Rapid Rehousing Transition Plans Sub-Group: July 2024

Attendees and apologies

John Mills, Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers (ALACHO) (Chair)
Allan Jones, North and Islands Hub Rep
Kevin Thomas, South West Hub Rep
Jacqueline Fernie, South Lanarkshire Council
April Thomson, Falkirk Council
Donna Mcilwraith, South West Hub Rep
Eileen McMullan, Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA)
Douglas Whyte, Tayside, Fife & Central Hub Rep
Maggie Brunjes, Homeless Network Scotland
Mike Wright, Edinburgh Cyrenians
Emma Matthews, CPPS Scotland
Tim Pogson, Scotland’s Housing Network (SHN)
Brian Finch, Scottish Government
Kerry Shaw, Scottish Government
John Sharkey, Scottish Government (minute taker)

Apologies Ruth Robin, Health Improvement Scotland
Lesley Cockburn, Inverclyde HSCP 
Jonathan Belford, Chief Officer, Finance, Aberdeen City Council
Mike Callaghan, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) 
 

Items and actions

Introductions, Minute and Actions 

The minutes of the meeting of 12 March were agreed with one amendment. Eileen pointed out that the minute indicated that the event on 27 March ‘Tackling Homelessness - working together’, was held solely by SFHA, however, it was a joint event with Homeless Network Scotland.  

Scottish Government update 

Brian Finch gave an update from the Scottish Government Homelessness Unit, providing the latest position on:

Rapid Rehousing Transition Plan (RRTP) monitoring returns

Brian provided a summary report of findings from the 2022/23 local authority RRTP monitoring returns. 

Homelessness Prevention and Strategy Group  
•    the focus of the most recent meeting on 16 April was the report and recommendations of the Supported Accommodation Task and Finish Group. The report is due to launch on 24 July at Queens Cross Housing Association in Glasgow 
•    the Change Team presented the early findings from the recent roadshows where they visited Aberdeen, Greenock, Kilmarnock, Clydebank and Falkirk 
•    other items included an overview of the Housing (Scotland) Bill prevention duties and the most recent publication of homelessness statistics

Prevention Duty

•    a series of on-line events are planned in August, focused on relevant bodies and ask and act with separate events on health, prisons, police and housing providers 
•    also planned is a national event involving both local authorities and relevant bodies about the duties as a whole in the autumn. One of the objectives of this will be to identify what steps we need to take in relation to guidance and training 

Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP)

•    for 2024-25 the Scottish Government has continued its commitment to full mitigation of the bedroom tax and mitigation of the benefit cap as far as devolved powers allow, through discretionary housing payments 
•    the recently published DHP annual report for 2023-24 shows that local authorities spent close to the Scottish Fiscal Commission forecasted amount on bedroom tax, indicating almost full coverage last year
•    the 2023-24 annual report also shows that in the first full year of benefit cap mitigation, local authorities spent £3.5 million, mitigating approximately 57% of the cost of the cap to claimants in Scotland. This is a 41% increase in spending, from £2.5 million in 2022-23
•   the fully devolved Scottish DHP scheme launched on 1st April 2024, providing local authorities with a Scotland-specific DHP guidance manual 
•   the new scheme allows local authorities to make larger payments than is currently possible to some households impacted by the benefit cap and also allows Scottish local authorities some administrative efficiencies 

Local Connection (LC)

•    the draft chapter in the Code of Guidance on local connection and a frequently asked questions document for local authorities was issued via the housing options hubs and to the Unsuitable Accommodation Order (UAO)/LC stats distribution list for comment and feedback by 31 May
•    Information on section 38 transfer requests has been added to the UAO/LC monthly stats spreadsheet 

Rapid Rehousing Transition Plan Coordinators and Leads Event

John Mills reflected on the RRTP event held on 23 May and raised the question with the group as to the continued role of RRTPs in today’s context, with nine local authorities and the Scottish Government having declared a housing emergency.  

Allan asked about the expectation around RRTPs, including the annual update and completion of the annual monitoring return to Scottish Government. April said that while there were many difficulties faced during the development of RRTPs she felt it had a place in responding to many of today’s challenges, including the cost of living crisis. Douglas felt that RRTPs didn’t achieve the expected savings in temporary accommodation costs but was keen to build on the positive steps made so far. Kerry confirmed that there is continued ministerial support for RRTPs and Housing First as a model but advised that funding is still year on year.

It was agreed by the group that another RRTP event with more networking and breakout opportunities would be welcomed next year. Scottish Government homelessness officials will take forward this recommendation but noted that it would be dependent on resources available to support the event.

Roundtable Updates

Housing Options Hubs

Hub representatives spoke to the key issues for discussion paper submitted by the hubs, which included: 

Issue - early prison releases and SHORE standards - what discussions were held within the Scottish Government homeless team before this was announced. Before any other announcements can there at least be discussion with homeless services to discuss ability to house people.

