Scottish Government

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

This report from the ALACHO 2012 Support Project brings together the results from a series of visits to all of Scotland's 32 local councils, carried out between October 2006 and October 2007.

Aims & Objectives of the ALACHO 2012 Support Project.

On the basis of the Ministerial Statement of December 2005, the ALACHO Project was established to provide dedicated support to councils to achieve the national homelessness target to abolish priority need by 2012. In the first partnership arrangement of its kind two officers were seconded from council homelessness teams to work within the then Scottish Executive's Homelessness Division under the joint supervision of the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers ( ALACHO), COSLA and the Scottish Executive.

The remit of these posts was to visit Homelessness Teams throughout Scotland and hear directly from them what they considered to be the main barriers, local and national, to implementing their homelessness strategies to reach the 2012 objective. On completion of the visits the findings were to be reported to ALACHO, COSLA and the Scottish Executive, now the Scottish Government. An action plan would then be agreed for councils and other stakeholders to take the homelessness agenda forward.

This report reflects the discussion at the visits to the 32 councils and the suggested actions set out in the report have been drawn up in light of these discussions. It has been written by Iain McLean and Mike Nolan, the two officers seconded from local councils to the Scottish Government to conduct the Project. As planned, this is a report to ALACHO, COSLA, and the Scottish Government. Accordingly it should not be seen as representing the views of the commissioning bodies. Rather it is intended as an important insight into what has been and still needs to be done to meet the target to abolish priority need by 2012, sitting alongside for example the Homelessness Monitoring Group report. The intention is that the suggested actions set out in the report should be used as the basis for discussion to agree an action plan to take the homelessness agenda forward.

The policy context has altered significantly since the project began following the change of government in May 2007. In November, the Scottish Government and COSLA agreed a Concordat setting out the terms of the new relationship between national and local government and encompassing a new outcomes focussed National Performance Framework. Under the new Concordat, the Scottish Government will set the policy direction and the over-arching outcomes that the public sector in Scotland will be expected to achieve. This arrangement is intended to allow the Scottish Government to stand back from micro-managing service delivery and allowing Councils and their partners the freedom to meet local needs and priorities. In addition, to reflect the new relationship between Local Government and the Scottish Government, the Concordat also provides a commitment to work together in developing policy on any matter which impacts on Local Government. This would include any policy or guidance on tackling homelessness.

Reporting requirements will be streamlined with a move to a Single Outcome Agreement between the Scottish Government and each of the 32 Councils. This will be based on the National Framework and each Agreement will make a commitment to improve service outcomes for each of the national outcomes which are seen as priorities locally. The evidence base for determining these priorities will draw on existing corporate, service and community planning commitments across local authorities and Community Planning Partnerships. In terms of homelessness, the 2012 target to abolish priority need is explicitly included in the Concordat as one of the 45 national indicators which support the national outcomes.

The Concordat also provides a 3 year funding package which is intended to give Councils much greater flexibility to meet local priorities and deliver the commitments made in the Single Outcome Agreements. The number of separate funding streams will be reduced substantially, with ring-fencing around homelessness and housing support funding amongst those being removed. Performance reporting at the end of the financial year will also be streamlined with submission of one report setting out progress and achievements. COSLA and the Scottish Government have put in place arrangements to oversee and monitor the new working relationship.

More specifically the changes in housing policy proposed by the new Scottish Government are relevant to many of the issues raised by councils during the course of the project meetings. Since their election the SNP administration has established a Housing Supply Task Force to consider the main impediments to increasing the supply and provision of affordable housing. It has published a consultation document 'Firm Foundations' setting out a range of proposals to address housing need in Scotland. There is consultation to revise 'Scottish Planning Policy 3: Planning For Housing' as part of a wider review of the national planning framework which will obviously have significant impact on the future provision of housing. The remit and membership of the Homelessness Monitoring Group has been revised to provide greater focus on outcomes rather than processes and to provide greater strategic advice on delivery including taking into account the service users perspective. Taken together these changes in Scottish Government approach and policy will provide councils with greater levels of responsibility and discretion in setting priorities and implementing legislation to better reflect local circumstances and demand for services.

Background to the Visits.

Prior to any visits being made, each council was written to in order to explain the purpose of the project and the manner in which it would be carried out. It was important that the visits were not interpreted as inspections on progress or that any judgements would be made about how councils were tackling the issues.

They were reminded that the project was established at the request of councils themselves articulated through ALACHO and supported by COSLA. It was an opportunity for councils to be frank and honest about the issues which they saw as being key in achieving the target for 2012 and what guidance or further assistance they would require in order to do so.

Before each visit the council was sent a further letter reminding them of the purpose together with a check list of topics which they might wish to include in the discussions. This was not intended to dictate the content of the meetings. It was for councils to set the agenda concentrating on the matters which affected them the most. The councils found the check list a useful prompt to related matters which were not their most immediate or had not particularly preoccupied them up to that point in time.

