Rapid Rehousing Transition Plans Sub-group Minutes: May 2019

1\.Introductions and apologies

The chair welcomed everybody to the meeting and noted apologies as recorded above.

The sub-group members were advised on the following updates in membership of the RRTP sub-group:

• Kate Morrison, COSLA, has been replaced by Kathy Cameron.
• Julie Hunter, representative of the West Hub, has retired and has been replaced by TBC [Jacqueline Fernie, representing West Hub at this meeting.]  
• Paul Hughes, Director of Finance at North Lanarkshire Council, has also retired. The Homelessness Team is currently in contact with CIPFA and COSLA Finance regarding a nomination of his successor.
• A representative from Health and Social Care Partnership is still being sought by the RRTP sub-group.  

 

Action 1: Sarah Watters to discuss Paul Hughes’ successor with COSLA’s Local Government Finance section.

 

2\.Minutes & Actions

Minutes

The minutes of the last meeting on 12 February 2019 were agreed. 

 

Action Log

Open actions:

The only outstanding action was identified as Action 1 (12/2): Ruth Robin to share the learning paper on eRDM Connect.

 

3\.Scottish Government RRTP Update

Written feedback was given to all 32 local authorities by 31 March 2019 with the offer of a meeting in person or tele/video conference to discuss the feedback. A total of 28 local authorities took up the offer, these meetings will be concluded by mid-June.

Local authorities have been continuing to develop 2nd iterations of their RRTPs or alternatively written responses to their feedback. Scottish Government is looking to receive the 2nd iterations of RRTPs and/or the written responses from local authorities by the end of May.

The feedback sessions, taking the form of an open conversation, have been well received by local authorities. 

The importance of ongoing conversations and cooperation with local RSL and other crucial RRTP partners, such as third sector organisations were highlighted. Next challenge was recognised in involving PRS in the next iterations of RRTPs as the 5-year plans evolve.  

The need of keeping local authorities’ Directors of Finance informed and briefed on the Scottish Government’s RRTP feedbacks and the overall RRTP progress was highlighted. Some local authorities commented that they are involving their Directors of Finance in the RRTP feedback sessions.

Confirmed that ALACHO are still looking at the possibility of creating a central webpage with all RRTPs in one central location. John Mills agreed to take this back for confirmation.

 

4\.RRTP Funding Support

Scottish Government officials continue to develop options with COSLA to allocating the RRTP funding. The options will be considered by the joint Settlement and Distribution Group in mid-June with a view to making recommendations to Council Leaders meeting on 28 June to potentially approve the preferred option.

It was advised that local authorities should brief their Housing Conveners as they will have a role in discussing the RRTP funding with Council leaders. COSLA appreciates that local authorities would prefer to receive the RRTP funding soon but highlights that time needs to be dedicated to conversations and briefings of decision-makers to ensure the funding distribution and allocation is set up correctly.

Feedback from local authorities was that they expect the funding to be distributed based on the content and priorities of their RRTP plan rather than a needs-based formula distribution. The sub-group discussed that to default back to a standard funding distribution formula may be a missed opportunity to develop differently according to need and impact. However, COSLA made the point that distribution options don’t necessarily need to be “standard” and should be designed to best reflect policy intent.

It was also highlighted that local authorities should do their best to identify lessons learnt from the RRTP process and collaborate together. Reiterated that RRTP is about transformational change and collaboration while using existing resources within local authorities and local authorities’ partners. The Scottish Government are providing financial support for transformational change. Local authorities were encouraged to think about their funding priorities within their RRTP plans in order to achieve this.

 

5\.Roundtable Update

Each Housing Options Hub was asked for a short written summary around how they are supporting RRTP locally. The written summary will be requested in advance of each meeting as a standard agenda item going forward. The sub-group was presented with 3 written updates from North and Islands Hub; Tayside, Fife and Central Hub; and Ayrshire and South West Hub.

Confirmed that a Quarterly Housing Options Hub meeting will be held on 24 June in Glasgow for local authority members.

