 Welcome to the Equal Opportunities Committee, the second meeting of 2015. Can I ask everyone to set any electronic devices to flight mode or off please? I'd like to start with introductions. We are supported at the table by clerking and research staff, official reporters and broadcasting services and around the room by the security office. My name is Margaret McCulloch, and I am the committee's convener. Members will now start to introduce themselves in turn, starting on my right. I would also like to declare an interest in any relevant information at today's meeting. Good morning, cabinet secretary. Sandra White, MSP Glasgow-Kelving, deputy convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee. Good morning, I'm John Finnie, MSP Hines and Ilems. Good morning, I'm Christian Ard, MSP north-east of Scotland. I'm John Mason, MSP for Glasgow-Shetleston. I'm Jane Baxter, MSP for Miss Scotland on Fife, and I'd like to declare an interest in an item that's later on the agenda. The first agenda item today is the decision on taking business in private. You're asked to agree consideration of evidence heard during your work following the having and keeping a home and inquiry at item 5 in private. I will agree. Thank you. Agenda item 2 is to hear evidence from the cabinet secretary for social justice, communities and pensioners' rights on an affirmative instrument, namely the Equality Act 2010, the specifications of public authorities, Scotland Order 2015. The instrument is laid under affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve it before the provisions may come into force. Following this evidence taken, the committee will be invited to consider a motion to approve the instrument under agenda item 3. I welcome the cabinet secretary and he's a company official. I can invite you, cabinet secretary, to make any opening remarks. I introduce my official Gainer Davenport from our Equalities Unit in the Scottish Government. Gainer will help me this morning in answering your difficult questions when we get to that stage. I say one or two introductory remarks. First of all, thank you for the opportunity to come this morning. I think that this is my first appearance in front of the committee and my new role as the cabinet secretary for social justice, communities and pensioners' rights. I don't yet have to declare an interest in pensioners' rights before anyone asks me that. The draft order proposes to make routine amendments to the UK Equality Act 2010 in consequence of the establishment of new public bodies in office holders in Scotland. The draft affirmative order will ensure that Historic Environment Scotland, our health and social care integration joint boards and regional boards for colleges are subject to the public sector equality duty in the same way similar bodies in office holders are currently listed in part 3 of schedule 19 to the 2010 act. The committee will be familiar with the Equality Act, which introduced the public sector equality duty, requiring listed public authorities to have due regard when exercising their functions to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. It is clear that the new public authorities in office bearers carry out public functions that should be covered by the public sector equality duty, and I will touch very briefly on those general functions. Firstly, the joint integrated boards for health and social care. As cabinet secretary for health and wellbeing, I was delighted to introduce the landmark legislation that became the public bodies joint working Scotland act 2014, not the sexiest of titles. It provides arrangements for integrating adult health and social care in order to improve outcomes for patient service users, carers and their families. Health boards and local authorities will be required to enter into joint working arrangements in respect of certain of the statutory functions relating to health and social care services. Health boards and local authorities are already independently subject to the duty and the exercise of their functions, so it is right that the duty is extended to the new integration joint boards to cover functions that may be delegated from health boards and local councils. Secondly, we have Historic Environment Scotland. The Historic Environment Scotland Act 2014 provides for the establishment of a new non-departmental public body Historic Environment Scotland. This body will replace the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, of which I am not one. A public body established by Royal Warrant and Historic Scotland, an executive agency within the Scottish Government. The 2014 act gives Historic Environment Scotland the general function of investigating, caring for and promoting Scotland's historic environment. Thirdly, we have the regional boards for the colleges. The Post-16 Education Scotland Act 2013 amended the Further and Higher Education Scotland Act 2005 to establish regional strategic bodies. The functions of a regional strategic body include funding and planning college provision in regions with more than one college of further education. There are two types of regional strategic body. The first is a college or university given regional strategic body functions. There are two such bodies, New College Lanarkshire and the University of the Highlands and Islands, and both are currently subject to the public sector equality duty through existing provision in schedule 19. The second type of regional strategic body is known as a regional board, and there is currently one such body, the regional board for Glasgow Colleges. The draft order inserts a reference to regional boards into schedule 19, which would mean that the regional board for Glasgow Colleges and any new regional boards that are created in the future would be subject to the public sector equality duty. Finally, I would like to assure the convener and committee that I received the required consent form from the right honourable Nikki Morgan MP, Minister for Women and Equalities, before laying the draft order and have consulted with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who are content with our proposed consequential amendments. I am happy to answer any questions. Thank you, cabinet secretary. Because it is a straightforward instrument, the members do not have any questions. Agenda item 2 calls for the committee to formally consider and recommend approval of the motion namely S4M-1227, that the Equal Opportunities Committee recommends that the Equality Act 2010 specification of public authorities Scotland order 2015 be approved. I would like to invite the cabinet secretary to speak to and move motion