Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland: statistics - July 2023

Method and main sources

This report accompanies the experimental statistics tables on the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland. This statistical release has been designated as new experimental statistics which has not been assessed by the UK Statistics Authority. Experimental statistics are official statistics that are newly developed or innovative, and are undergoing evaluation. While checks have been completed before publication, these data are not subject to the full range of processes and quality assurance that would be required for Official Statistics. However, the data are being released given high public interest. This is in line with guidance from the Office for Statistics Regulation on the production and use of experimental statistics. Work to improve data quality and data streams is ongoing and will be reflected in any future publications. The report is based on a number of sources, compiled into one report and an accompanying set of tables containing data not already published elsewhere.

For more information on Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme sponsor routes please see Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland: statistics - January 2023.

Please note that some data sources may be revised retrospectively. The data in this report are correct as at time of publication and any subsequent revisions will not be reflected here.

Numbers of visa applications, visas issued and arrivals

The Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) publish statistics on the numbers of visa applications, visas issued and arrivals to the UK where the sponsor location is Scotland on a weekly basis, and provide a local authority breakdown of sponsor location. The full data set and methodology can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ukraine-sponsorship-scheme-visa-data-by-country-upper-and-lower-tier-local-authority. It is important to note that the number of arrivals into the UK is not necessarily reflective of the persons having arrived at the sponsors’ location. An individual, arriving on a visa sponsored by a Scottish Sponsor, may arrive elsewhere in the UK and decide to remain there. There is a known undercount in the Northern Ireland ‘arrivals into the UK’ data. The undercount is due to people arriving into the Republic of Ireland and entering Northern Ireland via the Common Travel Area, where travel is not covered by the methods used to record entry to other parts of the UK. Ways to understand the scale of this undercount are being explored.

Not everyone entering the UK through the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme (including those sponsored by the Scottish Government) will need accommodation provided to them. Additionally, it is important to note that one volunteer can host more than one displaced person (for example they could host a whole family). Therefore, arrival figures cannot be compared directly to the number of displaced people from Ukraine entering accommodation.

Figures per 100,000 population are calculated for each nation separately. Raw figures are sourced from DLUHC publication (Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme: Visa data by country, upper and lower tier local authority - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)), population rates for each country are sourced from Estimates of the population for the UK, England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk). The population figures underlying these graphs are based on the latest annual population estimates (mid-2021).

Welcome accommodation

There is a range of welcome accommodation across Scotland including hotels, apartments, aparthotels and the M/S Victoria. Should a displaced person from Ukraine require welcome accommodation, it is in the majority of cases allocated via the core welcome hub in Edinburgh. When in welcome accommodation, matching discussions will take place to secure an offer of matched accommodation. Our contracted partner, who procures welcome accommodation on behalf of the Scottish Government, provides an overview of the number of welcome accommodation rooms occupied by displaced people from Ukraine and the number of individuals residing on the M/S Victoria. Welcome accommodation rooms could include hotels, apartments or aparthotels, excluding the M/S Victoria.

Please note that the data are provisional management information from live operational systems and are subject to change. These data are provided both by our accommodation procurement partner and by direct contact with the facilities used for welcome accommodation. There may be delays in reporting from welcome accommodations and facilities used for welcome accommodation that affect data quality, due to operational pressures. This may affect the figures reported and caution should be taken when comparing to previous weeks. Additionally, The reporting cut off day for welcome accommodation changed from every Tuesday to every Monday from the week commencing 22 May 2023 onwards. This may affect the figures presented, as some facilities or partners do not provide weekend returns. Therefore, caution should be taken when interpreting the data.

