Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland: modelling report

3. Welcome accommodation forecast

3.1 Current welcome accommodation occupancy

As of 10 July there were 1,860 occupied welcome accommodation rooms, in hotels across Scotland. This is the starting point for the welcome accommodation forecast.

3.2 Estimated arrival rate

This modelling includes a forecast of two sources of arrivals into welcome accommodation: new arrivals entering the UK for the first time and requesting accommodation, and re-entries who have been staying in hosted or other accommodation and may request welcome accommodation when the hosted match has come to an end.

3.2.1 New arrivals

An estimate of the future average rate of daily arrivals in the UK sponsored by the Scottish Government is calculated based on historic arrivals data. A smoothed rolling average of the latest data over the past 30 days is fitted to a time series model. This forecast is then adjusted to account for the known maximum total number issued visas sponsored by the Scottish Government, and then used to forecast both a central estimate and a prediction interval for the future daily arrival rate.

Based on arrival data to 8 July, it is estimated that the number of displaced people from Ukraine that will arrive into the UK through the UK ‘Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme’ and are sponsored by the Scottish government (Super Sponsor Scheme) visa is between 0 and 15 people per day, with a most likely value of 5 people per day.

Not everyone entering the UK through the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme (including those sponsored by the Scottish Government) will need accommodation provided to them, and for modelling purposes historical data is used to estimate the percentage of arrivals who will enter welcome accommodation in the modelling.

3.2.2 Re-entries

In addition to new arrivals, it is possible that some people may seek to re-enter welcome accommodation from hosted accommodation when the hosted match comes to an end or from other accommodation. In this modelling it is assumed that the duration of hosted matches follows probabilities, based on the most recently published ONS survey results of host intentions (current forecasts use section 3 of the November survey: Experiences of Homes for Ukraine scheme sponsors - follow-up, UK - Office for National Statistics). These estimated match lengths are applied to known and estimated match start dates to create an estimated timeseries of ended matches.

As with new arrivals, it is expected that only some ended matches will result in guests re-entering welcome accommodation. Due to a lack of data on this topic, a plausible range is assumed based on the information available, and by consulting with subject matter experts. This assumption is validated by assessing the performance of the model on known data.

3.3 Estimated departure rate

The departure rate is the number of guests we estimate to be leaving welcome accommodation per day. Guests may depart to a variety of locations including:

• matched accommodation
• registered social landlord
• private rented sector
• any other accommodation (such as moving in with friends or family)
• departure from Scotland to other parts of the UK or another country

The departure rate is estimated from changes in the overall occupancy of welcome accommodation, accounting for estimated arrivals.

The departures of M/S Ambition on 31 March and of M/S Victoria on 11 July have an impact on the departure of guests from welcome accommodation, as concerted efforts are required to find alternative accommodation for guests on board the ships. Some guests move into other welcome accommodation (i.e. hotel rooms), but others leave into alternative destinations as outlined above.

3.4 Forecast of welcome accommodation requirement

Combining these arrivals and departures, and their uncertainties, it is estimated that the requirements for welcome accommodation will follow the forecast in Figure 1 below. The distributions for each input to this forecast are outlined in Section 4.3 of this report.

Figure 1: Forecast of welcome accommodation requirement for the 6 weeks from 10th July 2023.

As at 10 July, there were 1,860 welcome accommodation rooms occupied, and this is forecast to decrease. By 21 August, it is forecast that between 1,380 and 1,820 (5th and 95th percentiles) welcome accommodation rooms will be occupied, with a central forecast of between 1,510 and 1,700 (25th and 75th percentiles).