S4M-1227. In light of that, I will just move it formally, convener. The question is that motion S4M-1227, in the name of Alex Neil, be approved. We all agreed. That concludes the consideration of the affirmative instrument. We will report the outcome of our consideration to the Parliament. Thank you, cabinet secretary, for coming along. I wish every shift was as easy as that one. I will now suspend the meeting. Agenda item 4 is an evidence session on our having and keeping of home steps to preventing homelessness among young people and inquiry. I would like to welcome Margaret Burgess, Minister for Housing and Welfare and her accompanying official. Can I start by asking you and your official to introduce yourself, please, and to invite you, the minister, to make any opening remarks. Okay, thank you. I am glad to have the opportunity to be here this morning with Mary and Gibb from the homeless team to talk about what the Scottish Government is doing in terms of homelessness, in particular for young people. Preventing homelessness wherever possible is and will remain a priority for the Scottish Government, and I absolutely recognise the particular vulnerability of young people to homelessness. I provided a full written report to the committee a year ago, and I have noted with interest the further evidence that you received over the course of the year. In the last 12 months, we have seen the further development of the housing options approach to prevention, with further funding committed to the housing options hubs and publication last week of the first prevent one statistics. We have seen further falls in homelessness amongst young people and the passing of the Children and Young People Scotland Act. The next 12 months will see further significant steps, including the publication of guidance and housing options and the introduction of a private rented sector bill. Scotland has strong progressive homelessness legislation, but I believe that it is important to focus on what homelessness means to people as individuals and, of course, that includes young people. It is clear that the housing options approach has led to welcome reductions in homelessness numbers, but perhaps more importantly it has led to a person-centred principle being instilled at the heart of delivering homelessness services across Scotland. The current development of national guidance and housing options will need to reflect the needs of young people if we are to see continuous improvements in this area. In the past year, we have already seen the specific needs of young people highlighted in revised guidance for the housing support duty, and those issues are also informing the revision of guidance for the Scottish welfare fund. Housing options has also led to the development of mediation services to address the key issue of relationship breakdown, which still remains the most likely reason for homelessness amongst young people. We have acknowledged the importance of this by committing funding to the Scottish Centre for Conflict Resolution for a Further Year. Of course, mediation will not be appropriate for everybody. We know that we need flexible responses to particular needs such as those of young people with a history of care. We have an opportunity to address this in the coming period through the provisions of the Children and Young Person People Act. Homelessness officials will contribute to guidance on this, and I will ensure that any points raised by this committee inform that contribution. I am pleased that, alongside this inquiry, the committee has recently launched an inquiry into social isolation, because it is clear that there are strong links. That is why the Scottish Government is continuing to fund a national co-ordinator on rebuilding social networks for homeless people through the housing voluntary grant scheme. Alongside other national co-ordinators that we fund. Mediating conflict, developing life skills, use of temporary accommodation and housing education are just some of the areas that can have an impact on homelessness amongst young people. The homelessness prevention and strategy group in which I sit as minister has young people and homelessness on its agenda as a standing item. In light of the range of issues that are involved, that allows us to make links to important policy developments such as health and social care integration or the proposed publication of a national missing person strategy due later this year. We look to make progress against the background of welfare reform, which is affecting young people. Progress needs to be underpinned by adequate housing supply. I am pleased that we are on track to meet our affordable housing targets to deliver 30,000 additional affordable homes by March 2016 and within that 20,000 for social rent. Finally, we know that homelessness can be profoundly damaging to those starting out in life and the effects may last for years. However, with the strong foundation of rights for young homeless people already established, I am confident that we can continue to make progress working with local authorities, their partners and young people themselves to prevent homelessness and improve outcomes. I will start by asking the first question. The 2012 commitment in housing support duty has been positively received in general, but there are some remaining concerns for young people and particularly care leavers. During the evidence-taking, the committee heard concerns about the use of intentionally criteria. The Citizens Advice Scotland also raised this point in evidence to the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, which recommended in the report that the Scottish Government investigates and reports on the reasons why the number of those who are made intentionally homeless has risen and whether the Government intends to take any action to encourage greater concern. Can you tell us how the Scottish Government monitors the number of people being classed as intentionally homeless? Intentionally homeless, the assessment is carried out by each local authority and they send their returns to the Scottish Government. That is done on a very regular basis and it is part of the standard statistical data collection that we take. What I would say is that it is important to highlight that the numbers that are assessed as intentionally homeless are still low in comparison to about one in twenty applications that are assessed as intentionally homeless. However, that does not mean that there are no services provided. If someone is assessed as intentionally homeless, they are provided with advice, support and temporary accommodation. The outcomes in about a third of