Homelessness prevention duties: equality impact assessment results

Background

In September 2017 the former First Minister set out a commitment to eradicate rough sleeping, transform the use of temporary accommodation and end homelessness in Scotland. Scottish Ministers subsequently established the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group (HARSAG), to make recommendations on how this could be achieved.

HARSAG produced its recommendations in June 2018 aimed at securing strategic changes at both national and local level. In November 2018, the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) published the joint Ending Homelessness Together High Level Action Plan in response. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, HARSAG was reconvened and an updated Ending Homelessness Together Action Plan was published jointly with COSLA. This sets the direction for real and lasting change towards ending homelessness in Scotland and reaffirms the commitment to the development of wide-reaching prevention duties.

At the request of the Scottish Government, Crisis convened the Prevention Review Group (PRG) to develop recommendations for legal duties on Scottish local authorities and wider public bodies to prevent homelessness. The over-arching foundational principles of the PRG Final Report, published in 2021 , were that:

(a) Responsibility to prevent homelessness should be a shared public responsibility and not rely solely or primarily on the homelessness service.

(b) Intervention to prevent homelessness should start as early as possible.

(c) People facing homelessness should have choice in where they live and access to the same range of housing outcomes as members of the general public, with appropriate protections to mitigate further risk of homelessness. Housing outcomes should be comparable across the prevention and homelessness duties.

The PRG recommendations proposed:

(a) Amendments to existing legislation to strengthen local authority homelessness prevention activity, and;

(b) The creation of new homelessness prevention duties on relevant bodies to require the public sector to take responsibility, where appropriate, for supporting homelessness prevention by asking about people's housing situation and taking action to prevent homelessness.

The PRG recommendations formed the basis of the public consultation on homelessness prevention duties which ran from December 2021 – April 2022 and asked for views on the planned introduction of new legislation and changes to existing homelessness legislation. The independent analysis of the consultation responses, published in September 2022, showed there was widespread support for the package of proposals^[1]. =

Based on this feedback, the Scottish Government is introducing the following:

• An 'ask and act' provision, which will include specified relevant bodies[2] either taking action within their own existing powers, or making a referral to local authorities on behalf of people identified as homeless, at risk of homelessness, or both.
• A duty on local authorities to act six months before potential homelessness rather than the current two.
• For referrals from relevant bodies to be treated as an application for assistance.
• The need for local authorities to take reasonable steps to prevent homelessness (while the steps themselves will be set out in either secondary legislation or statutory guidance).
• Changes to the definition of domestic abuse as it applies within housing legislation and the need for social landlords to have a domestic abuse policy.
• Assessment of housing support needs to be included in Local Housing Strategies.