Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland: statistics - January 2024

Welcome accommodation

There was a peak of welcome accommodation use in November 2022, with around 3,810 welcome accommodation rooms and cabins occupied. The estimated number of displaced people from Ukraine in welcome accommodation, as well as the number of welcome accommodation rooms occupied, have been on an overall decreasing trend since November 2022 with some fluctuation.

As reported by the Scottish Government welcome accommodation teams across Scotland on 18 December 2023, there were around 1,420 welcome accommodation rooms occupied by displaced people from Ukraine in welcome accommodation in Scotland. This is around a 10% reduction from the 1,595 welcome accommodation rooms occupied on 26 September 2023 as reported in our previous publication and a just over 60% decrease from the peak of 3,810 rooms and cabins on 7 November 2022 (figure 1).

Figure 1: Total number of occupied rooms and cabins used as welcome accommodation for displaced people from Ukraine in Scotland. Data between 15 August 2022 and 18 December 2023.

The total booked welcome accommodation includes unoccupied rooms and cabins, kept available for displaced people from Ukraine who may require it. Additionally, some unoccupied rooms are unavailable for occupancy for reasons including overnight contingency, pending closure, and consolidation of other welcome accommodation.

As reported by the Scottish Government welcome accommodation teams across Scotland on 18 December 2023, there were around 1,545 welcome accommodation rooms booked with 120 of these rooms unoccupied in welcome accommodation in Scotland.

The number of unoccupied welcome accommodation has varied throughout the programme, with a peak of 1,265 in March 2023 and a low of 115 in December 2023. The number of unoccupied welcome accommodation rooms has been on a decreasing trend since July 2023 with some fluctuation.

In September 2022, unoccupied welcome accommodation reached a low of 230 rooms and cabins. This was due to high numbers of arrivals in the UK and was followed by a steep increase as M/S Ambition became operational to accommodate new arrivals.

There were peaks in the number of unoccupied accommodation during disembarkations of M/S Ambition (1,265 unoccupied rooms) in March 2023 and M/S Victoria (1,210 unoccupied rooms) in July 2023 (figure 2). This was because, as part of an orderly disembarkation process, vacated cabins were not assigned new occupants during disembarkation and could not be closed individually. There were followed by steep decreases in unoccupied welcome accommodation, of 505 rooms in March 2023 and 760 in July 2023, due to closures of M/S Ambition and M/S Victoria (figure 2).

Figure 2: Total number of unoccupied rooms and cabins used as welcome accommodation for displaced people from Ukraine in Scotland. Data between 15 August 2022 and 18 December 2023.

The Scottish Government published an ad-hoc release of management information data on the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland outcomes of the M/S Ambition and the M/S Victoria disembarkations in September 2023.

Please see methodology section for additional notes.