Ending homelessness together: annual report 2023

Progress against actions to join up planning and resources to tackle homelessness

Scotland’s National Performance Framework is our vision for the nation we want to be. We said we would ensure the National Performance Framework review includes explicit consideration of homelessness.

The Scottish Government is currently reviewing the national outcomes. This is required by law every five years.

• As part of this review, the Scottish Government published a consultation in March 2023 to seek views on what matters most to communities in Scotland.
• We engaged with representatives of the housing and homelessness sector as part of the consultation process.
• We are now exploring ways to better represent housing and homelessness in the revised national outcomes, due to be published in 2024.

We said we would improve how we use Public Health Scotland data and intelligence capabilities.

• Public Health Scotland is collaborating with Healthcare Improvement Scotland to link homelessness application data to health and social care data. Work will begin with a small number of pathfinder areas but the aim is to make this data available to all areas to inform where best to target support for people experiencing multiple and complex needs.

We continue to improve drug and alcohol treatment and harm reduction services. The Scottish Government remains focused on getting more people in to the form of treatment which works best for them.

• We saw a record fall in the number of drug misuse deaths in 2022 (1,051 compared to 1,330 in 2021 – a reduction of 21 per cent). This is the lowest annual total since 2017.
• The latest statistics on homeless deaths were published in November 2022 and showed that drug misuse deaths of people experiencing homelessness fell for the first time in 2021. However, drug misuse was still the cause of over half of all deaths for people experiencing homelessness.
• The Scottish Government continues to drive implementation of the medication-assisted treatment (MAT) standards. All health boards, integrated joint boards and local authorities have returned delivery plans and will be regularly reporting on progress to the Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy.
• • Scotland’s Lord Advocate announced in September 2023 that people using a safer drug consumption facility in Glasgow would not be prosecuted, which means the pilot project, which aims to reduce the harm associated with drug misuse, can now go ahead.
• In recognition of the need for better recovery provision for women, particularly those with childcare responsibilities, the Scottish Government has made more than £5.5 million available over this parliamentary term, to support the establishment of two houses in Dundee and Central Scotland run by Aberlour. These facilities are designed to support women and their children through recovery.
• We are also setting up a group to explore what pathways are in place for substance-using women during pregnancy and the early years, and we will develop good practice guidance to support local areas to meet the needs of women and their infants.

We said we would improve the join-up between health, social care, housing and homelessness planning. As the Scottish Government co-designs the National Care Service, we want to hear from as wide a range of people as possible with experience of community healthcare and social care services.

• In order to address gaps in our engagement to date, the Scottish Government is awarding new funding to third sector organisations so that the people they work with can have their say on how future services should look. Simon Community Scotland will receive £5,000 in 2023-24 to ensure that the perspectives of those with experience of homelessness are heard.
• To demonstrate the cross-cutting nature of the National Care Service, the chief executive of Simon Community Scotland, Lorraine McGrath, will co-chair the National Care Service National Forum 2023 along with Shea Moran, who has lived experience of homelessness.

We said we would embed homelessness as a public health priority and ensure local authorities, housing providers and public bodies join up to prevent homelessness. We recognise that a home is essential to a person’s health and wellbeing. This point was reinforced in the report of the homelessness prevention task and finish group.

• The Scottish Government will bring forward housing legislation to introduce prevention of homelessness duties this parliamentary year. The new duties are designed to improve the way local authorities, housing providers and public bodies co-operate to prevent homelessness. The duties will include the requirement that public bodies, such as health and criminal justice services, ask about housing situations to identify a risk of homelessness and then act on that information.

The Hard Edges Scotland report continues to inform how the Scottish Government responds to the severe and multiple disadvantage that some people face in Scotland.

• In light of the strong links between poverty, welfare and housing, the Scottish Government convened a roundtable on child poverty in September 2023 for stakeholders from the housing, homelessness and debt advice sectors. Attendees provided constructive input on what is working well and what needs to change to meet statutory child poverty targets.
• The Scottish Government recognises that ending homelessness cannot be achieved by one ministerial portfolio. To that end, the Minister for Housing has set up a ministerial oversight group on homelessness to bring together ministers from across the Scottish Government to work in a joined up way to prevent and end homelessness. It held its first meeting in September 2023.

We said we would update the code of guidance on homelessness and review the need for a code of practice in the code of guidance on homelessness.

• We remain committed to reviewing the code of guidance on homelessness once the homelessness prevention duties have been introduced, and we will review the need for a code of practice addendum to the code of guidance in future.

We said we would join up housing, employment and employability support.The Scottish Government and COSLA remain committed to building on the progress already made through delivery of No One Left Behind. No One Left Behind is the approach to transforming employment support in Scotland. It has a crucial role in achieving Scotland’s vision for economic transformation and tackling child poverty. Through No One Left Behind, we are making the employability system more responsive to the needs of people and to the changes in labour markets.

• No One Left Behind will facilitate greater join up of local service provision, driving a no wrong door approach for people who may need to access multiple services concurrently.
• Work is being carried out in partnership with local authorities to consider ways to improve specialist employability support delivery through No One Left Behind ahead of Fair Start Scotland referrals ending in March 2024.
• The Scottish Government’s Housing First monitoring reports developed to capture Housing First activity across Scotland also record positive outcomes as a result of Housing First tenancies, including training and employment.