While data is available on the total number of occupied rooms in welcome accommodation and on the M/S Victoria, accurate data on the number of people in each facility is only available from the passenger ship. To estimate the number of people in welcome accommodation rooms, we have assumed an average of 1.9 people per room in welcome accommodation (excluding the M/S Victoria). This was based on partial data between August and September 2022 from the Edinburgh Welcome Hub on the number of displaced people entering welcome accommodation and the number of rooms they took up. The figure was calculated as an average of the number of people divided by the number of rooms they occupy. We are currently reviewing the methodology to estimate the number of people in welcome accommodation rooms. Please note, welcome accommodation occupancy are dynamic data as some individuals leave, while others enter. As such any decrease or increase in occupancy over time does not indicate the total number of individuals that have left or entered welcome accommodation. Total number of occupied welcome accommodation rooms and cabins does not indicate the number of displaced people from Ukraine per each room or cabin.

There may be delays in reporting occupied cabins on the M/S Victoria, that affect data quality in weeks from 12 June 2023 to 26 June 2023, due to operational pressures during the disembarkation period. The contract for the M/S Victoria ended on 11 July 2023 and all guests disembarked by the end of the M/S Victoria contract. Please note, figures for total disembarkations include both guests disembarking when moving to matched or alternative welcome accommodation and guests who have disembarked for other reasons.

Please note that in order to disclosure control the data, all figures have been rounded to the nearest 5.

Offers to host

The Scottish Government initiative, offer to host, which launched on 28 November 2022, allows people to volunteer a place to stay for displaced people from Ukraine and replaces the previous expressions of interest process initiated by UK government. Offer to host aims to improve both the user experience for hosts and the efficiency of the overall service by collecting all information required in a single step, and then passing it on to local authorities for hosts checks shortly after submission.

Please note, an individual is defined by a unique email address on application. Some individuals have submitted multiple offers to host; however, for the purposes of this summary, only the first submission is counted. This is due to issues with identifying duplicate offers from situations where there are legitimately multiple offers at the same address (such as on large farms with multiple homes available). As such the summary presents the number of hosts; the number of offered properties is likely to be higher.

Please note, that in order to disclosure control the data, all figures have been rounded to the nearest 5. Therefore totals may not sum due to rounding.

Matched accommodation

The Scottish Government are conducting ongoing operational data cleansing exercises and improvements to how data are recorded and reported, this is reflected in the designation of this release as experimental statistics.

Data on the number of individuals completely matched through the national COSLA and Scottish Government matching service are drawn from the Warm Scottish Welcome web application. This application supports matching staff from local authorities, Scottish Government and COSLA to find accommodation for displaced people from Ukraine in Scotland. It allows users to add, search, view and edit case and property records, and to propose and record matches. It is built using Microsoft PowerApps and supporting technologies. As with all live administrative data sources, data available on the Warm Scottish Welcome web application is subject to ongoing change.

Data on local authority facilitated, informal matches and numbers of people placed directly into social housing is currently gathered via the local authority survey. This survey collects summary statistics from local authorities on the progress of the work to resettle and support displaced people from Ukraine in Scotland.

We are currently undergoing a programme of roll out of the Warm Scottish Welcome web application across all local authorities to record local and informal matches as well as national matches. While this programme is ongoing, we continue to use local authority survey data alongside this tool. At this stage in the roll out there are data overlaps between sources, gaps in data, timing and methodology differences. Hence this data is no longer robust enough to be used to estimate a range of variables. These variables include:

• the number of cases and individuals in case management and the number of cases matched through the national matching service (run by COSLA and the Scottish Government),
• local authority facilitated matching and informal matching as well as a local authority breakdown of individuals matched, and
• the number of cases and individuals placed in social and council housing.

These  metrics are not available for this and future publications until further notice.

In addition, the numbers of cases and guests who are known to have arrived at matched accommodation through the Individual Sponsor Scheme is also no longer provided in current publication as we continue to review the local authority survey.

This data will be reintroduced to the publication when Warm Scottish Welcome web application transition is complete and we are confident with the data quality of the metrics available on this application.

The latest visa data by local authority in Scotland continues to be published by DLUHC on weekly basis. You can find the latest data on progress on matching and those placed in to social or council housing in the publication released in May 2023. For the latest numbers in case management and national matching numbers by local authority please refer to the report published in February 2023.