 Fy hoi! I welcome you to the 20 th meeting in 2014 of the Infrastructure and capital investment committee. I remind everybody to switch off their mobile devices as they do affect the broadcasting system. Agenda item 1 is items in private. I seek agreement of the committee to take item 4 in private to allow the committee to consider a paper on its draft budget Scrutinade 2015-16. Is that agreed? That is agreed, thank you. Agenda item 2 is homelessness in Scotland. This is the committee's follow-up inquiry on homelessness in Scotland. In 2011-12, the committee conducted an inquiry into the Scottish Government's commitment to abolish the priority need test from the assessment of homeless applications. The committee undertook in its report to quote, monitor the implementation of the commitment for the remainder of parliamentary session and address any issues of concern which may emerge. So as part of this work we will today hear from four homelessness representative groups and I now welcome Robert Allridge, chief executive of Homelessness Action Scotland, Rose Marie Brotchi, policy and research manager Shelter Scotland, Robert Gowins, policy officer, Citizens Advice Scotland and Gary Burns, prevention of homelessness case worker from the Government Law Centre. I welcome you all. We will move straight on to questions. Just to kick off, can I ask in general, can you make some brief comments on the impact of the abolition of priority need and the implication that that has had on the outcomes for homeless people in Scotland? Robert, would you like to start? Thanks very much for the question. I think one of the important things to remember in this is that there's been a long process. The original legislation was passed in 2001 and 2003 and there's actually been a long process of local authorities adjusting to the abolition of priority need which was finally implemented at the end of 2012. So there hasn't been a big bang or a sudden change for people. It's been a gradual process and part of that has involved an embedding of a change of culture towards how homeless people are dealt with which I think has been extremely positive and I think it is pretty well ingrained now that people are looking for long-term outcomes for homeless people in general. There are obviously some specific areas where we think there's more attention needed and I'm sure we'll come on to that in questions later on. But overall I think we're getting far better assessments of homeless people's needs, better support for homeless people and with some exceptions a real change in attitude which has been welcomed right across Europe. We're involved in a number of European organisations who look to Scotland as a beacon so I think it's really important that we're monitoring this. We keep a close eye on it and we don't take our eye off the ball but I think in general it's been a very, very positive impact over the 10 years, not just over the year. I think I'd echo everything Robert said there in the sense we're not just looking at the transition date and the end of December in 2012 to remove priority need but actually everything that happened up to that point. But we also should remember that it's not just that 10-year lead-in that we also need to be looking beyond the 2012 deadline and saying just as this committee is what is the ongoing impact and what are the ongoing issues for people who are presenting as homeless. One of the things that shelter Scotland is very keen to stress is that at the moment in Scotland with the advent of the housing options approach and the focus being on that, perhaps some of the attention towards how homelessness services are being developed and delivered isn't there. What we've been calling for is a new 10-year action plan that really takes us from now for the next 10 years so we have a new set of actions and a new set of priorities to make sure that people who are approaching their council because they're having a housing crisis are actually being dealt with and getting the right outcomes for them. In general though, if you're looking specifically at what the impact of priority need removal has been on people, one of the key things that we've seen is that there is obviously an increase in the number of people who are now owed a duty within certain categories. For example, in 2013 and 2014, 62% of households assessed as homeless and in priority need were single adults over 18 and that's compared in 2006 to 2007 where single adults over 18 made up only 46% of households. Obviously that increase in the number of certain types of people who are entitled to the homelessness duty is not on consequences for local authorities trying to house them so perhaps we can explore some of that as we go on through the questions. Hi, I'm a front-line practitioner. We always struggled with this priority need and we always felt that becoming homeless immediately made you vulnerable so that there was a priority there if not in the legal sense so we welcomed the Scottish Government abolishing it and it was really progressive. With all public policy, the attention and the detail on how that's brought out and I think there'll be a bit of an impact when the housing regulator reports on how local authorities when they haven't been offering people accommodation I think the figures in there may well tell us a story about what the impact has actually been because in paper it's great but it's about the detail and we need to wait until I think it's the end of August that comes out but as a bit of public policy we were in support of it and I think that it showed how progressive Scotland is in dealing with homelessness legislation. Certainly over the last few years the proportion of cases that assistance of vice-bürers across the country advised on related to homelessness has gone down from 1.25% of all cases a couple of years ago down to 1.19 that's still just under 6,700 cases across Scotland each year so it's a fair amount but particularly if you consider the wider context that we see, sanctions, food banks, payday loans, serials contracts, the bedroom tax and rent arrears then it's quite a remarkable success story. That being said there's room for improvement and certainly as housing options bedding in there are areas that can be improved upon but I think on the whole I think the fall in homelessness applications across the country is a remarkable achievement and testament to the policies that have been passed. I think in Scotland we're very good at beating ourselves up and I think when we took evidence remember we went to turning point in Glasgow and they said that people in the rest of Europe are looking to Scotland are they copying it and I think it's important that we stay ahead of the game nothing stands still so perhaps during the course of this session we can see how we can stay ahead of the game and still be a beacon of good practice. Adam do you want to carry on me? That said I'm going to look at a downside for her to kick us off. Particularly Shelter and Citizens Advice Scotland both of you commented in your submissions about the need to examine the increase in the number of intentionally homeless decisions that local authorities are making. In particular the allegation is out there that whether a changing use of intentionality decisions has been used to avoid statutory duty. I can start on that. When you look at the trend from 2009 you can see that 2009 10 3.8% of homelessness assessments were assessed as intentionally homeless and by 2013 14 that had gone up to 6.2%. Over that period it has risen gradually and clearly this is something we need to be aware of and a cause for concern. There's no clear evidence and I think one of the things that we would like to see is a kind of review and an understanding of why intentionally anti decisions are rising. Clearly when you're in a situation as many local authorities are of having a limited choice of options the number of lets that are becoming available potentially are lower we need to understand how they are assessing homelessness and what the dynamics there are to really guard against what potentially could be seen as a gatekeeping approach. Really I think one of the fundamental things that I'd like the committee to take away from my evidence today is to understand that when we're dealing with homelessness and homelessness on the whole is a serious crisis in most people's lives and should where it can be be prevented but often it can't be prevented and there are situations where a homelessness assessment or a homelessness decision is the right outcome for that household and a pathway out of a period of crisis in their lives and back into stable housing what needs to go with that is support we need a person centred homelessness service which is really another way of saying that the needs of that individual should be fully assessed and fully taken into account but what we also need is a good range of housing options for that individual and one of those housing options and for most people in the circumstances the right housing option will be social housing will be a long term stable let in the social rented sector and across Scotland we're seeing a decrease in social housing we're not seeing the level of new house building that we need and until we really fix that until there is a much stronger focus on a sustainable and improved supply of social housing we're always going to see these pressures on homelessness services I think we've seen cases where clients have been found to be intentionally homeless certainly even the face of it would appear to be being an inconsistent decision making and I think that's picking up on the roast we've actually made from the national statistics intentional homelessness decisions have risen considerably that may be due to the abolition of priority need it may be due to some inconsistent decision making processes and I think it would be interesting to define it whether the reason might be whether there's differences between policy and practice between different local authorities across the country in terms of how they arrive at intentional homelessness decisions Are there particular black spots or is this why you're calling for a monitoring of this across the country are you aware that there are particular local authorities who the rise has been significant in terms of the numbers declared intentionally homeless our focus is particularly on the national picture rather than the performance of individual local authorities so I don't think that the restoration would be helpful in that regard because certainly we wouldn't have the full picture at a local level but it's something that may be going on Gary and Robert like to comment on this issue as well I wonder if I could because I think it's quite a complex issue before priority need was abolished there were the four hurdles that people had to go through and they were first of all asked if they were homeless and then if they were in priority need and only if they passed those two hurdles were they then assessed as to whether they were intentionally homeless or not now with the priority need hurdle being abolished more people will be being asked the question are you intentionally homeless I suspect some change in the statistics because some of the people who would have been filtered out before are being