Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland: statistics - November 2024

Method and main sources

This report accompanies the Official Statistics in Development tables on the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland. This statistical release has been designated as Official Statistics in Development which has not been assessed by the UK Statistics Authority. Official Statistics in Development 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 Accredited 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 Official Statistics in Development. 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.

Welcome accommodation

There is a range of welcome accommodation across Scotland, including hotels, apartments, aparthotels and, previously, cabins onboard M/S Victoria and M/S Ambition. 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. Corporate Travel Management, 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 guests occupying those rooms.  

Please note that the data are provisional management information from live operational systems and are subject to change. The operational systems rely on manual updates by many individuals which carries some risk of error. 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 varied from Monday to Tuesday in some reporting weeks. 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.

The snapshot data points included in this publication were chosen to create the most coherent long-term time-series and may differ from the points chosen in previous publications. Please bear this in mind if comparing against previously published data. Additionally, the reporting day changed from Monday to Tuesday for the period between late January 2023 and late May 2023 due to changes in internal reporting practices during this time. Due to daily fluctuations in room occupancy it is not possible to use these snapshots to calculate a total number of unoccupied rooms across the programme.

Previous publications in this series have included a time series of estimated guest numbers. To estimate the number of people in welcome accommodation rooms, we assumed an average of 1.9 people per room in welcome accommodation. 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 occupied. The figure was calculated as an average of the number of people divided by the number of rooms occupied. Following a review of this methodology and improved provision of actual guest numbers we have terminated the estimated guest numbers time series and began a new actual guest number time series which runs from July 2024 and first published in the statistical release on 29 August 2024. The August release provided a comparison of the actual number of guests versus the number of guests which would have been estimated for the same date using the previous methodology, to demonstrate the magnitude of differences between the new and old approach. As demonstrated in the supplementary tables accompanying that publication the actual numbers differ from the estimated figures when using the previous methodology. Guest numbers in the new time series, from the release on 29 August 2024 onwards, are not comparable to the estimates provided in previous publications due to the changes in methodology so any comparisons over time should be made using room numbers only.

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. The total booked welcome accommodation includes unoccupied rooms and cabins, kept available for displaced people from Ukraine who may require it. Additionally, some unoccupied rooms are unavailable for occupancy for reasons including overnight contingency, pending closure, and consolidation of other welcome accommodation. The utilisation of the cabins varied over time and so the number of unoccupied cabins presented above may not correspond exactly to the number available for guest occupancy.

The contract for the M/S Ambition ended on 31 March 2023. Any embarkations after 19 December 2022 were new guests only with family already on board, or cabins used for contingency accommodation. This affected the occupancy totals and increased the total unoccupied welcome accommodation, as vacated cabins were not assigned new occupants. Joint efforts to match guests into temporary or matched accommodation by Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council Resettlement teams started on 5 January 2023 and all guests disembarked to alternative accommodation by the end of the ship’s contract.

The M/S Victoria was fully disembarked on 4 July 2023, ahead of the end of the contract on 11 July. Any embarkations after 19 December 2022 were new guests only with family already on board, or cabins used for contingency accommodation. This affected the occupancy totals and increased the total unoccupied welcome accommodation, as vacated cabins were not assigned new occupants.

Please note that in order to disclosure control the data, all figures have been rounded to the nearest 5. Cabin numbers were unrounded in previous publications; however, as they have been incorporated with welcome accommodation rooms data, which is rounded, we have rounded the totals for consistency.