Prevention of homelessness duties: consultation analysis

2. Overall views on the proposals

The Prevention Review Group's recommendations were developed and presented as a full package. The Scottish Government /COSLA joint consultation used the full package of proposals, in the spirit in which they were developed, as its framework, rather than selecting specific proposals for consultation. This included asking for respondents' opinions on the package as a whole at Q88 to Q94, including benefits arising from the proposals and implications for resources, training and monitoring. During analysis it became evident that several over-arching themes were consistently raised throughout the consultation responses. This chapter summarises these themes in the context of the overall package of reforms. Where respondents elaborated on a theme in relation to a specific proposal, that detail has been included under the relevant question.

Support for the package of proposals

Most respondents (84%) who answered Q88 agreed^[3] that the PRG's proposals are the right package of reforms to meet the principles of early intervention and the prevention of homelessness; 25% strongly agreed. Analysis of the closed consultation questions also indicates widespread support. Across the 36 questions which asked respondents if they agreed with a proposal^[4], an average of 90% of those answering agreed and an average of 40% strongly agreed. Moreover, each proposal was supported by at least three quarters of those who answered. A full breakdown of the closed question results is in Appendix B.

Supporters described the proposals as comprehensive, transformational and welcome, with many agreeing the reforms will introduce important and positive changes for people at risk of homelessness. Some described the package as well balanced, noting the reforms are complementary to one another. A few proposals were highlighted as particularly important: the ask and act duties; requiring action to be taken at six months before homelessness instead of two; and for accommodation to meet specific suitability requirements. A few felt it was too early to comment on the proposals and called for a trial period to monitor their impact and make adaptations where necessary.

Support for early intervention and the prevention of homelessness

Many respondents supported the proposals because they recognised the wider benefits and positive outcomes for individuals which can result from early intervention and a prevention approach. These include reduced trauma, improved wellbeing for those faced with homelessness and less use of temporary accommodation.

"Allowing us to work more quickly with people will hopefully reduce the number of homelessness cases, this then will impact on the levels of temporary accommodation required as well as reduce the time taken to rehouse statutory homeless cases. With more time to provide suitable interventions we can ensure that we achieve better and sustainable housing outcomes." – Falkirk Council

Importance of enabling a joined-up approach

Respondents frequently cited the need for, and importance of, a joined-up approach to preventing homelessness. This would involve housing services, local authorities, public bodies, landlords and third sector organisations working in partnership to ensure the needs of individuals are met. Many recognised the potential for the package to encourage partnership working across public services and cement responsibility and accountability across key agencies, providing a wider safety net for those at risk of homelessness.

Strengthening existing practice

Throughout their comments, respondents highlighted examples of existing practice which meet or exceed the approaches outlined under the new duties and legislation. These included examples of organisations' own work, and examples of partnership or multi-agency working. There was, however, recognition that the proposals could help to strengthen existing practice further and increase commitment to reducing homelessness.

Consistency

There was widespread recognition that the proposals have the potential to create and ensure a consistent approach to homelessness prevention between organisations and across Scotland. However, some described the package of proposals as being too prescriptive and not taking account of the regional and organisational variations of the services involved in preventing homelessness.

Potential savings or benefits to services

At Q94, 79% agreed the proposals offer an opportunity for potential savings or benefits to services through an increased focus on early intervention and prevention that the duties could lead to long-term savings and benefits for public services. Respondents recognised that focussing on early intervention and homelessness prevention is likely to resolve situations before a crisis point is reached, which will reduce subsequent local authority housing costs, and have other fiscal benefits for healthcare, social work, criminal justice and services for mental health and problematic substance use.

Impact on specific groups

Most agreed the reforms will be of greatest benefit to society's most vulnerable and those at greatest risk of homelessness. At Q12 71% agreed that a duty on Integration Authorities would prevent homelessness for people with a range of more complex needs and at Q75, 100% agreed with the proposal for preventing homelessness among those experiencing domestic abuse. Some felt the proposals will have the greatest impact on people protected by the Equalities Act, including disabled people, ethnic minorities and women. However, others thought the reforms will impact all groups equally. Given the diversity of the groups targeted by the proposals, and that people who share protected characteristics are disproportionately affected by homelessness, a small number including the Equality and Human Rights Commission called for a comprehensive Equality Impact Assessment on legislative changes, for the sharing of good practice in relation to the different groups, and a focus on avoiding discrimination.