Kerry advised that Scottish Government homelessness colleagues have been engaging with justice colleagues regularly on this issue, and will continue to do so. Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers (ALACHO) are also engaged in the emergency release operational leads delivery group, led by justice colleagues and the Scottish Prison Service (SPS). SPS have introduced single point of contacts within each establishment, who liaise with local authorities ahead of the release of prisoners in each area, and this will include an assessment of housing need. 
John Mills offered to raise concern at the Homelessness Prevention Strategy Group (HPSG) around early release being implemented at a time when local authorities cannot guarantee temporary accommodation will be provided. 
Douglas highlighted that prisoners are sometimes released to an address of a friend and that can often breakdown within a very short period leading them to present as homeless soon after release but not directly from prison. 
Alan suggested a fund to allow tenancies to be sustained for up to 12 months for prisoners as a homelessness prevention measure. 
Eileen spoke about the importance of the availability of resettlement support and whether this was discussed prior to the early release announcement. 
Kerry said she would provide feedback of this discussion to Scottish Government justice colleagues.

Issue - RRTP feedback reports - will authorities receive individual feedback from these and is there another one due this year.  If there is no capacity within Scottish Government to feedback should this be prioritised?

Kerry and Brian confirmed that due to staffing capacity there wouldn’t be individual feedback provided from the homelessness unit on RRTP monitoring returns for 22/23 but that a consolidated report will be produced. The value to Scottish Government of the information provided in the monitoring reports was emphasised, particularly in capturing the impact of RRTP funding in order to help make the case for future funding. Local authorities will receive the monitoring return template for 2023/24 later this summer.  

Issue - Many Housing First schemes are built around RRTP money and there are genuine risks to these projects.  How do we strengthen the future position of housing first.  

Maggie spoke about the role of health and social care and other strategic partners in strengthening and upscaling housing first, perhaps through a leadership network, which was a recommendation of the supported accommodation task and finish group. Eileen emphasised the importance of investment, not just from housing, and sees the housing bill as an opportunity for this. Douglas wondered about whether funding specifically for housing first aligned to housing benefit was possible, based on a previous supporting people initiative in the early 2000’s.     

Issue - Prevention of Homelessness Duties legislation. This seems to be progressing quickly and local authorities are not well positioned to take on any more pressures. Will there be a clearer understanding of funding that will be available as it will be a huge challenge without this.  

John Mills was of the view that there was unlikely to be an answer to this currently. He confirmed that the point around the capacity of local authorities to take on more pressures had been made by the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) and ALACHO report of July 2023 and through the Council of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA). On the possible phasing in of the duty, Maggie thought it might help build the capacity of wider public bodies and help foster a prevention culture if the option to refer to a local authority was initially suspended. Douglas felt that in a phasing approach training had to be at the forefront.  

Issue - Local Connection - this continues to cause major issues often due to complexities about clients. Clients are being advised by support agencies to apply to multiple authorities and there is growing evidence of authorities asking people to apply to other authorities as they have no capacity.  

Alan advised that the issue was less about numbers but rather the complexity surrounding some clients moving from another authority and the way in which this is being managed by some transferring authorities. John Mills took the view that this was partly due to poor practice and that this issue should be raised with Louise Thompson who leads on local connection for Scottish Government, suggesting that Louise could attend the next sub group meeting. Kerry said it would be helpful if evidence on the scale of the issue was gathered and presented to Scottish Government. Alan highlighted that Shelter indicate they will be challenging the local connection guidance on the basis that it is restrictive and are actively encouraging clients to apply to numerous authorities at the same time. 

Scotland’s Housing Network (SHN)

Tim advised that he and Alan are discussing the continuation of two national networks, one on temporary accommodation and the other on rural housing first, both of which Alan leads on but no longer has capacity to continue to do so. Tim confirmed that he has been able to incorporate the temporary accommodation network into existing SHN networks. However, the housing first network is proving more challenging due to SHN and Tim’s capacity being limited. Tim and Allan will continue to explore a solution to this. Tim confirmed the next meeting of SHNs homelessness forum, on 22 August, will be focusing on the housing emergency. 

Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA)

Eileen mentioned the HACT report that evaluated 11 homelessness prevention projects hosted by SFHA is completed and will soon be published.

Housing Support Enabling Unit (HSEU)

Emma advised that HSEU are planning a roundtable stakeholder event in September taking forward recommendations from the CASH report. 

Homeless Network Scotland

Maggie confirmed that through the Everyone Home Collective a specialist adviser was recruited for investment raising, particularly looking at social investment. This is  with a view to setting up a new commission to provide more homes through sourcing alternative investment, supplementing work going at government level.  John spoke about linking the work of the commission with that of the ALACHO Housing Investment Task Force.

Housing First (HF)

Housing First check up

Maggie advised that Homeless Network Scotland are currently preparing for the 2024-25 check up process. She spoke about the excellent work being done by local authorities in implementing and upscaling housing first across Scotland, pointing out that sustainment rate for housing first sits at 90%.

Rural Housing First Group

Allan spoke about the last meeting of the Rural HF group. There was discussion at the meeting around housing first staff exchanges to allow shared learning and practice. John Mills welcomed this and was keen for conversations to take place between housing options hub members and with heads of housing to help make that happen.

Housing First (HF) Monitoring

Brian discussed findings from the HF monitoring report for the 6-month period October 2023 to March 2024. 

•    1,820 HF tenancies have started across Scotland at 31 March 2024
•    26 local authorities are currently running housing first programmes   

AOB

No other business was raised.

Meeting closed