filtered out at that stage however there are some quite large inconsistencies in the statistics the Scottish Government statistics are broken down by local authority and there are some quite large variations and I think it's important to get behind that because certainly we were in touch with one or two of the outlier local authorities who are actually involved in quite good practice even though they find the homeless person intentionally homeless they seek to maintain contact they seek to engage with support and they seek to find a solution for them so I think it's about understanding that picture a little better rather than simply looking at the statistics I think intentionally homeless has certainly went up but one of the problems that we have intentionally homeless is that whenever we come across a decision and probably I've done about 40 in the last two years at Government Law Centre there's only been two that I haven't been unable to overturn so there's a real issue there with justice when somebody who knows about the centre of Government Law Centre already can go to LSE and get an advocate or a solicitor to overturn a decision but what about the people who don't actually have access to that and that's the major issue that we have and some of the decisions that are made they're really really poor and that's why they're so easy to overturn so it's pretty clear that intentionally homeless has been used as a way of stopping a service being offered to people who are quite vulnerable and if you're talking earlier about saying about some new ideas you would say that intentionally homeless is a tool that shouldn't be getting used but if we're overturning almost every decision that we get then surely that means that the decision shouldn't be getting made in the first place I just had something when you look back at what the original homelessness taskforce recommendations were there was a whole suite of them and the abolition of priority need was really only one of those and it was enshrined in legislation they also recommended that intentionality test should also be removed and the logic for that is still intact there is still when you look at the needs of somebody who applies as homeless is and what they will get as a result of that determination of homelessness the choosing to say somebody is intentionally homeless really just prevents them from having that duty to be rehoused but they should also still be receiving temporary accommodation they should be looking to get certain types of housing support to enable them in future to avoid homelessness again and move out of that period of crisis and so I think one of the things that we should be doing in terms of looking at the next 10 years and what do we seek to achieve is going back and saying if in 2001-2002 the taskforce said we should be removing the intentionality test why shouldn't we still be looking at doing that now for the future in Scotland so you're suggesting us of bringing the taskforce back together again to actually look at the next 10 years in terms of where we need to focus I think certainly yes we need a renewed focus and a renewed plan and Shelter Scotland has published a paper which I'm sure we can share with the committee called People Not Progress or Process that really says that what we should be focusing in the future is yes we have rights now enshrined that are very strong as Ms Watts suggested are recognised across Europe but we actually now need to get that right on the ground and we need to look at the way that services delivered to make sure it's person centred and integrated and that we have a very tailored service for at-risk groups in the meantime how do we stop this gate to keeping our parents alleged to gate to keeping in terms of the intentionality assessment How would we do something about that in the short term? If these decisions are being made by workers who are supposed to be trained in homelessness and housing legislation if they are they're honestly making decisions then it's a case for further training or for some information to be given to them so that they can make the right decisions but I fear that it's not actually the individual worker who's where the problem's coming from I think that the problem is because it's coming from higher up it's coming from management but there's pressures on accommodation and it's expected that if there's a chance that you can exclude somebody from accommodation or from getting a service then you go for it and that's more at a strategic higher level within the local authorities as opposed to individual workers because a lot of individual workers don't like making the decisions but they feel that their hands are tied and they're being pressured into making these decisions about excluding people for a service Perhaps when we come on to look at the housing options approach that's been taken because clearly before you get to the point where somebody says are you intentionally or unintentionally homeless you have to be allowed to make an application as homeless excuse me and so they're perhaps and I think this is something that's been backed up by a recent report by the Scottish Housing Regulator there is also a suggestion that within some local authorities even being able to make an application as homeless could be something that's not offered to you or not made available and I agree with Gary that often this isn't the decision of individual case workers or individual housing option workers but actually a decision that's perhaps taken higher up and that there is a suggestion that we should be ensuring that each local authority takes a corporate approach to providing the right outcome and the right option for each individual so we very much welcome the fact that the regulator had suggested and has recommended that the Scottish Government produce guidance for housing options and how it should be implemented and we know that the government's accepted that recommendation is working to develop guidance simply I would say that we would want to be involved in helping to draft that guidance and I think it's very important that given this conversation that we're having today that the people who are applying for housing are presented in that process OK Mary I wanted to follow on with a few questions again around housing options and the Scottish Housing Regulator has found that the implementation of the housing options approach varies amongst local authorities some are further ahead with the process than others which has resulted in some homeless people being diverted away from making a homeless application and in turn that leads to an underreporting of homelessness I'd be interested if you agree with this and how the practice can be improved I could start that yes we do we have seen that and in preparing evidence for the committee we actually did a survey of our own staff who are dealing with clients and dealing with people who are coming to us for help and what the regulator has suggested in regards to underreporting really does tally with what our advice services are seeing so wherever somebody approaches their local authority for help with housing usually now what happens is they are given an interview to look at what their options may be look at their circumstances and what their options may be but even with that kind of initial approach there is still a statutory duty there to assess homelessness households for homelessness where there is reason to believe they might be homeless and we are concerned that in some cases people who the statutory duty potentially does apply to aren't having a homelessness assessment that should always be there that doesn't necessarily mean that in all cases the homelessness outcome is the right one for them that there may be other housing options that are more appropriate for their circumstances because making an application for homelessness yes it entitles you to a permanent accommodation and the local authority must progress a certain level of a certain number of responsibilities towards you but to go into temporary accommodation to potentially have a long wait in temporary accommodation to then be offered housing or permanent accommodation might not be what you would choose might not be the right route and in fact entering the private rented sector or going through housing association and getting a house that way might be but there should always be the option for people a statutory duty is there to have homelessness assessment and when I also want to comment on that I agree I think the housing options approach is still very much in its infancy and bedding in and there are different understandings of what housing options are and different interpretations and I think sometimes the message from strategic level is not understood in the same way at operational level where people assume that there are targets when there aren't any about reduction in numbers and I think all that needs to be sorted out as the housing options approach evolves and I think because it is so new and because there are these problems which chime in with our experience as well it's very important that the regulator continues to keep a close eye upon what is happening and goes back to review how that is developing because I think a one-off report is extremely useful but we want to see progress being made and we want to see a bit of pressure being kept on to make sure that housing options as a concept is interpreted in a consistent way across Scotland and in a way which does not allow for gatekeeping but a proper options approach of course linked to that there's always are there any options open to people and that's another question about housing supply and so on but the understanding that the housing options approach needs to be and the implementation needs to be consistent across Scotland Harry, sorry, Rob I think just following up from what Robert was saying is that in order to do that then there should maybe be the responsibility of the Scottish Government to come out and define precisely what housing options is like a sort of minimum standard because some local authorities will do it well and some local authorities don't do it well at all and finally doing really badly because a gatekeeping in that was came out in the housing regulators report which we've spoken about here I think last month so we would say that the homelessness guidance that was brought out by the Scottish Government in 2005 is really good and really strong and there's no if a local authority isn't behaving how it should be with its homelessness you can always go back to that as a practitioner and say well here's your responsibilities, you've no met them and then they'll need to meet them so I would suggest it that they get on to that put something about housing options how that should be done it's not going to be easy of course it's not because there's different local authorities have issues and they've all got different problems the urbanised areas have different problems from rural but there should be some minimum standard, minimum grounding suggest that the Scottish Government should consult with both local authorities and with the organisations that are sitting here but also with people who are tenants, who are living and who have experience and you don't get a good and a bad and come up with how it should be