It was for each council to decide who attended the meetings but it was encouraged that both strategic and operational staff from homelessness services be involved so that these two important perspectives were represented. For the most part those in attendance were Senior or Principal Officer and upwards including Service Managers or, less occasionally, Heads of Service. A small number did involve operational staff as well as people from housing management and strategy departments. A limited number involved representatives from wider partnership agencies such as social work, health services, the voluntary sector or local Registered Social Landlords ( RSLs). The views expressed therefore are largely from homelessness teams rather than housing departments or councils as a whole. Many were critical, sometimes very critical, of other departments and services within their own councils.

On occasion this criticism was extended to senior management and political leadership, for not providing the resources or support homeless teams felt they needed to effectively deal with homelessness in their areas. In such circumstances the Homelessness Team's commitment to 2012, along with their view as to its achievability, could be at variance to the opinion of their managers or the formal council view.

Excluding the ALACHO Officers the number of people attending meetings ranged from two to eleven. On average meetings lasted for around three and half to four and half hours. The shortest was about two hours, the longest close to seven. Councils were asked in advance to allow sufficient time to cover the issues they wished to raise. In the majority of cases staff had taken time to prepare themselves in advance and were clear on the matters they wanted to discuss. Apart from periods of leave or absence, both ALACHO Officers attended each meeting in order to better capture and interpret the points being made and to ensure more accurate notes. Once written up these notes were returned to the council to ensure that they properly reflected what had been discussed and sufficiently promoted the matters which councils wanted to see being taken forward.

Expectations From The ALACHO Project.

As part of the post visit feedback questionnaire councils were asked to outline what their hopes from the project were. All have welcomed the opportunity to directly feed back their views on the 2012 target to the Scottish Government and the senior officers and councillors represented through ALACHO and COSLA. They have high expectations that, given the project was set up for the specific purpose of gathering their views, its findings will be listened to, taken seriously and acted upon. To quote one of the participants, "Our hope is that the outcome of these discussions will be a range of solutions that are tailored to meet the particular difficulties faced in each area".

The project has been particularly welcomed by rural and island councils, further removed from the central belt and main urban centres of Scotland, whose perception is that their voices can too often be drowned out by the larger, more politically influential councils.

The credibility of the project will rest on its results in taking the issues forward for serious consideration, not only by the sponsoring bodies, but by those in appropriate positions of authority within the wider range of agencies best able to address them.

Response To Visits.

In virtually all cases the responses to the visits were very positive. There was no indication that those involved supposed any "hidden agendas" and for the most part were prepared to highlight their concerns openly as well as frankly express their views on the 2012 target and its feasibility. Most took the opportunity to also highlight what they were doing by way of developing new services, projects and partnerships to take their homelessness strategies forward. All showed a keen interest in what was being done in other council areas to address the issues they share.

General Observations On The Visits And Council Responses.

There are a number of quite specific observations on the findings from these visits which are detailed later in this report. In the meantime there are a number of more general points which will assist in putting the following chapters on the issues raised in a more useful context.

Generally the visits have demonstrated very high levels of activity and commitment on the part of homelessness teams to do what they can to achieve the 2012 target, even where the prevailing view is that the timescale is too tight. As this report will highlight, the single biggest barrier to overcome, as far as most councils are concerned, relates to the shortage of housing for rent. Beyond supply, there are a range of other dilemmas and difficult decisions to be made in relation to meeting the target which are outlined in more detail in the appropriate sections of the report.

Attitudes to 2012 Target.

Despite the difficulties and problems associated with the target, the view of many homelessness teams is a positive one. Their opinion was that without a clear deadline little would have been done to tackle the issue and the very real progress which has been made in service development and provision would not have happened.

The target has brought about and driven significant improvements in homeless services throughout Scotland. It has also prompted a number of councils to identify and focus on the critical issues and to shift the focus onto the longer term measures required to achieve lasting solutions to homelessness.

Some officers felt that at the time the legislation was introduced, the Government may not have fully appreciated the practical and operational difficulties of implementing the policy at the local level. This perceived lack of appreciation led a number of homeless teams to express the view that the target would be difficult to meet and there were those who felt they would not be able to achieve the target, mainly on the basis of the lack of supply. This would result in greater numbers of households residing in temporary accommodation for significant periods of time. In this respect it is likely homeless teams were reflecting the view of their councils as a whole. The lack of appreciation of local circumstances is a particularly strongly held view of rural and island councils who believe that the national policy largely reflects central belt and larger urban and city circumstances.

Impact On Service Development And Delivery.

Regardless of opinion on the target itself, the homelessness agenda has been instrumental in driving very many positive changes in a number of important areas.

These include joint working between agencies and across different sectors; challenging prevailing methods of service delivery; shifting the focus towards a more strategic, preventative approach when dealing with homelessness and related issues; compelling councils to review their relationships with other providers and external agencies; improvements in commissioning procedures; increasing awareness of the practical value of accurate monitoring frameworks and expanding the skills of homelessness staff.

Due to the cross-cutting nature of homelessness and the degrees of vulnerability amongst homeless people, strong links are being established between homeless services and health as well as social work and criminal justice. While not problem free they are at least happening and there are numerous examples of very good practice. In the best examples joint working is leading to a situation where workers in different sectors and services are better appreciating the roles, skills and professionalism of their counterparts elsewhere, giving rise to greater trust and confidence in the planning and delivery of services.