the cases result in settled accommodation, where the local authority still has contact with the local authority. We are currently in discussion with local authorities about any increases, although it is small in terms of intentionality and to check that it is consistent in how they record it. Feedback from local authorities is telling us that, with the priority need test being removed, that test, in some instances before, would not go on to look at the intentionality because the priority need was not satisfied. Therefore, that could be increasing the numbers, but it is something that we are looking at. I really do think that we have to stress that the numbers are small in intentionality and it does not mean that no services are provided, but it is something that we are in discussion with local authorities about. We will look at and with the statistical monitoring group as well as something that they will review to ensure that they are consistently recorded in the same way. If there is an increase then that needs to be looked at as well, but intentionality is a very small proportion. I thank you very much and I will pass you on now to John Mason. We heard mixed evidence. We had some young people at the committee who had been in care and some of them had a good experience. I think that there was quite a lot of positive comment about the fact that they could return up to the age of 21 now, which was not the case. However, I get the impression that we were seeing some of the more able young people who were quite able to fight their corner and had good support from other organisations. I wonder what you are feeling about just the general picture for young people leaving care and whether you feel there is room for improvement in there. The first thing that I would say is that, in any way, there is always room for improvement and I am not going to sit here and say that everything is absolutely sorted. However, in terms of the picture for young care, it is improving for people leaving care. I think that the Children and Young Person act that you referred to in terms of young people up to age 21. The Scottish Government has put £5 million a year in to allow young people up to age 21 to stay in foster care, kinship care or residential care and providing additional support to age 26 if they require additional support in some element of their life or in getting housing. However, I think that we are building good relationships between the Scottish welfare fund and housing departments and housing options services because it should not be that young people leaving care should necessarily be presenting as homelessness. The housing options approach, if the co-ordination is there, which is coming together, there should be a planned programming to settle the accommodation without necessarily having to go through the homeless route. That is also working with the Scottish welfare fund to ensure that the items that someone requires in their home to set up a home are there and in place as well. There are very good examples of practice of that going on and what we want to do is to make sure that that improves and is also consistent across the country. I think that there was a feeling that some of the young people in care actually did very little for themselves, traditionally at least. I suppose that varies amongst young kids in a family that some do the washing, some don't, some do the ironing, some don't, some cook, some don't. There certainly had been a tradition that a lot of young people, so there was a big jump for them to be entirely on their own. I think that there was a feeling that there was some support needed as they moved on. That support is the kind of interim support that is very often provided. Many young people in care are now getting support from third sector organisations as well on the very issues that you talk about. I have visited projects where young people are learning to actually go out and do the shopping, come in, cook it and when they leave the table, the dishes don't miraculously get washed, they have to participate in that. Young people find that a challenge to start with, but they get really into that, some of the projects that I have visited and see them getting into how they are doing it and the pride that they take in being able to do that. It is a skill that many would take for granted, but they now feel that something is going to help them as they move on in life. They need those kinds of skills as well as employability support, because employability is very important as well for young people. There is a whole range of things that has to come together to get it right. The next question is about housing options. I think that one suggestion was that not all the staff who were dealing with young people were aware of all the housing options and that there was a need for training in that area. Is that something that you have picked up or you could comment on? In terms of the housing options hubs that the Scottish Government funds, they meet regularly to discuss training and sharing of good practice. Currently, the guidance has been revamped or produced by a new guidance manual on housing options, but all those approaches have to be taken into account. The purpose of housing options is to ensure that those who deliver the service know all the options that are available in their area. If that is something that cannot be provided from within the local authority, then the third sector of partners can provide that service. That is very much part of it. I think that the quarterly meetings with the hubs where the practitioners can get together and discuss those things and sharing practice and experience is helping. Housing options is still fairly new, but we recognise that. That was one of the issues that the regulator in the thematic inquiry looked at was the training needs of the housing options. That has been taken on board and certainly that will form part of the new guidance. I don't know if you want to ask that. Thanks, convener. I have just followed off from what John John said. You mentioned guidance and the importance of consistency, and I absolutely agree with you, but I wonder how mandatory that guidance will be. Is it guidance or is it going to be made clear to local authorities that this is very important? How are we going to achieve consistency across Scotland? What about the use of enhanced housing options? Is that going to be rolled out across Scotland, too? I think that the first thing that I would say in terms of the guidance in the hubs is that there is a great will within those working in the housing option hubs to provide the best service possible for