done a form of more specific guidance which would allow less I suppose a regular room we've spoke about it several times ability for interpretation across local authorities because going back to homelessness guidance for a practitioner like myself it's excellent because whenever the local authority deviates you can always go back to that and we have some problems we don't think everything's but when you've got that there when you've got that as a tool you can always say well hold on you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing here's what you should but that then opens up an area where some local authorities don't have great advocates, don't have great systems in place for challenging local authority decisions but that's a different issue completely I think that the Scottish Government released some guidance at one small thing around guidance I think there's also among local authorities about the guidance because they have to follow the homelessness code of guidance which was obviously published before the housing options approach was developed and there is like to be some housing options guidance and I think it's quite important that the guidance on housing options and the code of guidance on homelessness are integrated and given that we also have the opportunities of health and social care integration and guidance related to that we also have the Children and Young People's Act which has implications for care leavers which link to homelessness I think all the guidance relating to that needs to be looked at so that it integrates and compliments each other so that we don't have any problems in interpretation with local authorities Could I just add as well that we haven't yet mentioned that the Government are collecting statistics and figures which we are anticipating being published sometime towards the end of this year they're calling it Prevent One but effectively it's aiming to give a fuller picture of what's happening with so currently we have figures that tell us at the point that somebody's made a homelessness application there's a lot of information collected but what we don't know is the number of households that are approaching housing options team where homelessness is one of the options but actually is not one that's taken we need to understand basically much much more about what happens as a result of the housing options approach to really see and understand whether people are being prevented or in discourage from making homelessness application and what their outcomes are if they're not taking that approach Rob, did you want to comment? Yeah, I think certainly we've seen CAB clients who have been prevented or deterred from making a homeless application in some cases because they've been told well there's not a need temporary accommodation available at the moment so there's not a need if you tried these other things we'd also support updated guidance I think with a view to clarifying for local authorities where their various different duties come in they've got a duty towards homeless but there's also housing options and where I suppose the triggers move towards you would take a homeless application regardless of whether you've got temporary accommodation whether that would mean more work for the local authority I think it would amplify and again lead to more consistency across the country and a consistent experience for homeless people The homeless action submission and I'd be interested to draw a bit if you wanted to maybe comment further on it when you talk about the understanding of housing options within the third sector and the variation in practice across the third sector and I suppose in particular I'd be interested in comments around young people in homelessness because it's more often the third sector that are involved in helping young homeless people whether they're care leavers or they've had difficulty at home and they've left home so how can the understanding across the third sector be improved would it simply be through guidance that could be done? I think guidance is going to be very important and I would echo what Rosemary has said that it's important that the voluntary sector are involved in helping to shape that guidance before it's finalised As far as young people are concerned there's quite an issue about people who don't understand that they may be homeless the message hasn't got through and that's often young people who are sofa surfing who wait until all the options have run out before they actually think that they can go for assistance a housing options interview and so on so there's a bit about education out there about people understanding what they can do and that they do have options before they reach the crisis point As far as involvement the voluntary sector is concerned I think it's kind of a two-way process in some areas local authorities and the voluntary sector are not as closely involved with each other as they could be and I think again that may be something which could be referred to in the housing options guidance but I think there's also an onus on voluntary sector organisations as well to ensure that they proactively get involved in discussions about housing options I think as I said at the beginning we're in a very early stage of development of the housing options approach in some areas it's gone really well in others it's still very embryonic and I think if we get guidance and a bit more assistance for people to develop along the right lines we can address most of the issues of the lack of involvement of the voluntary sector and also the communication about what rights are and options are it's almost about joining all the stands together because you have young people but you also have perhaps people that are leaving prison what are their options, where do they go and where do they fit in so all that would need to be pulled together I mean there is another issue which is partly linked to housing options but it has been a general issue indeed since the days of the task force which was how to ensure that when people leave prisons particularly prison arrangements are made in advance of them leaving prisons so that they don't have to become homeless on release which affects the criminal justice budget amongst other things because people are more likely to re-offend if they don't have somewhere stable to go to and I understand there are difficulties because prisons can be overcrowded and need to take quick decisions about releasing some people early release dates are not always fixed and I think there is an important role to ensure that prisons are involved and have a responsibility for the through care if you like of people on release and link into the housing options approach to ensure that people don't have to become homeless on release from prison for example and the same is true for hospitals it's often kind of short stay psychiatric stays and so on where people end up with nowhere to nowhere to stay I can add to that absolutely this has long been recognised but I think that really if the last 10 years not enough has happened to ensure that targeted specialist services for people who are well known to be at risk we've mentioned prison leavers people who are coming out of the care system we have vulnerable people who are repeatedly rough sleeping there's a whole range of groups who are extremely well evidence to be over represented in homelessness figures for whom targeted specific integrated services need to be developed Shelter Scotland's got some experience of developing these services we have a safe and sound project in Tayside and Fife which I think we've spoken to the committee about before which is designed specifically to help people who have had experience of running away as children who we know are more at risk of homelessness as they become adults to intervene much earlier to help them to escape that pathway we also have a between prisoners advice network which we developed in coordination with SACRO which does exactly what Robert has said, looking at pre-liberation housing advice for prisoners to make sure that once they're released they actually get into a permanent and stable home these kinds of examples I suppose we need to see a much more coordinated approach and a much greater emphasis on developing that so we don't have that kind of postcode lottery effect where depending on where you are that's not the case across Scotland so we would absolutely welcome and again one of the recommendations that we're making in terms of looking for the next 10 years for Scotland is actually a really strong focus on at-risk groups and making sure that their services develop specifically to meet their needs Anyone else want to comment on that? Young people you recognise that if you can teach good and valued lessons for young people when they're young it stops bad habits being throughout their lives I think that young people's services across over Scotland are completely over subscribed and there's cases of when young people are put into accommodation that's really unsuitable where they're put into what you would think about as traditional hostels when it's a young guy at 20 and the things that he's going to be it's not to say that young persons accommodation things don't go wrong in that as well but if you're setting up a young person to fail if you're putting them into a hostel and it's been designed for long-term homeless people with mental health and or addiction problems you're just putting them into like a lion's den whereas if there was enough accommodation for young people or supported accommodation where a young person can go into a flat with floating support that tends to work quite well and there's a couple of places like that and throughout Scotland but there's always a massive waiting list and if there's a massive waiting list and there's a massive need then surely we should be talking about increasing the provision because if it's needed then it's needed and we need to put more things into young people Rob, did you have anything you want to add to that? I think that housing options may have a role to play particularly for young people where there's been a family breakdown and we tend to find that young people are part of the rate represented amongst the clients who come in with a homelessness issue and it's quite often the result of a family breakdown whether that's mediation, whether that's into the family and saying look this is the reality of the situation is that likely to be in temporary accommodation for quite a long stretch of time it's not necessarily going to be a short sharp shock sometimes I think that may work work better than others and certainly in the case where where the local authority contacted a client who her mother had evicted her from the family home they contacted the mother and said she may take legal action against you which wasn't an option she was considering when she came back the locks had been changed on the less I think mediation might be useful but it needs to be the right sort of approach and I think rather than sort of tailored to fit the situation and of course there are different pressures on housing in rural and island areas so is the approach to housing options is that advancing at a different pace in rural and island areas and are there quite specific problems there that I've been