 I morning, I welcome everybody to the twenty second meeting in 2014 of the infrastructure and capital investment committee. Can I remind everyone to switch off their mobile phones and any devices as they do affect the broadcasting system. Agenda item 1 is homelessness in Scotland. As part of this inquiry, we will hear from local authority and housing association representative groups. O bryddeni wrth gweld yn gwleidio fel Gweinidiaeth Llywodraeth Gweinidiaeth ac yn ychwanegwyd ein hwmledig arall, ac yn cael ei wal iddo i gynhyfyddoedd o bwysig sydd efallai i gweinidiaeth det�on i ymlaen fyddfa wneud hwn. Iом ni, Alex Johnston maen nhw wedi gweld dŵr y maen nhw, a'r gweithio i dŵr wrth gweld i gwael i gweld. O fwy gwrth gweinidiaeth, geni'n bar에i, lodgef ysgoliaeth yn fywyr dwyngol ac y advertising strategy manager from Alaccio", councilor Jimmy Brack Black, who is chair of homelessness prevention group and silke Eastbrand, both of COSLA. David Bookbinder, director of Glasgow & West, something forum in the GWSF and Andy Young, policy manager from SFHA. I missed Gavin Whitefield portfolio holder for housing solace, I welcome you all to this meeting. Perhaps I can start off the questioning today. Perhaps in general, could you make some brief comments about the impact of the abolition, while the impact of the abolition of priority and need has had on the outcomes for homeless people? I have risen to the challenge in addressing the abolition of priority need and the introduction of housing options. I think that we have seen very positive outcomes as a consequence of that, and that is a reference within the solace and the elatrous submission, which cover a lot of common ground. I think that we recognise, however, that there are still early days and there are still many challenges that remain, in particular the impact of welfare reform, future funding challenges, and the need to ensure that we clearly illustrate and demonstrate the positive outcomes through the framework that has been introduced as a consequence of the regulator's report earlier this year, and how we cross-reference and link positive outcomes through the preventative approach within the single outcome agreement. I think that there is work to be done there. Moving forward, there are opportunities to build on the partnership approach, which is an excellent example of the preventative agenda that is recommended through the Christie commission. There is a real commitment across all council services to address this, along with our community planning partners, and I am sure that we will see continued progress as we move forward. The world's legislation seems to suggest that it was acceptable to allow single people and childless couples to be on the street. That was a kind of implication of it. It also meant that you had to waste time trying to assess whether or not somebody was in priority need, and rather than actually look at the needs of that individual and what you could do for them, you were trying to work out whether they were entitled to a service. It has removed an unnecessary area of complication. It means that we can just get on with helping people now, and that seems to be working. The fact that homeless applications looking at the figures yesterday appear to be coming down shows that it has not led to a massive mushrooming of applications for homelessness. I think in general that it has not been a problem, but what it has done has enabled us to focus on the real needs of individuals and the prevention approach that Gavin outlined is absolutely central to the housing options approach. Anyone else? No? Okay, if we can move on to specific areas, then intentionally homeless decisions. Adam, you've got some questions on that. Yes. Of course, intentionally homeless applicants are not entitled to be rehoused in settled accommodation, but we've seen a rise in the number of people who have been classified as intentionally homeless over the last year. As you pointed out, the number of homeless applications are falling, yet the number of intentionally homeless people is rising. Can you perhaps explain what is the explanation for the increased number of intentionally homeless people? To some extent, there has been a rise in the proportion of people found to be intentionally homeless, but that is because we now apply the test of intentionality to a much larger group of people who apply as homeless in the first place. When we previously had the priority need test as a hurdle that people had to get over to get a service, those people who were found to be homeless but were not in priority need were not then tested for intentionality, so it stands to reason that the abolition of priority need has led to a slightly bigger proportion of people being now tested and found to be intentionally homeless. I don't think that it is a surprise to people because it has been heralded that that is likely to be an outcome of the abolition of priority need way before we ever got to the 2012 target. How would you then respond to evidence from the Government law centre that said, I quote, that it is pretty clear that treating people as intentionally homeless is being used as a way not to offer a service to vulnerable people? I do not think that that is accurate. Across all local authorities, intentionally homeless households have been offered services, access to integrated support assessments, access to integrated support packages. We are providing temporary accommodation until the point of re-settlement. What the homeless statistics also show is that there are a number of intentionally homeless households who actually move into settled accommodation. We move them into triple STs on an initial basis, but there are also a number of households that we hold on to until we can re-settlement to private sector accommodation, so it is no longer the case that intentionally homeless households are just walked away from at the point where the decisions made. Local authorities continue to work with them to get the best housing outcome that we can ensure that they have access to their appropriate support. I doubt that anyone would say that the intentional homelessness provisions are completely satisfactory, but you still have duties to intentional homeless people. You still have to provide them with temporary accommodation, you have to provide them with practical help and advice to find suitable accommodation. There are still fairly extensive duties to help people who are intentionally homeless. One of the anomalies is that, as far as I understand, at the housing support duties that we brought in a couple of years ago do not actually apply to intentionally homeless people, but nonetheless we still receive support from various agencies of councils and of RSLs too. It is not as if intentionally homeless people are getting no service at all. I think that this is something that we need to look at though, because if you look at the statistics that were published yesterday, the variation between some authorities is remarkable. Dundee, my own authority is down at 1.2 per cent of people assessed as intentionally homeless. I think that another