people who present as homeless and to make sure that people are getting the services that are there. That is why the meetings are guidance. It is guidance, but it is what we would anticipate that we will all use. It is agreed across the board. The regulator will look at that as well when the regulator is looking at homeless services, how much attention has been paid to the guidance in terms of housing options. We do not anticipate a problem with that. I think that it is getting it right and getting it then consistent. Where there are any inconsistencies, if there are, then if they come back to the quarterly meeting where people are getting together from across the country to look at it and discuss it, and it would fall on to the enhanced services that you are talking about. Housing options is a continuous thing and it is about continuous improvement and it is about innovation. Where something is happening that is good, that can be looked at. Some things will be good in one area and it might not be the right thing for another area, so there has to be that flexibility built into any system as well. What we are saying is that if there is something that is happening that is giving good outcomes and good outcomes to homeless people and good outcomes to young homeless people, then that is something that we would want to see developed in other areas. Certainly, I would want to see that if it was not happening. I would be saying, why? If this can happen here and it has got these outcomes and it is not happening here and it would fit in with this area, the questions asked here would want that to happen. Can I just come in on that? We have heard that the housing options are limited because of the housing stock. Can you give me more information on how the Scottish Government will actually address a lack of suitable housing? As I said in my initial remarks, the Scottish Government does have a target of 30,000 affordable homes by the lifetime of this Parliament, 20,000 of which are for social rent. We have also ended the right to buy. We have introduced regulation into the private sector to make the private sector an option as well for people because it is the right option for some people. We are looking at building houses and getting finance to build houses and scale in the private sector. We have funded a private sector rented champion to try and grow the private sector. We are looking at new tenants in the private sector to give more protection for tenants in the private sector. We are doing everything that we can with the resources that we have. We are building more houses than any previous administration in the Government. We know that we need to get more houses built and we are trying to get them in scale using the money that we have to attract even more money in the best investment. We have several examples of how we can do that. People might move out from a social rented house into a national housing trust or into one of our lift schemes, which leaves that house available for someone else. We are doing everything that we can. We absolutely recognise that supply is part of the supply to give people the houses. That is recognised. We believe that we are doing everything that we can with the funding available. One of the things that Shelter raised is that isolation is something that we will be looking at in our next study. Obviously, there is an overlap here. Some young people do not just come out of care but find themselves isolated in various situations. The suggestion is, what about shared tenancies? Is that a way forward? The obvious one is that it helps to deal with isolation, but it also helps young people to share costs. What is your view on the whole concept of shared tenancies? I would say that there is no one-size-fits-all approach in any of this. There are a range of options and there are a number of organisations that are funded by the Scottish Government and some that are not funded by the Scottish Government that are looking at shared tenancies. It is a solution for some people. I visited one project, particularly in Fife, where the young people had been homeless and had gone to the project where they had given accommodation. The idea of the project is to try to match people together to see if they can get on together if they would be able to take on a shared tenancy. It is about getting to know each other and how they will get on because it is not. You cannot just say, you too, you too, you too. That is your house, your house. You have to ensure that they can get on and work together. What one is good at can one cook and one wash up. I find that a really interesting project, and there have been several other projects that I have visited about shared tenancies. It is also good that, if you get that and start into it from one of the organisations, that if it is not working and there are people who can go on, that decision is made before they are in the house and back down the road again, it is not working. I think that shared tenancies are a way forward for a number of people and for a variety of reasons, but the isolation should never be ignored in terms of young people being isolated in a home. That can cause as many problems as other things if they do not have those social networks. That is why we fund the social network co-ordinator as well. There is absolute recognition that this happens. The rock trust has the national co-ordinator about social networks to try to develop that area. It has been funded for a number of years now, but it is about the recognition of the fact that it is not just about giving somebody a tenancy. There is an awful lot more connected with that to make sure that it is sustainable. You have answered some of the points that I will follow up on, but I will make them anyway. I certainly had a young constituent who was a student and could not stay with the family, but he still had a good relationship with the family, but he got put in with somebody who had a totally chaotic life and could not agree about paying the electricity or anything. He seemed to be quite difficult for him to change who he was sharing with. He was still happy to share with somebody. I had to get involved. It seemed unfortunate or it should not be necessary that the MSP has to get involved in a young person getting a better tenancy. Eventually it worked out in his case. I was thinking back myself. I think that I always shared accommodation when I left home from when I was 21 until I was about 33. That used to be quite common, although maybe that is changing a bit now. It is certainly something that is worth looking at and I appreciate your comments. Do you think that it is