dealt with definitely I mean clearly in rural areas in island areas the pressures on accommodation are very different the options that are available potentially are very different and the committee will be well aware of the situation where somebody may have local support networks which might actually just be isolated quite a small number of regions around a particular village or area if they are in desperate need of housing and the only housing that's available is many hundreds of miles away that's going to create problems for them being able to sustain that accommodation so clearly any housing options approach we need guidance we need a strong national framework but what we need is an understanding of a local delivery model that's based on the available options and I think one of the things that housing options model is very positive for is to think at what options are available and maybe be a bit more creative and a bit more thought through in terms of how to make more housing options become available in particular areas where there is pressure there is one particular advantage in smaller local authority areas probably in rural areas which is often the teams are smaller and people may know each other better so the opportunity for joint working and a close collaborative approach to get a holistic solution is potentially easier in some of these areas than it is in the urban areas with vast departments and huge protocols to have to deal with you could say that the rural and island areas have the best model and if we could roll that out everywhere we could go a long way to perhaps solving the problem I think it's going to have to be horses for courses because obviously in rural areas you may not have enough demand for certain kinds of services for specialist services to operate so there will be specialist supported accommodation more of the urban areas I think it's quite a complex picture it's not rural is good urban is bad or urban is good rural is bad I think there are good parts from all of them Gari or Rob Do you want to comment on that? OK, thank you following on from what you said Robert you know yes, in a smaller area the teams might be more integrated and more well known I mean Gari, you obviously have a specific area where you're dealing with and is the fact that a local authority doesn't have any housing of its own a problem in some areas I think absolutely I think that there's specific problems and what we're talking about is Glasgow here so the specific problem by Glasgow is that when somebody becomes homeless and they have a duty to be accommodated and they go into a temporary furnished flat Glasgow City Council does not have a lot of power in how they then access a house for that person so they then need to go to housing associations and ask them through a section 5 referral for accommodation but there's not a lot of transparency in that process an example of that would be that there seems to be some cherry picking and that's an absolute because I've worked with enough people where somebody's been in temporary accommodation they've had issues maybe 12 months are in temporary accommodation and they get an offer of a flat and it's a hard to let area sometimes we won't work with somebody who has who's come into homelessness but they're working they just can't find a housing to get a duty and that section 5 referral goes on to a housing association and that person was housed in a matter of weeks and there's a bit of unfairness in that but I think Glasgow City Council has a lot of problems in trying to get the housing associations to take people from the homelessness community I guess as you would say and they're trying to fix it but because they've all got different and competing interests, some housing associations are good at it, some aren't so good in Glasgow City Council I guess is the kind of box cliver because they don't want to be irritating or annoying the housing associations because then they won't get anything and we would like to see some type of statutory instrument for the Government where there's more of a obligation on housing associations to take in homelessness and I think that would address quite a lot of the problems in Glasgow but I would have a knock-on effect in other local authorities where there's significant social housing where it isn't always having to go to the local authority but going to the housing associations We've spoken to the committee before about this and most recently in the housing bill which has just passed where we were calling for the section 5 process which Gary's referred to which is no more really a form and that data is collected when a local authority is looking to get a homeless applicant a let through a housing association to formalise that process to make it much more transparent. Gary's absolutely right we now are in a situation where roughly the same number of houses are provided by housing associations as they are in the local authority sector so it's not just a problem for Glasgow across Scotland, local authorities need to be able to access housing association lets to make sure that the options that they're providing to somebody who's homeless are available we increasingly are seeing that local authorities are relying on what's called an informal nomination route which is picking up the phone to somebody they know in a housing association say look I've got this person applied as homeless we owe them a duty, do you have a let for them and they can share information and share details and allow the housing association to come back to us or no we want to see that formalised the phone call can still happen but we need a record of on what basis that decision has been made, on what basis they've been accepted or rejected and not just so organisations like us or the government can monitor and review the extent to which housing associations are contributing to helping people out of homelessness but also so the local authorities themselves can say we've got some great relationships and some very co-operative housing associations that might and aren't making let's available and to try and improve those relationships and try and make sure that when appropriate let's are going to homeless households from housing associations we want to see more transparency there not just for national monitoring but actually so that people like Gary can actually challenge decisions if necessary and say well housing association X has refused my client and the basis on which they refuse them is not a legitimate one because they don't quite like the fact that they're not working or something along those lines so we again as I say repeatedly called for this section 5 process which is in law and it's available to all local authorities to use to become mandatory so that we have a data collection and the availability of information on what's happening with housing associations. If I could just add we were quite concerned when we saw the last set of Scottish Government homelessness statistics that the number of let's by housing associations to homeless households had fallen far by far greater degree than the fall in homelessness presentations now I don't know whether that's it wasn't broken down in those statistics as to where that was and I don't know whether it was specific to one or two geographical areas but I think it was a concern and it's something we need to have a look at and I would echo most of what Rosemary has said there are a lot of housing associations who play a really active and progressive role in assisting local authorities with their homelessness functions who more than play their part others who are are less enthusiastic and I think one of the things we need to clarify is that the section 5 referral is actually a very powerful tool in the hand of a local authority but many of the best intentions have got involved in quite complex protocols with RSLs in their area which almost get in the way of a straightforward referral the protocols with the best will in the world have got all sorts of things like the housing association would like to see the full support arrangements in place before a referral is made and you understand that that would be the best thing but sometimes that's not possible and sometimes it would be better for the person to be housed and the support arrangement to follow very quickly behind that for example OK, Gordon not for the first time Mary's straight into somebody else's line of questioning so do you have got other questions? I was going to ask about vulnerable groups but most of that has been covered but what I wanted you to comment on was Scottish housing regulators report housing options in Scotland on May 2014 stated local authorities have introduced effective referral schemes to help vulnerable people successfully move on from institutional care for ex-offenders people discharged from hospitals and looked after children so are there examples of good practice out there among local authorities in assisting vulnerable groups to find settled accommodation so how can we replicate that across all councils? The answer is yes there is good practice but it is very much a postcode lottery we have really good guidelines about through care of young people and in some areas it's well implemented in others at operational level young care leavers are forced to become homeless before they're assisted which is ridiculous in some areas particularly with long-term prisoners there's often very good arrangements made because you have a long time to prepare and sort out a support arrangement and you know precisely when the person is going to leave the problems often lie with short-term prison sentences similar with hospitals somebody leaving long-term hospital care arrangements can be made quite well in advance there's a lot of time but with relatively short stays it often happens too quickly for all those arrangements to be made so I think there's quite a lot of work to be done on these kind of shorter-term arrangements on how to get them better better working and perhaps health and social care integration gives an opportunity for some of the healthcare stuff to be done better and I hope there will be a because there's a general recognition that through care is one of the themes of the moment that the Scottish Prison Service will be more involved in its through care responsibilities for prisoners who are leaving particularly short-term prisoners I wouldn't want the committee to leave today and think that we've in any way been negative about housing options you know let's be clear that this is a very transformational approach to delivering housing services for people it has the potential to be extremely successful to really be person-centred to lead to the right kinds of outcomes rather than just an administrative process that boxes the tick and people are moved about this definitely has the potential to change the mindset and the way in which people with housing needs are dealt with however it's in its early days and we are seeing local authorities adapting and changing the way they deliver their services and that requires quite a big mindset change I think what we are seeing from our own staff is that they are seeing cases where vulnerable people including young people potentially young people who have got lower levels of life skills actually