Updates from each of the RRTP sub-group members followed:

 

Martin Smith, Tayside, Fife & Central Hub Rep

Waiting for information about RRTP funding and progressing with implementation of RRTPs wherever possible. Delivering a domestic abuse training, joint prisoner project and working on a private landlord awareness process through a targeted newsletter. The newsletter is specifically about RR plans, what implications RR might have for PRL and includes signposting. The Hub is organising a follow up event for partners across the Tayside, Fife and Central Hub previously held in November 2018.

 

Katy McBride, East Hub Rep

The Hub will submit their written update for RRTP sub-group in due course.

 

Allan Jones, North and Islands Hub Rep

Looking to organise an RRTP event across all Hubs later in the year for shared learning. Working on Health and Social Care Partnership engagement to involve them in the Hub.

 

Janeine Barrett, South West Hub Rep

Preparation for RRTP submission in December included a lot of joint working and establishing of a health and homelessness working group across the Ayrshires. RRTP feedback and what they can do jointly in partnership will be discussed at the next Hub meeting.

 

Jacqueline Fernie, West Hub

At their last meeting, the Hub discussed SHORE standards, the development of the Housing Options Toolkit and will get a written update for the RRTP sub-group in due course.

 

Kathy Cameron, COSLA

There is an interest in the RRTP funding and funding for third sector organisations across COSLA, in particular in seeing the spread of the distribution and what the distribution can achieve. Update report will go to the Communities Board in June.

 

Zhan McIntyre, SFHA

RRTPs are a standing agenda at SFHA meetings. Homelessness Newsletter being developed will include RRTPs. Section 5 review is going slowly. Looking to organise another homelessness event for members in December 2019.

 

Tim Pogson, SHN

Quarterly forum of Practitioners held on 16th May, attended by over 30 practitioners and 3 Housing Associations whose views were very useful. Marion Gibbs gave an update on RRTPs and NHS talked about making ACEs and PIE more meaningful. Next quarterly forum will be held on 16 August.

 

Ruth Robin, NHS Healthcare Improvement Scotland

Work to raise the profile of RRTPs amongst health colleagues is progressing. Two films to be launched to articulate housing and homelessness issues. An opinion piece by Glasgow’s head of HSCP will support this. Work being taken forward on evaluating strategic plans and having conversations around RRTPs.

 

Ewan Aitken, Cyrenians

Housing First Connect event for 3rd and statutory sector took place, Housing First Conference on 22nd May. Social Bite Advisory board for Housing First has deliberately shifted from having 3rd sector homelessness delivery organisations represented and brought in representatives from HSCP and criminal justice to mainstream Housing First and have a wider understanding of the approach.

 

Yvette Burgess, Housing Support Enabling Unit

Held an event to bring third sector organisations together to find out more about RRTPs. Learning from the event was that third sector is not necessarily involved in conversations and discussions at local levels. Concerns raised about support to housing providers in regards to Housing First and RRTP.

 

John Mills, ALACHO

Last meeting was held at the end of April, included a debate on RRTP funding. There will be an ALACHO workshop focused on RRTP on 12 June. Main issue for Heads of Housing is to make sure that politics are managed around RRTPs and that the RRTP momentum is kept going.

 

ACTION 2: Martin Smith to share an example of the Tayside, Fife and Central’s Newsletter to PRS with sub-group members on eRDM Connect.

 

ACTION 3: Homelessness Team to request written updates from East Hub and West Hub for sharing with sub-group members.

 

6\.RRTP Monitoring

Housing Indicators

Tim Pogson presented the group with a paper containing 17 housing indicators. It was noted that most of the housing indicators are already existent and/or published and therefore relatively straightforward to obtain and use. Some of the housing indicators presented are however only available through SHN and questions were raised whether local authorities would feel comfortable about sharing them.

An issue around data related to Housing Associations was raised as it would be considered as a major move to get into the level of detail for the data to be broken down to local authority areas.