something that we can improve on as well, that we could move forward? Maybe some landlords could be a bit more flexible than others? I think that it is something that we can look at and improve on, but I think that the points that we have to recognise, and that is why I think that it is good that there is the support project to start with, because a lot of these people have other issues and problems as well that we have to recognise. It is not just straightforward by putting people into shared tenancies. It is about giving them that opportunity beforehand. It can take two or three months for someone who is longer to say that they could share a tenancy and also have systems in place that, even if it might work out to start with, we all know that something might look good from one side of the fence and that, when you get to the other side of the fence, it is not as easy or as simple as we thought it was. There could be opportunities at looking at how people can be arranged, but you still have to have people who want to give it a go, who want to try it together and can work with each other and are happy with that. My one thing is that there should be no forced shared tenancies. It has to be something that people want to do and that they have had that opportunity to understand what is involved. It is not always that easy sharing, although somebody does not want to live alone. It is not always that easy sharing and it is a bit of a compromise. Those skills and introductory projects are excellent to iron out those difficulties before the tenancies are signed up to. The final area that I touched on was data collection on homelessness, a slightly different subject. My impression is—we have the idea that there is a bit of inconsistency—that the Scottish Government can encourage or establish improved data collection, especially by councils. I had an example where somebody came to me—I think that you met this person yourself—who felt that people who were sofa surfing and would not tell the council, in this case Glasgow, where they had been staying were then being left out of the statistics because they would not fill in all the boxes. I will ask Marion to come in a bit in the statistics, but the statistics in homelessness have been mandatory for some considerable time. They are relatively consistent across local authority areas. We have recently introduced the new statistics prevent one, which is about the options and choices that people are given and the outcomes for people who present as homeless. We also have the Scottish Government's statisticians meet regularly with those who are in local authorities that input the data and collect the data. They meet regularly together to ensure that everybody is operating and putting the correct information and doing it effectively. In terms of the sofa surfing bit, it would not necessarily—I will ask Marion to come in here—be left out of the statistics that were still presented down as homeless. There were loads of other issues in the particular case that you mentioned. I think that the statistics are fairly accurate and fairly good. We are looking at improving the statistics or discussing with chief housing officers whether or not another mandatory field should be added so that it can tell us the length of time that people are in place in temporary accommodation. That is one area where we are looking at the statistics. Marion, do you want to say a bit more about the sofa surfing? Absolutely, minister. It is important to note that, if somebody has made a presentation as homeless, they should feature in the statistics in respect of what happens to their case subsequently. I am aware of the case that you are referring to. I know that the minister knows that as well and the complexities around that one. If somebody has made a presentation, they should feature in the statistics. That is not saying that 100 per cent will get there because that system works in different ways and in different places, but it is there. I think that around homelessness we have a very comprehensive statistical collection that means that we can find an awful lot about homeless people in Scotland, which is a real benefit when we are looking to develop interventions and things like that, particularly around prevention, when we can look at what are the presenting reasons for homelessness and therefore what can we do to try to move that on. The key thing that we have introduced, which the regulator had picked up as a gap in the statistical collection for a while, was the move to housing options. If people are not making a homelessness application, they are not going to feature in the homelessness statistics. With the new collection that we have, which is called Prevent One, it is about collecting the information around what has happened around housing options. We can trace them and see whether that becomes a homelessness application at some point or whether it is a preventable case that comes through and will not feature there. We are beginning to build up a very comprehensive picture of not just the homelessness aspect, which has been there for over 10 years, but also around the housing options activity around local authorities. I think that that is really useful. The first publication of that was the first six months and that came out in January this year. Obviously, it is just the first publication that we have, so we cannot give too much on that as well. We need to expect experimental statistics at this stage—that is what statisticians call us—but we will be able to trace trends and see whether we need to try to focus our activity. We have an awful lot of good material there, and we are now adapting to the new world that we are working in around housing options. We are being able to build up that majorly comprehensive picture. Good morning, minister. You mentioned your opening remarks about the welfare of reform and how it has an effect. With the bedroom tax and the changes in accommodation allowance from 25-year-olds to 35-year-olds, I wondered what the Government is doing regarding mitigating the effects on young homeless people in particular to the bedroom tax. We have been able to get accommodation, and one of the other issues that was raised in reports by sitting in the Vice Scotland was just how much young people had to go through to find out what benefits were available to them. I will start with that last point first in terms of the benefits that are available. I think that young people, or any person at all, find themselves having to get into the benefits system. It is quite a maze for anybody and young people in particular who have not experienced it before. It can