just haven't ever dealt with that local authority before I've never had to go through this sort of system I find it very difficult to navigate what potentially is quite a complex set of arrangements a complex system such as services, IT systems, referral forms and all of these things acts as barriers to access acts as barriers to them actually getting what they need out of it now Gary's referred to the fact that some people know to come to shelter or to the law centre or to other advice services to help them through that but often people don't so what we really want to see as this system develops is that we look at the training of staff the systems that are put in place and actually auditing and assessing them is it person centred does it really help them to get through from that period of crisis which can be my mum's chucked me out she's locked the door on me and my bags are on the doorstep how do you deal with that situation when you've got all those emotional issues to deal with as well you've got to navigate a complex system so really as I say what we want to see is better support, better training for staff dealing with or understanding the process from the perspective of somebody who's vulnerable and in need but very much that the housing options has the potential to be that kind of service and in many respects we do welcome it not withstanding all the issues that we've just discussed about the potential there for gatekeeping there's a number of things that we need to get right we need to make sure there's a good supply of social housing we need to make sure that the options that people are offered are right that the statutory duties are there and that staff know when it's appropriate to make that offer of a homelessness application but fundamentally that when somebody approaches their counselling and housing need that actually it's easy to get through that system and it's accessible for them I think that how you make sure that local authorities have these things in place that you're speaking about is that you have a check-in but you have something to check and balance the local authority so in places like we'll go back to Glasgow and we'll have my organisation you have a legal service agency where if somebody's released from prison and they're not getting the service they can come down to my agency and we'll take them back to the local authority and say this is what you must do and this is what we will do if you don't but what we've found is and particularly this became apparent during the bedroom tax when we were quite well known there was a lot of publicity people were phoning us from all over Scotland and they had nowhere to go to help them because either there wasn't anything or the organisation that was there was funding by the local authority so it wasn't really good at challenging the decisions that the local authority was making so I guess this kind of rolls into what's happening with housing options is how you make sure that that's done properly and it ties in with that you have an organisation in each local authority and it wouldn't cost an awful lot of money to be able to represent people to make sure people were told what their rights were and you're always going to have people who'd missed that system that don't know about coming and I guess that's about the promotion of these organisations but I think it's crucial that they're independent from the local authority and that they're independent from government because when there's independence and my organisation is very independent from Glasgow City Council you can challenge that local authority without worrying about whether you're going to be getting losing your job in two years time and I think that's quite important because I'm sure that the local authority does meet its duties to vulnerable people, prison leavers people with mental health problems and people coming out of institutions I think there's there's certainly more than can be done and there's probably some practical ways of doing that for instance is ensuring that people are housed close to their support networks which can be difficult when there's pressure on accommodation but since we've seen people with complex health needs who... temporary accommodation was 40 miles away a young mother who's moved away from the family home after she had a baby and there was no support no accommodation available locally I think that can have a big difference in people's lives similarly short term hospital stays clients who have been discharged from hospital have lost their place in temporary accommodation or or haven't previously had a place to stay and that's basically nobody to check have you got anywhere to stay tonight so I think there's some simple things it's certainly the steps we've taken in the right direction with the approach that local authorities are taking a number of questions about temporary accommodation of just to ask if if you have any evidence of how local authorities use of temporary accommodation has changed the abolition of priority needs I suppose to go back to the very first remarks I made the initial legislation in 2001 was I think when the big change happened because that gave right to temporary accommodation to all homeless applicants and if you look at the statistics of presentations and so on there was a big leap when people suddenly got that right so I think the growth of temporary accommodation has been going since sort of 2002-2003 people the problem is the move on accommodation from that and there simply isn't the supply it hasn't been helped by the bedroom tax it hasn't been helped by changes to housing benefit relating to the private rented sector where it used to be that people aged 25 and over could get self-contained accommodation now they've got to be 35 or over so there's a big pressure on smaller accommodation and a kind of bottleneck which has grown up with single people caught in temporary accommodation it's a combination of both greater entitlement to assistance for single people and a restriction on the options that are open to them in both the social and private rented sector so I suppose the usage has grown the types of temporary accommodation in Scotland are very different from that in England because it's primarily temporary accommodation the social rented sector and there are some concerns down the way that perhaps the funding of temporary accommodation may change under the welfare reforms and produce a bit of a penalty financial penalty for local authorities and it's hard to meet so it's not been an instant thing since 2012 but there has been a large growth in temporary accommodation and it's one of the big issues about how we get rid of the bottleneck in temporary accommodation at the moment yes so we are in a position at the moment where there is a huge pressure on temporary accommodation just at a time when as Robert has indicated there is pressure in future for those temporary accommodation pressure caused not just by the change in the rights that people have but probably more importantly on the fact that the availability of people moving out of temporary accommodation is swift and it works effectively and this is probably one of the most significant problems facing really addressing somebody's homelessness crisis because a huge amount of money is spent on temporary accommodation it's an extremely expensive resource but it's also an absolutely pivotal one it was vastly important that somebody who is in housing crisis gets a place in a good quality temporary let to help them out of that crisis it should be a stepping stone and so we want stays in temporary accommodation to be as short as possible it should be a time when you immediately deal with that crisis you put in place the port if necessary and somebody moves on very quickly to a permanent let and what we don't want to see is what we're increasingly fearing that people are spending longer and longer in temporary accommodation we currently don't have figures as to how long people are spending it's then not publicly available however it's something we think we should be putting more focus on really as a priority for government in terms of where they can most focus resources in a preventative spend it should be on a good quality temporary accommodation so the two things that need to happen one is we need to increase the supply of social housing we need to make sure people have pathways out of temporary accommodation as quickly as possible by making sure there is enough social housing available for people but secondly we need to make sure that the temporary accommodation that people get is a good high standard we have been calling on the government to implement standards for temporary accommodation not just covering the physical standard making sure that we don't see instances where people are putting really grotty hovels to be honest we're seeing people putting accommodation where the walls are dripping with condensation and mould where we have drafty windows but really you wouldn't want to spend any time in a tool we need to make sure that's right we also need to make sure that what surrounds the temporary accommodation that the support that's put in place for people to help make that accommodation a really valuable time spent is in place so we want to see national standards for temporary accommodation that all local authorities have to follow I mean I have had issues locally with temporary accommodation in terms of the quality that's an excellent point other issues that I had were round about costs for those who aren't on any form of housing benefit sometimes temporary accommodation can put someone into a worse position than they have been already and also round about temporary accommodation tend to find that those houses in hard to let areas is then making the problem worse where there's a constant turnover of tenants in particular areas which mean that sometimes going into quite chaotic areas just because of that high level of turnover I wonder if you have any comments on that Talk about the cost what's happening more often in my organisation is that people who are working are becoming homeless because they either can't afford their rent or obviously they might be working less so they've got less money so they are presenting to the local authority and this goes back to gatekeeping where people are saying you can't afford to come into homelessness or you'll need to give your job up which is an utterly ridiculous position to hold your advice is usually to say to the person you would pay if you were in a social housing and to be fair to Glasgow City Council they've actually been quite good in not pursuing these debts because for temporary accommodation temporary furnish flat can be anything between £250 a week and if you're working I couldn't afford to pay £250 a week for I don't think anybody could I don't think that some guidance for the government would be quite helpful on that because I think more working people are becoming poor and it's becoming homeless and if they're going to their local authority and they're being told you can't afford accommodation in homelessness they're then going to stay with an uncle or an aunt and that's then I guess you would call it a prejudice because they're being treated differently because they're working and they're being told you