authority is up at 22 per cent. Now, why that is? I think that it would bear examination in every individual case to try and work out why that should be. It does not necessarily mean that people are using the intentional homelessness provisions deliberately to prevent people from getting a service, but that could happen. It is important that we understand the reasons for the variance. That is one of the things that we will look at in the homelessness prevention strategy group over the coming year. It is obviously a concern that is out there, so I think that we need to bottom this particular issue out and sort it out. I was interested in what you are saying, but it does not mean that intentionally homeless people do not get access to services. It would be interesting to find out what the outcomes are for people who are classified as intentionally homeless and how those outcomes might differ from people who are classified as unintentionally homeless. Do you have any evidence to lay before us, or could you provide us any evidence that that would be the case? That is probably recorded through our HL1 information. We will have those outcomes, so it is perhaps something that we can go back to the Scottish Government and ask it to have a wider look at the HL1 statistics just to show the outcomes for intentionally homeless households compared to unintentionally homeless households. I think that the information is available. I will say that you do not have to touch your mics. It is done for you here. I know that it does not exist in councils, but if you do not touch your mics, please. I am sure that the committee will want to keep to monitor on an on-going basis, so I certainly appreciate any feedback that you can provide to us. If we move on to housing options, Mary, you have some questions on this. I want to explore a bit more the benefits of the housing options approach and how it has developed in Scotland over the past few years. What are some of the practical benefits of the use of the housing options approach? My colleagues who have a better technical knowledge can perhaps fill in the gaps. The housing options approach is all about prevention of homelessness. It is prevention of the crisis. What we have done in the past is we have dealt with the crisis when it arose. People have come to the housing department and said, I am homeless, I already have no house and I am going to lose my house in a couple of weeks. Then you have got a real problem trying to solve their difficulty. The housing options approach is not just for homeless people, it is for anyone who needs housing advice, assistance and help. It means that you can catch people early and you can plug them into other council services and whatever services they require much earlier than prevent the crisis happening because homelessness is a crisis and we really should not get to that stage. One of the things that I am hoping will happen is that the housing options approach will develop to include all the council services and perhaps integration of health and social care will help here. If you look at the figures, you will see that people often cite mental health as a problem, physical health as a problem that leads to their homelessness. There are a number of other factors where other council services, if they intervened earlier, could prevent the crisis happening. That is where I see housing options as being crucial. The other thing is that it enables people who may have little understanding of the housing market locally to get expert advice about what the options are. The options in some rural areas might be very few and far between. In urban areas you might have housing associations, councils and a number of options within those things and the private rented sector and so on. It is important that the housing options providers have a really good knowledge of the housing market locally so that they can actually plug people into something that will prevent them from ever getting near the point of becoming homeless. That has completely changed the way local authorities think in the way we respond to our customers. We have gone from being process driven and driving people down a homeless in this route to being far more holistic when we consider what people's needs are. I think that we are far more person centred. The housing options approach is far more person centred and it really does empower people to make choices and because people are invested in the choices they make, the opportunity for sustainability accommodation is far greater and therefore we are reducing the risk of repeat homelessness and repeat crisis in the future. Authorities at different stages in addressing this and the introduction and development of the regional hubs is a very welcome development to share best practice and ensure that we are all operating to the highest standards. We are not just looking at the narrow housing solutions but looking at the solutions that involve other council services and indeed partner services including the voluntary sector and the health sector. David. The change that colleagues have talked about is steadily happening within the housing association sector as well on housing options. Historically it has been a pretty automatic process as Janine referred to it. It is a good word to use because the sense is somebody applies, they have got legal right to go on your housing list as a housing association and that is what happens and it can be as little as a sort of 10-15 minute kind of interview checking of circumstances and that sense now that certainly in Glasgow for example where the housing options approach is being rolled out to pushing on 50 housing associations that will happen steadily over the next a couple of years, it really is making a difference. It's making a difference for people who don't sort of fester on a housing list when they've no real chance of housing instead that their actual current circumstances are looked at and they may well end up registering on the list or with a common housing register or whatever but it's not a kind of blind you know we never mind your current circumstances you can go on the list. It really has changed that approach and the difference is casework probably that instead of giving somebody advice about a current housing problem it may well mean the housing officer in the housing association taking a casework approach and trying to sort that problem out it could be housing benefit problem in the private rented sector it could be a family issue and that's really changing how associations deal with applications as well. Education of health and social care perhaps being beneficial is something that I suppose could be expanded on as you progress because that's more likely to pick up more vulnerable groups whether it's people that might be suffering from jugger alcohol abuse, people that are leaving hospital, young care leavers. I'd be interested in your thoughts on how that could be progressed to support people that would be leaving prison. Is that something you could see that could be developed to work with partner organisations that the Scottish Prison Service?