be extremely difficult. Clearly, the benefits system at the moment still remains reserved, so what we can do is ensure that young people are getting that service provided in some of the projects that deal with the young homeless people in particular. That is part of what they are doing is getting that person into the benefits system, helping them to make their applications, ensuring that they are getting everything that they are entitled to. That is one part of it. We also know that young people are disproportionately sanctioned in terms of the number of young people who receive sanctioned over 40 per cent, whereas they are de-formed 20 per cent of the GSA claimants. There are more young people disproportionately sanctioned, and we are aware of that. We changed our guidance on the Scottish welfare fund to ensure that people being sanctioned from benefits weren't excluded from the Scottish welfare fund. In terms of the mitigation work, we have mitigated the bedroom tax for the social sector, and we have mitigated that fully and continue to do so. Within the shared accommodation allowance, what we want to do is make sure that young people know what is available when they take on a property, how much housing benefit they would be entitled to, if they could do so. We can still claim discretionary housing payments, which is not connected to the bedroom tax. Discretionary housing payments cover a number of things, and that being one of them as well, so it would be showing people, assisting people how they can get through that. There are a number of things that we can do, but we must bear in mind that there is a limit because welfare is still reserved. It is about helping and supporting people to get what they are entitled to, supporting people to get their application forms in, challenging sanctions if we can, making sure that they have access to the Scottish welfare fund. That is what we are currently doing. As we take on any new powers, we can look at what more support we can give to young people, particularly employability, because we all want to see young people having a bright future and being able to access employment. It seems to be that it is a double whammy. You have got the bedroom tax, the lack of one-bedroom flats and the change in accommodation age, which hits the 25-year-olds. You are replying regarding the discretionary housing payments. There is another aspect of a knock-on effect that is getting young people into education and employment. Some comments have come from the Ethlaneture Council and others. The education allows young people to give young people more money to apply for discretionary housing payments. What are your thoughts on that? I am not quite sure from what angle they are talking about. It is more money and not discretionary housing payments. If someone is in receipt of housing benefit, it depends on how much income they have. If they have more money, they have more income. I am not sure. I am missing the point that the council was making. In some instances, if someone is a student in full-time education, the housing benefit rules are not eligible for housing benefit. We want to ensure that people get, when they are in school and are eligible, the educational maintenance allowance. We want to ensure that young people, if they go to college and are eligible for a bursary, that they should be able to claim that easily. I know that the colleges would be eligible for bursary, but I think that it is up to £93 a week to claim a bursary. If there is a difficulty with people accessing those, we can certainly take back and discuss within the housing options team to say that if it is coming back to us that people who are presenting are homeless and are wanting to go to college and are not finding it easy to access the grants that are available, then that is something that we would look at. The number of projects that I have visited, that is one of the facts. The last project that I have visited is what the project worker and the young person were doing. They were going through the bursary application, making sure that the application forms are filled in and all the benefits. I accept that not every young person is in a project getting that support. We can certainly look at it and discuss with our education colleagues if there is an issue of people accessing the funding that is available. Thank you, minister. I understand that it is not part of your brief education one, but it came up and replies in regard to the EMA system. You mentioned the fact about sharing information. We know that the community care grant, which is now part of the Scottish welfare fund, has been some concerns that the information is not being shared across the board. Is there any way or do you think that there can be improvements made in the sharing of information in regard to the Scottish welfare fund and in applying to younger people as well? My view is that you can always improve everything and there is good practice there. If there is something happening or not happening, then we can look at it and see what is happening. There have been improvements in the Scottish welfare fund since it was introduced. The improvements are there. We can certainly look at it as something that has come up at the practitioner's working group. We have the COSWA development worker who the Scottish Government funds is funded through the Scottish welfare fund to talk to local authorities, to talk to practitioners and to share that best practice and make sure that young people are accessing the fund. On looking at young homeless people in the past 18 months, the figures have shown that at least 1,000 young homeless people have had community care grants in relation to a new tenancy. There are more community care grants and crisis grants, but specifically in relation to a new tenancy, more than 1,000 young people have had a community care grant. We want to encourage that and the working relationships between the housing options teams, the homeless teams and the Scottish welfare fund team to ensure that it can be seamless because an application can be made eight weeks prior to the date of the tenancy. It is an opportunity to get the goods of whatever is required ready for the young person moving into their tenancy. We are improving that and we are working towards that. That is the way it should work. Those communication networks within a local authority area should be able to deliver a service like that. I would like to return to the children and young people's act briefly. Part 9 of the act is about corporate parenting. It ensures that all corporate parents, including housing departments, understand the needs