can't access homelessness when you actually can so I'm going into homelessness that's a position that can't be held in that I think that the government should maybe offer some guidance on that to local authorities Certainly we've seen some cases where people have been placed in temporary accommodation that's too expensive for their needs one example where a client was in financial difficulties built up rent arrears and was evicted was allocated temporary accommodation but the rent was even higher than the property that he'd just left which wasn't full at all certainly working and unable to claim housing benefit the bedroom tax certainly has an impact as well in terms of if the only accommodation available is too large then people being subjected to the bedroom tax we've seen cases where surfer charges have been applied for furnishings for white goods that have caused people to to be unable to cope financially so I think there's quite a bit that could be could be done around that in terms of making sure that the accommodation isn't too isn't too expensive for those persons to exacerbate other money problems that they might have there is a significant issue about how much temporary accommodation costs it costs a lot to deliver temporary accommodation what you're paying for isn't just the rent of the property but all the services that go along with that and there is an additional cost for local authorities as we've mentioned people moving in and out of the accommodation frequently for people who are out of work the full cost of their temporary accommodation where that's provided by the local authority is currently met by housing benefit a suggestion in the future that that might not be the case this has prompted the government to work with local authorities to try and do some modelling of the cost of temporary accommodation and that's the first real insight I think we've had into how temporary accommodation is what the costs cover and what sort of costs we're looking at and the modelling has shown that yes it is extremely costly to local authorities to provide accommodation I think it really underlines again the fact that temporary accommodation is so expensive and it is so important as a stepping stone out of homelessness we need to make sure it's actually delivering on that and we're getting the value for money that we need from funding that temporary accommodation it needs to meet the right standards to help people move out of homelessness and into a permanent stable home I just had a very brief that there has been some important work done to look at costs of different types of temporary accommodation and I suppose that one of the fairly obvious but the irony is that the more temporary accommodation is the higher the cost because there's a high throughput of people therefore furniture and so on gets worn out more quickly wear and tear costs are much higher management costs are much higher and I think that's one of the problems about how the Westminster government currently is looking at the funding of temporary accommodation is basing it around people staying for lengthy periods and temporary accommodation which is the case for example in London but if we're organising temporary accommodation in the best way it should be which is people there for short periods it will be relatively expensive but people won't be there for long and I think that's quite important I suppose that the other fairly obvious thing to say is that one of the key things we need to do one of the things housing options is all about having people having to go into temporary accommodation in the first place and if we actually reduce the inflow to temporary accommodation we can perhaps deal with some of the bottleneck and so I think that housing options has got a big role to play in ensuring that we prevent homelessness prevent people having to go into temporary accommodation where that's at all possible Thank you convener and good morning I'd like to ask about the housing support duty that was introduced through regulations in 2012 in which came into effect on the 1st of June of last year which requires local authorities to assess the need for housing support for every homeless applicant who's assessed as unintentionally homeless or threatened with homelessness I wanted to ask if you believe that the housing support services as prescribed in the regulations hits the mark is it specifying all of the support services that it would need to which can therefore be identified and provided by local authorities and then secondly how successful over the last year have local authorities been in implementing the duty in order given that the purpose is to prevent homeless people from taking on a tendency and then not being able to sustain that tendency I can start Shelter Scotland's recently published a research review of the implementation of the housing support duty which we called for very strongly and were very pleased to see that the Government accepted and was implemented from this early assessment I say it's relatively early assessment just six months into the duty we have established that actually some of the fears that were expressed by local authorities when the duty was implemented have generally not materialised that most local authorities found that the requirements of the duty and some found that the duty itself had a very beneficial impact on the services it had built on existing processes, sharpened focus and created a more fostered joint working I suppose to create the leverage for more resources in some areas so generally across Scotland the picture is very positive people are implementing the duty taking it in stride and actually having a duty puts a renewed focus on support and looking at innovative ways of bringing in support that's required if it may not already be there so there are potentially some areas for improvement as you would expect when a new duty is applied and we're looking particularly to how housing support duty might be linking to other kinds of support which is provided such as support for young people or employability and again looking to the future looking at the plans to integrate health and social care services what impact that's going to have on provision of housing support specifically and making sure that these things don't sit in separate silos that it needs to be person-centered we need to look at the needs of that individual some of which will be for housing support but some of which may be provided by other providers making sure that that's taken and there's a corporate approach taken to assessing support and understanding what the needs of an individual are and then the provision of that support we undertook a quick and dirty survey of local authorities asking some very basic questions and cut 24 local authorities responded which was a good response and I would echo most of what Rosemary was saying there can be all kinds of reasons why people don't, it's not compulsory and we always agree not to name anybody on grounds it may incriminate them but they generally said that it had made no particular difference to what they were already doing it was largely the duty was formalising the good practice that they were generally doing now it may be that the 24 who responded were the 24 best but I think that has been generally the view we had expressed a concern when the support duty was being considered that because there's a statutory duty to provide housing support at the time of crisis of homelessness that it might draw funds away from more preventative support or support for tenancy sustainment I'm glad that those fears were at this stage appeared to be unfounded and the responses we got from this survey were showing that funding had not been removed from preventative services so I'm really pleased with that but I think it's something that if, as seems likely, resources are going to become tighter and tighter in local authorities we need to keep an eye on because a pound of preventative support can often save an awful lot more than the pound at the time of crisis I'm just going back to you on that you said that the services that appeared to be formalising the introduction of the duty appeared to be formalising good practice in that case has it made any difference in driving the dissemination of good practice more widely across the country there were two other parts of the survey two questions that I thought were quite interesting one was that a number of local authorities said that it had and some of the voluntary sector responses we'd had to another survey it had created better joint working practices so that's still evolving so I think that that is good and I've lost my thread for the second bit I think our research has supported that as well that we found many local authorities have said that some were already exceeding the duty but even where that was the case what happened is it triggered a review of what was happening with housing support it had promoted and often instituted a corporate approach to providing support having a duty meant there was now a real focus on delivery of that duty which means that as future challenges become some of them I've referred to around health and social care but also the self-directed support agenda and looking at some of these specialist support services housing support was now properly considered and this really is a good example of where a legislative duty can promote and enforce that preventative approach within local authorities to really take a good look at how you can prevent future homelessness and future if there was one thing that perhaps I would suggest that maybe does need a bit more look and review is that the fact that this duty doesn't apply if you're intentionally homeless and I know as we've already discussed there may be an issue there clearly somebody who becomes homeless whether it's intentional or unintentional in fact people who are intentionally homeless may well be in need of perhaps even more housing support than somebody who's unintentionally homeless to get out of that Before we come to Mr Burns Mr Gowans sorry my eyesight's failing me could you perhaps in your answer illustrate some examples of what good housing support services look like I think sort of good good support services would consider the needs of the the individual and work to find what would be the best option for them sort of moving moving out of temporary accommodation regarding if they were found to be intentionally homeless to support them to get into a sustained tenancy particular groups people with mental health difficulties young people people living prison people who've had a previous history of antisocial behaviour and rent arrears who caused a problem for the local authority before I think probably guidance around some of these areas that could be incorporated with with the housing options guidance would be helpful in terms of how you support someone who who may may not say no I don't need any support who may have sort of had previous issues with the local authority as a landlord to try and resolve resolve difficulties and as I mentioned earlier I think ensuring that people are sort of housed close to there their own support work support networks will make big difference Mr Bones I think just following up from that in terms of all the housing support agencies