This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Statistics on homelessness
26/09/2006
The Statistical Bulletin Operation of the Homeless Persons legislation in Scotland: national and local authority is published today.
It presents information about applications to local authorities under the Homeless Persons legislation over the last decade to 2005-06.
It provides information about the numbers of individual households applying as well as numbers of applications, and detailed information about the characteristics of households applying, local authority assessments made and actions taken.
The bulletin includes information about trends in the numbers of households in temporary accommodation up to March 31, 2006, together with an analysis of the snapshot position on March 31, 2006.
The figures refer to households which have been placed in temporary accommodation by local authorities under the Homeless Persons legislation, and provide information on the type of accommodation used.
Since September 2002, local authorities have had an increased statutory duty to provide a minimum of temporary accommodation, advice and assistance to everyone assessed as homeless. Prior to that date there was only a duty to provide accommodation to those assessed as in priority need.
The Homelessness Etc (Scotland) Act passed in 2003 introduces a phasing out of the distinction between priority and non-priority applications, and enables the suspension of the test of local connection. The ultimate aim of the Act is to ensure that everyone assessed as being unintentionally homeless is entitled to permanent accommodation by 2012.
The main points are:
Applications under the Homeless Persons legislation
- There were 59,970 applications to local authorities for assistance under the homelessness persons legislation in 2005-06, an increase of 2,516 (4per cent) on 2004-05. A high proportion of this increase is accounted for by increases in applications in four councils and may, in part, be due to changes in recording practice by these councils.
- Higher proportions of households from the most deprived neighbourhoods and from the Black, Black Scottish or Black British ethnic group applied for assistance, compared to other groups.
- In contrast to the increase in applications, the number assessed as homeless in 2005-06 has remained at a little over 40,000, and the number assessed as homeless and in priority need has remained at a little over 30,000.
Local authority assessment
- In 2005-06 14 per cent of homeless applicants were potentially homeless - i.e. when they applied for assistance they were assessed as likely to become homeless within the next 2 months. Just over a third (34 per cent) of potentially homeless with whom contact was maintained became homeless before the council discharged its duty.
Action taken by local authorities
- Potentially homeless households are equally likely to secure permanent accommodation, less likely to secure temporary accommodation and more likely to return to their previous accommodation than all households.
- There were 8,135 applicant households in temporary accommodation at March 31, 2006 an increase of 8 per cent on a year earlier. Of the 2,798 households with children or pregnant women in temporary accommodation at March 31, 2006, 134 (5 per cent) were in bed and breakfast accommodation and 2,360 (84 per cent) were in temporary accommodation provided by local authorities or housing associations.
- Eleven councils reported breaches of the Homeless Persons (Unsuitable Accommodation) (Scotland) Order, with 55 households in unsuitable temporary accommodation on March 31, 2006. This compares with 32 households in unsuitable accommodation on December 31, 2005.
- The number of households securing permanent accommodation as the outcome of their application has increased from around 12,000 per year from 1993-94 to 2002-03 to 18,603 by 2005-06. Numbers placed in temporary accommodation as the outcome of their application has fallen from around 8,000 in 1999-00 to just under 2,000 in 2005-06.
NOTES ABOUT THE STATISTICS
Most of the figures in the bulletin Operation of the Homeless Persons legislation in Scotland: national and local authority analyses 2005-06 are based on information obtained from the electronic data capture system, which went live on December 10, 2001. Due to the live nature of the system, information is being updated on a continuous basis, and it is likely that the information presented in future bulletins may differ from the current published figures.