that have looked after young people and care leavers. I would like to ask if you are aware of what has been happening about taking forward part 9 in relation to the implementation of the act to date and what is planned in the future. In general, what I can say about the children and young people's act is that we are looking at developing a model for child impact assessments across all government portfolios, which means that any policy decision that we are taking will have to be considered in doing that. That is in general. In terms of part 20 that you referred to, I can certainly take that back and provide that to the committee in writing once I have contacted the Minister for Children and Young People. Can I just ask a supplementary convener? I have always been interested in the role of GERFEC and I really appreciate that that is not in your brief. I have often thought that housing should play a much bigger part in GERFEC because when GERFEC groups sit down locally it is getting it right for every child. They do not seem to include housing, so they talk about all other aspects of a child's life and a child's circumstances. Housing, in my view, is not always sufficiently appreciated or accommodated within that GERFEC framework, so it is just my opinion. I wonder if there are any ideas about whether the need for a safe, sustainable home could be made more important in the context of GERFEC. I think that in part of the whole prevention approach that fits into GERFEC to make sure that every child has the best start in life and is ready in education in every other aspect to join the adult world. I do think that there are a number of things that housing can be brought into there. I also think that the named person is also very useful in that respect if there is somebody there who can identify that there is an issue with a child, whether it be homelessness or housing situation. That can be dealt with at a very early stage. I do not think that there are many aspects of anyone's life that housing does not pay to play a central role in because there is nothing, as you say, a warm, sustainable home. That security, and yes, it is absolutely critical. I do think that the Children and Young Persons Act will help with that. I can certainly discuss it with the Minister for Children and Young People if there is anything else that we can put in to make that more prominent. Certainly, there are packs being produced for schools as well about housing from an early age, what do children expect as well from a home. I think that there is more that we can do there and we can certainly look at that, but I do think that getting it right for every child if the house is not right then has not happened. I have noted you correctly earlier. You said that mediation is a key issue in relationship breakdown. Now, acknowledging the financial climate that everyone is operating in, can you comment on how the challenges faced by the statutory and third sectors in delivering services, particularly like mediation? I suppose that the priority that you would wish to place on it, please? I think that there is a priority placed in mediation and that is why we have, through the third sector, given further sending the funding to the Serenians, we fund them for the Scottish Conflict Resolution Centre. That is the kind of model that we will hopefully learn from and see how we can further develop that in terms of mediation. There are also a number of other organisations that get funding through the housing voluntary grant fund and other services from the Scottish Government that look at mediation as well. I absolutely understand that there are pressures on all publicly funded organisations and third sectoral dependent public funding. However, we did not cut any of the funding in terms of our housing voluntary grant fund. That fund remained the same. We did not introduce any cuts in that. It is still £2.3 million this year and last year. We do not impose any cuts because we recognise the valuable work that they are contributing. We will also learn from the project that we are funding through the Serenians and, hopefully, we will then have to look at it. Overall, how much can we roll this out further? It is a national conflict for resolution centre and that is where we are going to learn from how that works. How, via all those things, can you ensure that young people will have access to high-quality mediation? That is part of the housing options approach and it is part of the training that professionals who work with the housing options teams are looking at. When mediation is part of the code, is mediation appropriate in those circumstances? If so, we need to ensure that they get trained mediators. We need to have people trained to deliver that service and that is what we are looking at. I have not had any feedback that that is not happening. If there were examples where it is not happening that people are not getting access to mediation or are not getting access to trained mediators that are being sent to are not properly trained or skilled, then that is something that I have taken board with. I have had no indication that that is the case. I know from a previous time as a councillor particularly that mediation is quite often offered to people when it is wholly inappropriate. Is there guidance being prepared because I think that you acknowledged yourself that it will not always be appropriate to seek mediation? The guidance is quite clear that mediation is not appropriate for everybody. There are circumstances that will be very obvious that mediation is not appropriate and there will be other circumstances where it has got to be looked at and discussed with the young person themselves because they have got to agree. To do that mediation is always a two-way thing. It is not something that you can force on someone, but the guidance and the training is going to be racked up in that as well to ensure that, absolutely, when mediation is discussed or offered, it is appropriate. It is not for every case and we accept that. Do you have any questions you would like to ask? Yes, three questions. One we had from the DCD council who mentioned the use of befriends and volunteers and particularly they said that they are using them not to replace paid offices but to work along paid offices, to go along with clients to appointments, someone to chat with. I just wanted to know what does the Scottish Government think about this kind of approach? My view has always been that there is always a role in any way for volunteers to absolutely understand if it is clear what the role is and it is not taking over a function that should be provided