference: S6W-06598
- Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 15 February 2022
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Current status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 14 March 2022
Question
To ask the Scottish Government how many undergraduate and postgraduate students have presented as homeless since May 2016, broken down by higher education institution.
Answer
Statistics on homelessness, based on administrative data, are collected by local authorities in the course of processing homelessness applications and for households in temporary accommodation. A limitation of this approach is that data is not collected for any households, including students, that are homeless but do not engage with their local authority. Data is available for a number of characteristics including age, gender and ethnicity but not in relation to those in full or part time in further and higher education. The Scottish government does not collect economic activity in the collection, some LAs may however collect the information for their own purposes but the extent of this is unknown. The latest statistics publication is available here: Homelessness in Scotland: 2020 to 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
The Scottish Government has already started work on a Review of Purpose Built Student Accommodation which is running in parallel with the development of a Rented Sector Strategy both of which will inform a comprehensive Student Accommodation Strategy.