Considerations for implementation

While there was broad support for the package of reforms in principle, many stressed that realising any benefits from the proposals will require significant long-term investment in public services, homelessness services and housing to manage an anticipated increase in demand. These and other considerations for implementation are outlined below.

Addressing the underlying drivers of homelessness

Respondents often called on the Scottish Government, local authorities and public bodies to address wider structural and systemic drivers of homelessness. These included mental health issues, problematic substance use, domestic abuse, debt, and family breakdown, for example. While this was not the remit of the consultation, some expressed a view that homelessness will continue until these issues are addressed by other policy actions and given increased and sustained funding.

Resources and staff capacity

The need to adequately resource the proposals was a prevalent theme throughout the consultation responses. Stakeholders anticipated the proposals would result in a significant increase in referrals to homelessness and housing services, leading to larger staff caseloads. Those working in the sector noted that many services are already struggling to deal with current demand and that additional staff will be required. They also noted ongoing public sector recruitment and retention challenges. Most were very clear that the proposals will only be successful if sufficient funding and staff capacity is in place to manage additional demand and did not feel the proposals set out in the consultation addressed how this would be afforded. However, respondents did not provide suggestions for alternative ways of working or detail on the additional investment required.

Respondents described changes their organisation would need to make to comply with new duties. They argued these will require funding and staffing, and some highlighted the need for a significant adjustment period while teams adapt their working practices and organisational processes to the new duties.Changes included: establishing information sharing protocols; greater collaboration with other agencies; educating service users about their rights; developing formal referral and signposting procedures; collecting additional monitoring data; and offering new services e.g. mediation. A few noted that existing IT systems used to record housing advice, homeless and temporary accommodation information will need to be updated or developed, which will require investment, training and time to embed. Another concern was that the proposals risk burdening public services with complicated new bureaucratic procedures without clear benefits for service users. Conversely, a few felt their organisations were already operating in line with the new duties and minimal changes would be required if the proposals are implemented.

"Additional resources will be required to manage increased numbers of households accessing services. Time will be required for new duties to be embedded in services and for partnership working and referral routes to be established. Additional recording and reporting will need to be developed, systems may need to be adjusted or updated and training for all involved will be required. This will require significant additional resources." – City of Edinburgh Council

Housing stock

Concerns about Scotland's limited housing stock were raised repeatedly. Respondents questioned how the proposals could be delivered as they argued that the volume of housing required to meet increased demand does not exist. There were calls for greater investment to increase the supply of affordable housing, social housing, housing in rural areas, specialist or adapted housing, supported accommodation and housing for disabled people and young people. As will be discussed in Chapter 4, there was support for individuals to have choice and control over housing options, but many noted limited housing stock makes this difficult in practice. Some called for services and individuals to have a realistic understanding of the available housing options and timescales.

"A system that offers more choice and control to the client is to be welcomed but will be difficult to manage in areas where there the demand for property far outstrips supply and other housing solutions are unaffordable." – Stirling Council

A few predicted that the homelessness prevention duties could result in greater demand for temporary accommodation and an increase in associated costs. A small number of local authority responses noted that a shortage of housing solutions may lead to increased use of unsuitable emergency accommodation; this could lead to local authorities incurring financial penalties or legal costs as this breaches the Unsuitable Accommodation Order.

Training

Respondents regularly called for more training. Although not all provided detail on what was required, two main strands of training were identified:

• To increase understanding of homelessness, which should cover the underlying drivers of and routes into homelessness, how to identify and support someone who is at risk, and an understanding of lived experience and stigma.
• Raising awareness of any new duties and legislation and how they would work in practice, covering cross sector delivery and integration with other services, upskilling on making appropriate referrals and prevention activity, and effective signposting.

Many described the roles which would benefit from training including social work, health and social care, education, justice, youth work and landlords. Some felt that training could be delivered internally; others said they would expect the Scottish Government to publish relevant training materials. The Housing Options toolkit was mentioned by a few respondents who suggested it could be utilised and rolled out further to support the training needs of public services. A few third sector organisations anticipated that they will be asked to deliver training to other services to improve understanding of homelessness and how best to work with people at risk of or transitioning out of homelessness.