they have great mission statements and they've all said the same thing but I think it's about staff and when I say that quite a lot of the housing support agencies pay just slightly above the minimum wage so anybody who gets any good experience in there can become as good they'll leave to go and get better and I guess that's a separate issue in terms of this legislation I think it's great and I think it's so great that it should be extended and by that I mean when people are going to become homeless we know they're going to become homeless somebody knows their housing association and currently we've got section 11 notifications in place where there's financial eviction going to be taking place of local authorities informed if we're putting tenancy sustainment in after they become homeless I think that maybe we can get in there before they become homeless and create some kind of joy there where you stop the homelessness happening in the first place and the tenancy sustainment stays there until they get to a stable period in their lives where that support can be withdrawn any time I come here everything I say sounds like it's going to cost money but in actuality it doesn't because if you stop a family from becoming homeless the figures say that that's between £10,000 and £20,000 and if you stop them from becoming homeless and getting that tenancy sustainment in place before the homelessness occurs I think that would be a positive step Can I ask a question about the situation facing young people Mr Norwood mentioned the latest homelessness statistics earlier and looking at those there's a statistic which is a trend that's highlighted which is that in 2006 to 2007 15,000 people aged 24 under were assessed as homeless or potentially homeless but by 2013-14 this had dropped to 8,321 a decrease of 44% now does that suggest that we're getting it right that we are partly I think actually it goes back to some of the issues that were raised in the report with the housing regulator on housing options and there's been a really welcome increase in the use of mediation services by local authorities right across Scotland as a means of trying to prevent homelessness it has not always been at the right time it has not always been appropriate and I think some young people are turned away so I think there's a mixture there of really good practice that's been going on with people being helped to find solutions before they become homeless and that's to be welcomed but I think there's also an element in there of people being turned away and perhaps when you're younger and less experienced in understanding what's being said to you the tone of voice that's being used and you might as well not bother you're better off where you are will prevent people from making a homeless application so I think there'll be both elements both positive but a bit of gatekeeping perhaps involved in that I think that if we're talking about a 44% decrease since 2006 where young people have less access to housing benefit there's less jobs, there's less money I think that maybe the statistics are hiding the fact that young people are not presenting for homelessness assistance and they're stuck in this hidden homelessness that's the kind of thing that we all know about but it's very difficult and it's not very difficult to find out what's happening for that and again I would put out that I think that there has been some practice at Chinese and obviously that has had some impact but I don't think that you can say that with the facts that we know about how young people's access to housing has decreased how could that manifest itself into there being less young homeless people are just thinking that they're not presenting or that we're missing them and I think that we should do something about that Thank you Sorry, if you don't mind me adding I think that there is a mixed picture yes there are some really good examples of mediation being used with families to prevent homelessness happening amongst young people but going back to things we were talking earlier about the housing options approach if you're approaching your local authority for help you think you've made a homeless application only to find out later it was actually a housing options interview you had there are clearly some issues I think for young people navigating the system and understanding plus the fact that actually temporary accommodation isn't a great place to be and if you think you're going to be there for a long time as a young person you may choose to stay at home and put up with often in a total liberal situation in a period of time in temporary accommodation so we need to get housing supply right we need to get housing options right and we need to get those preventative services that potentially can mediate between families and young people, much better There's been a suggestion that the Westminster Government I don't always believe everything that I read in the newspapers but a suggestion that the Westminster Government may be considering altering the eligibility criteria for housing benefit for under 25s have you considered the impact of that policy change of removing housing benefit for under 25s would be on homelessness in Scotland? I think we would all say it's a disaster one of the most one of the encouraging things is that regardless of the referendum result it appears that all parties have a view that housing benefit will be largely controlled if not totally controlled by the Scottish Parliament and I think we've got a very good opportunity with that across parties to build a situation where those young people who need rent subsidy who happen to be under 25 are assisted and don't fall into homelessness because it would be not only homelessness but destitution I believe It would be disastrous I think and let's not forget 25 might seem very young but there are plenty of 25-year-olds with young families and people in that situation if such a thing were to happen obviously we would be arguing very strongly to prevent it and to ensure there were right safeguards there but clearly you can't provide the level of rights and services that we have in Scotland that are absolutely world renowned for dealing with homelessness when you have a situation that some people below the age of 25 the sort of subsidy that would be needed to make that service deliverable It would be the worst thing to happen to homelessness that I could ever think of would have happened in my time in working in homelessness it would be awful We'd also be very concerned about the suggestions the age being put in place I think it's basically people under 25 who necessarily have the suggestion being that they can stay with their parents that that's not an option for a number of important things I think it would be something that would seriously concern us I'm grateful to you for your indulgence on housing option hubs 2010, five housing option hubs were created by the Scottish Government in order to promote Scotland's approach to homelessness and to share best practice across Scotland's 32 local authorities with a budget of just under £1 million £950,000 in fact of enabling funding Have you any comments on how the housing option hubs are developing across Scotland and what the impact of those has been? I suppose very briefly hubs are a good idea it's a potentially very positive forum and sharing of best practice between local authorities across board of potentially sharing of resources or enabling resources and in some hub areas this is working very effectively and we think it's been a very positive response but we do know that there's a lot of variation between hubs we're still reasonably early days in terms of delivering this radical new approach to providing services for people in housing need we would suggest that perhaps hubs need to be looking more outwardly focused and perhaps to looking at how they can maximise the availability of options for accommodation for people but I think one thing that the regulator has underlined is that this approach to delivering a housing options system in Scotland has worked very well but it's not enough on its own we need strong standards, strong national standards national guidelines and guidance for delivering housing options to really embed the good practice that we've seen developing some areas of Scotland across the whole of Scotland I think the experience has been largely positive there are some that are more progressive than others I think and I think they will continue to evolve in a constructive way but there have been some concerns expressed that they need to a number need to be more inclusive of the voluntary sector that I think a number would benefit from greater health involvement I think actually given the way that the welfare reforms are going it would be useful to involve people from the Department of Work and Pensions job centre to get a broader approach towards the holistic way of working to prevent homelessness which is what we're all after Just following on from Jim's question about the possible removal of housing benefit to under 25s there's also been a suggestion by the UK Government that they'll consider lowering the housing benefit cap outside London possibly as low as £18,000 what effect would that have on homelessness in Scotland and young families? The pattern of how the caps in Scotland I think somebody's referred to a lot of these reforms actually are focusing on the problems that are experienced by the housing market in the south-east of England they have a different impact in Scotland and when we look particularly at the housing benefit cap we can see that a large number of people at effects are people in temporary accommodation where their housing costs are very high for the reasons we've already discussed so clearly any further reduction in the cap and additional pressures on to the local authority who's delivering that accommodation and I think one of the things that the recent modelling of the costs of temporary accommodation has shown is potentially there's going to be a funding gap that we can't rely on housing benefit to fund the temporary accommodation and that in Scotland if we believe in the role that temporary accommodation has to play and we believe in what Scotland is trying to achieve in delivering homelessness services to people and to look and address that gap in funding and make sure that people aren't left out and suffering because of decisions around housing benefit reform The impact that we're already feeling and it's not exclusively but it's mostly when it's not temporary accommodation that it's large families that are living in private sector flats that the local authority just can't accommodate because if they've got seven or eight children there's a certain duties about how should a family choose to go into a private flat and rent that and get a five or six bedroom house but they've already been hit by the housing benefit cap as it stands and it would obviously make that a lot worse if there was any further erosion I noticed Shelter Scotland submission makes comments about the increasing number of applications from households in the private sector Would it be possible for the panel to comment on the levels of homelessness among people who have lived in the private sector previously? Yes, the proportion of homeless