Operation of the Homeless Persons Legislation in Scotland: 2012-13

Footnotes

1. The priority need test was abolished on 31^st December 2012. For ease of reference in this publication, we have continued touse the phrase for cases following 31^st December 2012. After this date, 100% of cases assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness effectively had 'priority need' status.

2. The proportion of cases assessed as homeless and accorded priority need measures performance against the National Indicator - 'Improve access to suitable housing options for those in housing need' . Further information is available at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/scotPerforms/indicator/housingneed. The assessments chapter of this bulletin from paragraph 4.16 onwards explains the indicator. Chart 8 and Table 4 give full details for each council area.

3. The Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 extended councils' duties to non-priority homeless and the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003 set the longer term objective of phasing out the distinction between priority and non-priority homeless. See Summary of Homelessness Legislation for more details.

4. This development has been supported and promoted by the Scottish Government through the creation and funding of joint local authority housing options hubs in which councils have shared experiences, lessons learned and developed training for staff while developing and implementing their housing options/ homelessness prevention services. Further information on the development of housing options services in Scottish local authorities is available at Homelessness Prevention.

5. Further information is available at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/scotPerforms/indicator/housingneed.

6. Priority households includes all cases assessed as (1) unintentionally homeless or threatened with homeless and in priority need (cases assessed prior to 31^st December 2012) and (2) cases assessed as unintentionally homeless or threatened with homeless (cases assessed on or after 31^st December 2012).

7. The statement can be found at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/12/21133010/30107.

The statement also set interim targets for each council. Progress against the interim targets was reported in the Homelessness Statistics Bulletin 2008-09.

8. In light of the abolition of the priority need test, the reason for priority need was not required from 31^st December 2012. However, following consultation with the homelessness statistics user group, it was agreed that data on these characteristics would continue to be collected. The reasons for this were comparability with previous data and because it provided additional information on those using homelessness services which was not available elsewhere.

9. To be classed as a repeat homelessness assessment the applicant household must (1) be assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness in both applications; (2) the previous case must have been closed within 12 months of the current assessment and ; (3) the adults and family circumstances also need to be the same in both applications.

10. Following abolition of the priority need test on 31^st December 2012, the intentionality test is applied to all cases assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness

11. The local authorities are Argyll & Bute, Dumfries and Galloway, Glasgow City, Eilean Siar (Western Isles), Inverclyde and Scottish Borders.

12. The estimate of the number of social lets (excluding transfer lets) available during 2012-13 is derived from the number of local authority lets recorded by councils in their annual lettings return. Housing association lets for 2012-13 are estimated from the Scottish Housing Regulator's APSR return for 2011-12 together. SCORE data is used to allocate RSL lets to local authority areas. New build completions data for 2012-13 is used to estimate lets arising from new build properties in the social sector.

13. This is the quarterly HL2 summary return. Copies of the return and guidance notes are available at HL2 Form and Guidance

14. This is the Department for Work and Pension's under-occupancy penalty and more generally referred to as 'The Bedroom Tax'. Under this measure, a household in receipt of housing benefit - and which is deemed to be under occupying a local authority or housing association house - has their housing benefit reduced by a percentage of their eligible rent.

15. Updated Evidence On The Number Of Households Affected By The Housing Benefit Under Occupation Penalty

16. Due to missing data, notifications for Highland Council have been estimated.

17. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/HSfS/NewBuild

18. If before 31^st December 2012.