Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland: statistics - June 2023

Background

This publication summarises the latest Scotland-level data and information on people displaced by the war in Ukraine arriving through the UK ‘Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme’, which includes those sponsored by the Scottish Government (also known as the Scottish super sponsor) and individual sponsors. This report gathers together various data sources, including operational data from welcome accommodation facilities and local authorities across Scotland, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and the Scottish Government. This data includes the number of displaced people from Ukraine that are in welcome accommodation, number of rooms and cabins occupied in welcome accommodation, and offers to host displaced people from Ukraine. This data will complement and be published alongside information on the numbers of applications, visas and arrivals of displaced people from Ukraine to Scotland and the other three UK nations, already regularly published by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).

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. 

This report provides data on visas, arrivals, offers to host and accommodation. It is not a full account of all displaced people from Ukraine. Displaced people with visas are free to enter the country and live and work where they want. Not everyone entering the UK through the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme (including those sponsored by the Scottish Government) will need accommodation provided to them. They may make their own arrangements, including renting their own accommodation or staying with friends and family. Some arrivals may have also self-matched with a volunteer host, assisted by a charity or support network. Those arrivals may never be in contact with a welcome hub or local authority seeking accommodation. We do not collect data on this subset of displaced people from Ukraine.

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.

Acknowledgements

We would also like to recognise the extensive work undertaken by colleagues across all organisations involved in the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme.