Homelessness Prevention Task and Finish Group: final report and recommendations

Priority 4: Continuous cross-sector reflective practice

To understand how best to approach the upcoming changes, there is a need to determine where wider public bodies are just now. So, some further consultation and ongoing discussions will be required. In addition to these, we recognise that the changes will not sit solely on the shoulders of the public sector. We need to look at and address how sectors interact with one another, what the practice is at present, and some initial agreed ambition; moving to approaches that meet the needs of those they are there to serve, whilst building in reflection, to allow for review, and changing as learning progresses. This is not about sectors reaching a goal and maintaining that, but about reflection and improvement as needed over time.

Action 17: Carry out work outlined, in preparation for the bill

• The Scottish Government should carry out in-depth consultation with frontline workers, managers and strategic leads in the ‘wider public bodies’ to ensure the ‘Ask’ and ‘Act’ duties are designed in a way that is appropriate for those sectors, so that the duty is clear about what ‘act’ means in different contexts, and effective in achieving its intended outcome. There should be dedicated posts within Scottish Government and/or COSLA to work with those sectors to ensure that the design and implementation of these duties is as effective as it can be.
• Once there is clarity on the new homelessness prevention duties, the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) should update its regulatory framework, clearly setting out how it will assess local authority and landlord compliance with the new duties through its assessment of local authorities’ Annual Assurance Statements, and any new regulatory activities. This should also specify any responsibilities for regulating the duties that sit outside the remit of the SHR, with other regulators.

The Scottish Housing Regulator must ensure local authority homelessness prevention provision is compliant with the new law and have the ability to act upon this.

• There are some public bodies operating in Scotland, such as the Home Office and DWP which have frequent contact with groups at high risk of homelessness. As public authorities, they are bound by the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) in the Equality Act 2010, as well as having responsibilities under the Human Rights Act 1998 to act as compatibly as possible with that Act’s incorporated European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) rights.

The point of the PSED is to ensure public responsibilities and services, including housing planning and the prevention of homelessness, are discharged in a fair and inclusive manner. Whereas the prevention of homelessness duty may not itself apply to such UK public bodies as they are outside of the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament, we strongly recommend that an express link is made in statutory guidance on the prevention of homelessness in Scotland in respect of UK public authorities which is consistent with expectations of Scottish public bodies bound by that prevention duty. And, furthermore that those UK public bodies - such as the Home Office and DWP - also explicitly embed prevention of homelessness work in Scotland with fulfilment of their PSED. This will require the Scottish Government to work with those UK public authorities, setting their expectations on prevention of homelessness consistent with the above.

• Our understanding is that the duties on wider public bodies will need to be regulated by the relevant regulators that oversee each. Coordinated strategic scrutiny will be a critical driver in ensuring the system is working as intended. Work should take place now to start to prepare for the changes, and how best to include these bodies.

Action 18: Include these indicators and monitoring tools for ongoing measuring

The Task and Finish Group on Measurement is also producing recommendations on how to measure and monitor success on homelessness prevention. The following recommendations should be considered alongside the recommendations of that group:

• A set of indicators should be developed to measure the efficacy of homelessness prevention activity. Indicators may include positive housing outcomes, numbers in temporary accommodation, length of time in temporary accommodation, and patterns and levels of repeat homelessness. It is important that indicators are not used as targets.
• A new monitoring framework will be required to complement existing statistics. Statistics should capture: which (if any) services the applicant had been referred by; types of support people receive at the prevention stage; causes of being threatened with homelessness (including gender and sexuality); outcomes of assessments for those threatened with homelessness; circumstances in which the ‘reasonable steps’ is discharged; housing outcomes.
• Too often, certain groups fail to receive the support they need because we do not collect adequate data about their experiences of homelessness. As part of its review of data collections, Scottish Government should consult with equalities groups on what data could better represent the diverse experiences of homelessness especially amongst those with protected characteristics under the Equalities Act 2010, as part of a wider Equalities Data Strategy.

Action 19: Include ongoing implementation support

The changes in approach will take several years to bed in. The timeframe needs to reflect the scale of the task and whilst we are not starting from the beginning, we are setting up a radically extended network of provision. The implementation timetable needs to reflect this.

• Scottish Ministers should request that the Strategic Scrutiny Group – which is chaired by Audit Scotland and has representation of all the regulators relevant for oversight of these new duties – should consider and produce a framework regarding what scrutiny of these duties will look like. In developing that plan, the Strategic Scrutiny Group should draw lessons from other approaches where multiple regulators are involved in working together to scrutinise activity across multiple public bodies (such as Child Protection).
• As has been done with other major policy change,^[14] the Scottish Government and COSLA should establish an oversight project board with various workstreams to oversee implementation (legislation, service restructure and transition to the new model, development of statutory guidance etc.). This should be comprised of Scottish Government, Local Authority representatives, other public bodies and regulators.
• In line with the recommendation of the Temporary Accommodation Task and Finish Group: Health and Social Care Integration Authorities should ensure that Housing Contribution Statements (HCSs) detail what care and support provisions are the responsibility of Health and Social Care Partnerships and what are the responsibility of local authority housing teams. HCSs should ascertain and confirm the mechanisms that exist to facilitate how health and housing will work together.
• Similar to the Homelessness Advice and Support Team (HAST) which was put in place in England to support with the introduction of the Homelessness Reduction Act, during the ‘bedding-in’ period, the Scottish Government and COSLA should provide implementation support, including ongoing assistance with problem-solving and capacity-building. The Scottish Government should set short, medium and longer-term policy implementation review landmarks when the legislation is passed, including clarity on what should have been achieved by when.
• Both Scottish and local Governments must plan points for reflection, to allow for areas of change to be considered, reviewed and learnings to provide paths for change. When embarking on such a vast array of changes, initial plans may need to adapt and change. Reflective practice should be core to this.