by the local authority or another organisation. In some instances, I am a befender and I have also seen a number of visited projects where people are trained to be befenders and matched with someone to go with them. Sometimes it is just a whole-handing thing. We have talked about isolation companies. Some people just do not have the confidence to go in somewhere and present themselves to claim a benefit. I would not rule anything out if it is going to assist a young person or someone to get that further step, even if it is just a small step. If that can help, then why would I consider ruling that out? I favour anything that helps someone to get along the route, but I am not suggesting that it should all be done simply by using volunteers. I have a great respect for any volunteer who has a background in the voluntary sector. I know the skills, training and dedication that there is among people who volunteer and to be friend with volunteers as well. It is not just straightforward. There will be training involved in lots of things to go through to do that, but I think that there is a place for that within the whole helping young people to get on and move on a wee step. It looks like it is patching compared to other local authorities. The idea of doing the city council is that the third sector and the paid officer are not working in silos but are really working in partnership in action together. Will you favour that approach? I think that the partnership approach always works better. Any partnership between the third sector, local authority and the service user will always have a better outcome. In terms of partnership, yes, I absolutely support that. We heard a lot in our evidence regarding inappropriate temporary accommodation and particularly bed on breakfast. We heard a lot of evidence about people living in it and if something should be acceptable or not. We heard, for example, from who cares Scotland saying that all the people are in bed on breakfast, all the men or all the women. It is not appropriate for young homeless people to be in that kind of surrounding. You said that we should not be forced to share tenancy upon young people earlier on. It is a kind of share tenancy when you think about it bed on breakfast. Locally, I checked with Aberdeenshire Council and I was surprised to know that even if we reduced the numbers in the last financial years, we had as many 165 people aged 24-1 sometimes in bed on breakfast accommodation. What should bed on breakfast be still a housing option for young homeless people? What can we do to ensure that young people are not placed in inappropriate accommodation? In terms of placing anyone in accommodation, it is up to the local authority to look at what accommodation is available in their area and to look at the suitability of that accommodation for the person that they are housing. That is the first thing that I would say that the local authority has to make that decision, but nobody should be placed in inappropriate accommodation or accommodation. I cannot say that every single bed and breakfast accommodation is inappropriate if the local authority has a capacity with their rather temporary accommodation at a particular point. What I would say is that accommodation should be appropriate to the needs of the individual and that is the whole housing options approach, which is looking at the individual and what would be appropriate for their needs and for how long. I think that is when Marion talked earlier that we will have a better understanding of how long people have been placed in temporary accommodation. What might be suitable for a very short period of time would not be something that is suitable for a longer period of time. I would also say that if there are young people in bed and breakfast accommodation, I do not know if it was checked what support they are still being provided with, because young people would still be requiring support, whether it be support for social networks, whether it is support to claim benefits, whether it is support. That support should still be with them in accommodation, if that person has been identified as someone who requires support, because there is a duty and local authority is a legal duty to provide support for people who are deemed necessary and appropriate, and most young people would come into that category. The evidence that we received on both counts is not suitable because of the people who are already living in bed and breakfast, all the people in it. As you said, there is no support at all in bed and breakfast accommodation and all the soft skill etc. That kind of support does not exist at all. The evidence that we took was quite strong on this. Is there any support that would not necessarily be in the place at someone's house, but they would still be connected or matched up with a support agency in their area if they had been identified as requiring support? There is no evidence that the care inspectorate said that while the effect provides a strong emphasis on early intervention, a number of services that help to prevent young people becoming homeless often come under other supervision. I am quite happy to hear that you are going to speak with the minister for younger people, but there is a problem that I think the evidence is showing is that, given that even if it is recognised by everybody who came to give evidence as an opportunity, there was no proof of how it would help younger people who ended up homeless. I think that I would go back to some of the remarks when Jane Baxter referred to Gyrffet, that in terms of now with the Children and Young People's Act and the additional responsibilities put on to corporate parents and local authorities and also by the named person being able to provide that more holistic assessment of children that would bring together all of their needs and includes education, housing, public health and what kind of support is required and to ensure that those supporting agencies follow that young person as long as that person requires that support. I think that there are changes that have come in and also with the Scottish Government looking at doing a child impact assessment across all parts of government. I think that that will help to ensure that we do get it right for every child. At this stage, in terms of the Children and Young People's Act, we are just moving there. I would like to thank the Minister for Housing for coming along today and asking more questions. That concludes the public part of today's meeting. Our next meeting will take place on Thursday 19 February. I will now suspend the meeting for the committee to move into a private session.