"Public bodies out with the housing/homelessness system are going to need training and support to develop their understanding of what a risk of homelessness looks like at such an early stage. It's one thing to identify and respond to homelessness that exists now, it's another to anticipate how what we're seeing at this point puts someone at risk of homelessness six months down the line." – Turning Point Scotland

Another recurring theme was for public services and homelessness bodies to ensure they use a trauma-informed approach when supporting those who are experiencing challenging circumstances. As well as calls for training on this, suggestions included designing processes to ensure that individuals do not have to repeatedly tell their story, for services to have an understanding that there are multiple reasons why someone might not engage and calls for a 'sticky' approach where services are persistent with individuals rather than ending support if an appointment is missed. A small number also called for training in disability, neurodiversity and gender-based approaches and support.

"Another consideration is that many services don't have systems that interact with each other, so we need to design plans so that people don't have to tell their same story repeatedly. We want to avoid giving people multiple steps to deal with, and for information sharing to work effectively, so they aren't having to explain potentially traumatic events to different bodies." – Falkirk Council

Guidance on implementing the proposals

To ensure the proposals do deliver a consistent approach to prevention, respondents regularly called for more detail on implementation than is available in the consultation paper. Requests related to specific proposals are noted throughout this report. However, some broad themes were evident. These included: guidance over what constitutes a risk of homelessness and how to ask about and identify risk; clear referral pathways; frameworks for partnership working; clearly defined expectations and responsibilities for bodies subject to duties, clarity over who is ultimately responsible for discharging duties, and what constitutes discharge; what data will need to be collected to monitor compliance; and an understanding of how new duties would work alongside existing legislation.

Given the range of stakeholders responding there were mixed views on how this guidance should be provided, as noted at Q41. Some felt it should be included in the legislation; others requested guidance and frameworks to supplement the legislation. More generally, a few respondents argued that the proposed legislation is not required, and that guidance should be sufficient to encourage good practice while allowing for local flexibility.

Facilitating partnership working

Respondents were better able to suggest how multiple services could work together to prevent homelessness. Recurring themes which could enable successful collaboration included the need for clear referral pathways, effective communication, the prompt sharing of data between agencies and clear leadership. These are explored more in the analysis of Q20-Q22 about case co-ordination approaches and Q41-Q42 about joining-up services through strategic planning. Another theme was the challenge of differing organisational cultures and of facilitating a change in culture towards preventing homelessness, particularly in bodies which may not have considered this as part of their remit previously.

Monitoring

Monitoring was the focus of Q96 and various comments on the theme were raised at other questions, in particular Q85 and Q86 about regulation. Some reflected on the importance of robust, accurate and consistent data collection by local authorities, public bodies and landlords. The most common suggestion at Q96 was for existing data collection tools, such as PREVENT1 and HL1^[5], to be used to assess the implementation, progress, compliance and outcomes of new legislative duties. Some noted existing measures would need to be reviewed or modified to align them to the prevention duties. Others called for centralised guidance on how services should record and collect data.

Several respondents emphasised the need to collect data about each referral made to a local authority housing team, including the date, source, reason for referral and actions taken by the referring body. Others advocated local authority level monitoring of the numbers at risk or homeless, and the reasons for this. Some suggested that data should be collected on the outcome of each referral, i.e. whether homelessness has been prevented or whether a tenancy has been sustained. Other suggestions for data to be collected included: personal support needs, including health conditions; family history, e.g. employment, child protection issues, welfare accessed, justice experience; costs to services; and data about the availability of housing stock. A small number raised concerns about the administrative burden of collecting this data.

Consent

The importance of consent was noted by small numbers of respondents across several questions. Most argued that service users or tenants should give consent before a referral is made, their data is shared, or prevention activity is instigated. This was seen as particularly important in relation to healthcare scenarios and especially GPs, and in cases involving children and young people and domestic abuse. Some explained consent is important to gain buy-in and engagement from service users, while a few cited consent as a requirement of data protection legislation. However, there was also agreement with the PRG's view that consent is dependent on individual circumstances. Several noted that consent may not be legally required in certain cases, for example where a service user is at risk of harm and waiting for consent could be a barrier to promptly sharing information.

Related to this, a less commonly recurring theme was the implications of sharing information and data between public bodies. This is summarised under Q43.

The National Care Service (NCS)

The consultation noted that the proposals will need to be considered alongside legislative changes which result from establishing a new National Care Service. This was raised by respondents in a very small number of instances, most of whom reiterated the need to consider how the NCS will impact multi-agency delivery of services. Specifically, a few questioned how a duty on local authorities to assess and meet housing support needs would operate if housing support falls under the remit of the NCS. Others found it difficult to consider the implications of the proposals when it is still unclear what remit the NCS will have and what role bodies such as Integration Authorities will have as part of it.