applicants who have come from a private let has increased in absolute numbers it's fallen but that's fallen not at the same rate as homelessness applications have overall so we've seen a growth from 13% to 18% between 2008-9-2013-14 that suggests that we need to be really looking quite carefully at why people are having to leave the private rented sector and make a homelessness application clearly there's going to be some issues around affordability in the private rented sector but potentially also suitability we have consistently Shelter have been looking at what you get for a private let what do you get, what kind of standards relationships with the landlord repairs issues but also issues around stability in the private rented sector and security a private let at the moment is no more secure than your minimum tenancy period often six months and then after that you're on a month by month rolling contract you can be asked to leave at any time if you're again increasing numbers of young families and families in general are spending time in the private rented sector because they have no other options there isn't enough social housing people who would normally have had a social let under those levels of insecurity and I think quite clearly where there are pressures in the market and landlords are seeking to evict people or asking people to leave people often have no choice but to go and make a homelessness application so how should local authorities be using the private rented sector in the context of housing options approach to homelessness I think carefully just as when you make when you have a homeless application and your duty towards you can be discharged into the private rented sector but only with very certain criteria you have to agree to it, it has to be affordable you have to be given a longer let than is normal we also need to be looking at when assessing somebody through the housing options approach is that private rented let the best option for them is it going to give them affordable housing to be secure for them are they going to be able to make a stable home in the private rented sector and some of that will be to do the individual capabilities of that household and the local market clearly the private rented sector is very different across Scotland we've been talking about island and rural communities earlier on and very often where there is a shortage of social housing in any concentration across the rural and island Scotland the private rented sector may very well be a solution for that family but we need to be using it very carefully and thinking carefully about how sustainable is that kind of accommodation or are we just putting somebody else into a situation where they're going to find themselves in a housing crisis down the line I think having said all of that we do welcome the Scottish Government's review of the private rented sector tenancy, I think one of the key things that we want to see is to create a private rented sector for the future of Scotland that is more secure and kind of stability needs to work for landlords too we don't want to reduce supply of accommodation but we need to be saying if private renting is going to play a greater role in meeting housing need in the future how can we get it to work effectively for people I would echo that I think one of the key things is that the private rented sector has to have a role to play because it's quite large in Scotland often private rented accommodation in a better location than the social rented options that people would have but it comes with a whole lot of risks which need to be made clear to people and it is about affordability but most importantly it's about security and that's where I think that the current discussions about reforming the private rented sector tenancy are so important because if you have a family and you want to get your child settled in a school you need to know that you can maintain that tenancy in that area and your child can continue to go to that school for the medium or long term currently with the private rented sector you're basically on one month's notice of removal legally and it makes it a very difficult option for people who are trying to either invest in their community or to make long term plans for their future and escape from what's a very unsettling and unsettled position of being homeless and there is a particular issue for young people when the private rented sector particularly if you're on a low income or if on no income currently you're only entitled to housing benefit to cover the cost of a room in a shared accommodation if you're under 25 it is having an impact on the clients that we're seeing people who are unable to afford self-contained accommodation when they may have shared access to children for example the pressures that are there for young people in those circumstances are quite significant I think as well not just for folk that are on housing benefit for people that are working in the private sector is a very expensive option and you know there's something unfair if you're renting a flat from the private sector and your next door neighbours has a social flat, a social landlord flat there's a difference about £200 a month in that and if you're working on minimum wage that's an excessive amount of your money that's going to rent for the exact same houses your neighbour and you know plenty of people that have approached us have come through where they are in a private let and maybe their hours have been cut and they can no longer afford to pay for their home so we were going to ask and said it before for the Scottish Government to look into the costs not just the tenures but the costings of private sector rent to see if there's anything that can be done for the benefit of people who are not just on, well not for the people on housing benefit because majority of that is picked up by the taxpayer but for people who are working where there's an unfairness where their neighbour pays £200 a month less than what they're paying I think that affordability and security of tenures are important in general terms in terms of specifically what more can the private sector do? I think that we still see cases where people are illegally evicted and I think to clamp down on the minority of landlords who would basically lock the doors and throw people's belongings on the streets there's also a role I think for local authorities to recognise the situation people are being in I've seen a couple of cases where refused to make a homeless application because the landlord hadn't submitted the appropriate notice to quit forms and the rest of it whereas the clients were saying well basically they won't do that we're going to be out on the streets in the next couple of days unless something changes and I think some action around repairs and the private rent sector particularly around temporary accommodation from finding there can be quite a delay in getting repairs done disputes over who's responsible for the repairs and that can need some very poor quality accommodation so I think there's a few that the private sector and local authorities can work together to improve things OK, I say I've been allocated the free hit question here so I will ask it are there any other comments you wish to make on how housing options and homelessness services could be improved I think I'd just like to finish by reiterating what we've all said and agreed all along that the housing options approach is not only as good as the options that are available to people at the end we need as a country to properly invest in more housing across the board but particularly more affordable social rented housing we know that we're consistently building far less each year than what is needed to meet the minimum affordable housing needs we need around 10,000 new homes a year in Scotland to meet this growing need and until we get to that situation if we have enough housing options and enough affordable homes available for people we're always going to have a pressure on allocating scarce resources clearly in the meantime before we get to that point we need to make sure that housing options is working effectively we very much welcome the guidance that the government is going to bring forward we would like to be part of creating and drafting that guidance and we're also looking for the government to set homelessness up in Scotland we've transformed the way that we deal with people who are in housing need we need to maintain that progressive movement we need to keep the focus on homelessness look to the next 10 years and say where do we want to be then what kinds of things do we need to work on now and put in place so we're looking for an action plan effectively for the next 10 years in Scotland any further questions? thank you very much for that that was very helpful you asked what you said on to the Equal Ops Committee because I think at the moment they're looking at homelessness specifically among young people but thank you all very much and can I suspend for 5 minutes for a comfort break and allow the witnesses to leave the room thank you we will resume and move on to agenda item 3 which is public petitions we have to consider public petition PE1481 on blacklisting in Scotland the committee has received a response from the petitioners which is included in the cover note for this item can I invite comments or views from members on this petition? I think the petitioners have performed a very valuable service which has helped to inform the development of the procurement reform Scotland Bill when it was going through its legislative stages and helped to improve the legislation by highlighting what is a very important issue as a result there has been extensive dialogue as I understand it between the Scottish Government and the trade unions which has resulted in extensive guidance and also the promise of secondary legislation so I would be very much in favour of keeping the petition open so that we can keep the issue under review and if appropriate at a later stage seek further evidence about what the documentation of the guidance and any subsequent legislation has been My instinct to these things is always to say this is a historical problem and it's not a problem anymore but I have no evidence to support that view in this case I would like to think that this is a solved problem but I would agree with Jim I think we should keep an eye on this and ensure that there isn't a problem still there that we can be dealt with I would agree with Jim as well I think there have been steps taken through the procurement reformer which were welcomed by the petitioners perhaps just as if we could possibly write to the Scottish Government just on the final point just to ask whether the Government have any intention of instructing a public inquiry on blacklisting I think there are some pretty serious mentioned in this reply from Pat Rafferty and I think I'd agree with you we need to write to the Scottish Government with a copy of this asking them for the comments on it and what progress has been made what have the discussions been with the trade unions on further guidance on this okay so we agree to write to the Scottish Government and see what they come back with right that's agenda item 3 so that means that we now move into private session as agreed earlier