The paper further presented 3 indicators where data does not exist at the moment, these include: 

• Housing First – Monitoring Housing First progress across all 32 local authorities as opposed to only 5 Housing First Pathfinder local authorities monitored on monthly basis under the Housing First Pathfinder tracker.
• Measuring of the level of support which needs to be provided to local authorities and partners to achieve the transition to rapid rehousing and Housing First.
• Supported accommodation – currently not an area which is being captured directly.

Recognised that there is a list of housing indicators from the Scottish Housing Regulator, suggested that some work should be done to join both papers. 

There was a discussion around a disparity amongst local authorities and the definition of Supported Accommodation.

The sub-group members further discussed benchmarking outcomes based on a level of support needs (low, medium, high). This would support the evaluation and measuring of various approaches to each level of support needs as it is in RRTPs.
 

Health indicators

Ruth Robin presented four areas of health indicators of rapid rehousing contained in her paper to the sub-group. The four areas included:

• Demand on Health Service Resources - This work is ongoing and would require a data collection for a minimum of 5 years. Economic analysis of homelessness could be included as part of this. NHS data available, including nominal cost for every mental health appointment, GP appointment etc.
• Nature of Demand on Health Resources – RRTPs as a vehicle to trigger change at local levels. Acute care vs primary care discussed.
• Improved Health Outcomes as a Result of Sustainable Rehousing – Health qualitative outcomes. Methodology would be recommended, for example as a sample of 10% of population that would be rapidly rehoused to see the health outcomes of this group. This could measure an impact of rapid rehousing on health.
• Engagement of Health Professionals with Rapid Rehousing - Health and housing professionals engagement in a form of a survey or similar. This would allow both sectors to see trends and patterns and have an internal data analysis.

It was noted that this is a very new area to the Health sector. Ruth Robin indicated that they would like to involve as much lived experience as possible in the monitoring.

Recognition that the initial papers and discussions are a good start to the RRTP monitoring process and that further work will need to be undertaken to develop it.

 

ACTION 4: Tim Pogson to use the initial paper as a basis for development of a dashboard paper for the next sub-group meeting, taking into account existing indictors and comments of the sub-group. Tim to link with Janeine Barrett, Marion Gibbs and Yvette Burgess around housing support.

ACTION 5: Ruth to develop an updated paper on monitoring for next sub-group meeting.

 

7\.RRTP Good Practice Development

A discussion around how to form a Good Practice Guide followed. A ‘checklist approach’ or something that represents good practice in one concise document which local authorities could refer to was discussed. It was suggested that the document should include top 5 to 10 items that focus on transformation and what is absolutely essential for any successful rapid rehousing plan.

It was further recognised that there is a difference between what works for service users and what works for process and that this should be taken into consideration. 

Recognition that having an analysis of health contributions within all 32 RRTPs would be helpful. Kevin and Ruth have spoken following the meeting to agree for information to be shared. 

The role of Housing Options Hubs was highlighted, and it was proposed to establish a set of questions that local authorities could refer to at every HO Hub meeting going forward.

 

ACTION 6: Homelessness team to identify good practice within RRTP plans by the next Sub-group meeting, focusing on what works. 

ACTION 7: Janeine Barrett to link with John Mills to develop a set of 6 key questions for local authorities to refer to at Housing Options Hubs meetings.

 

8\.AOB

No other business was discussed. 

Attendees and apologies

John Mills, ALACHO (Chair)

Martin Smith, Tayside, Fife & Central Hub Rep

Katy McBride, East Hub Rep

Jacqueline Fernie, West Hub Rep

Allan Jones, North and Islands Hub Rep

Kathy Cameron, COSLA

Sarah Watters, COSLA

Zhan McIntyre, SFHA

Tim Pogson, SHN

Janeine Barrett, South West Hub Rep

Ruth Robin, NHS Healthcare Improvement Scotland

Ewan Aitken, Cyrenians

Yvette Burgess, Housing Support Enabling Unit

Marion Gibbs, Scottish Government

Catriona Mackean, Scottish Government

Kevin Wilkie, Scottish Government

Michaela Martincova, Scottish Government

 

Apologies

Maggie Brunjes, GHN