Strategic Developments.

Most councils are still largely focussed on responding to homelessness in terms of getting people out of crisis and into some form of temporary or supported accommodation prior to moving them onto permanent housing. More attention is being given to prevention which is an area of expanding activity but still has some way to go. A few councils are considering what were referred to as "second stage" strategies - looking beyond the "firefighting" role to a much greater emphasis on prevention and options around longer term, sustainable solutions to homelessness. A number were in the process of rewriting their strategies or were already out to consultation with stakeholders.

Observations Relating To 2012 Target.

As the visits progressed it appeared that where certain conditions existed the overall process of working towards the 2012 target was more effective. Where in place these factors provided a firmer foundation on which other elements of councils homelessness strategies could be built. Where any of these were absent or less well established, developing and implementing the programme seemed more difficult. For this reason these strategic priorities are presented at this stage in the report.

They are:

• Political and Senior Officer Endorsement Of The Homelessness Strategy
• Corporate and Partnership working
• Positive role of other housing providers
• Prevention/Avoidance of homelessness

Political Endorsement Of The Homelessness Strategy.

Where members overtly supported the homelessness agenda the positive impact on taking the strategy forward was significant. Where senior councillors, or at least members of the ruling group, express support this tends to percolate down through the organisation to include Chief Executives and senior officers, providing confidence to better defend the service and argue for a greater share of resources. It also boosts staff morale to know that their work is being supported when confronting hostile views or addressing negative public attitudes against homeless people. On the other hand where a councillor publicly expressed negative attitudes to homeless people this could have a disproportionately damaging effect.

It is appreciated that councillors have to strike a balance between the housing needs of the whole community. However, it was still felt by many homelessness teams that councillors could take a more proactive lead in defending homelessness strategies more publicly and challenging the misconceptions about homeless people. Political commitment will also bolster attempts to create stronger corporate working around homelessness as other services will be aware this is something that ruling councillors want.

Corporate/Partnership Working.

Both corporate and partnership working are vital if homelessness is to be effectively tackled. Of the two however, strong corporate working may be the more significant in that it demonstrates to external partners and stakeholders that the council is serious in its commitment and expects the same from them. Homelessness, because of its complexities, needs to be tackled corporately. In order to do so the role of the other essential services needs to be clearly delineated. There must be an appropriate alignment of staff and financial resources as well as agreed priorities and processes. Each service should demonstrate transparency and accountability in terms of how it fulfils its role and the strategy needs to be effectively monitored in terms of the outcomes that are being achieved.

As far as partnership working with external agencies is concerned, an effective monitoring framework is essential not only to clearly demonstrate whether or not services are achieving their objectives but for the valuable information that needs to be gathered around client profiles, access to, and passage through, services etc. A strong tendering and commissioning system is also very important in that it clearly sets out what the council is looking for and expects to be achieved and demonstrates whether the services delivered are meeting the needs of the users.

Positive Role Of Other Housing Providers.

It is clear that the 2012 objective cannot be achieved without the significant involvement of other providers of housing for rent. This is obviously the case for councils who have transferred their stock but it is no less true for councils where transfer does not apply. The role of Registered Social Landlords ( RSLs) is particularly important and it is vital that they are involved in the strategic process as partners and acknowledge their responsibilities as social landlords in addressing the needs of homeless people. In areas where councils and local RSLs are working well together households are spending less time in temporary accommodation and being housed sooner than they would be otherwise. Where RSLs assist councils by providing units for temporary accommodation the pressure on councils own stock is relieved. RSLs also provide a wider choice of types of housing and location.

The potential too for the private rented sector in areas where it has a stronger presence is currently under-utilised. More needs to be done to allow access to the sector, particularly for those not requiring, nor necessarily seeking, a secure tenancy in the social sector.

There are areas where the sector is not strong or shows no inclination or need to work with councils, but there are incentives which can be used to negotiate or encourage closer co-operation. The opportunity to expand these should be explored further.

Prevention/Avoidance Of Homelessness.

Despite initial reservations councils are increasingly acknowledging the greater potential role of prevention. A number of those who are considering the further development of their strategies to take a longer term view of how homelessness needs to be addressed are placing prevention at the centre of their activities. Councils are increasingly aware that to be most effective, prevention needs to be based on the local causes and dynamics of homelessness. There is widespread frustration that prevention is not sufficiently endorsed by other services whose own earlier actions might have prevented the crisis leading to homelessness. Homeless teams are looking to their senior managers or chief executives to do more to get this message across. An important aspect of prevention is the targeting of those groups most at risk to make them more aware of the dangers associated with becoming homeless and how to avoid it. From the point of view of staff, preventing homelessness avoids the frustrations of having to deal with a situation which might have been avoided if earlier intervention had occurred. The rewards of successful prevention are in assisting people avoid crisis and traumatic disruption to their lives. Prevention also changes the relationship between staff and service user to a more positive one of working together to arrive at solutions rather than short term amelioration of circumstances.

ISSUES OF NOTE

In addition to the above, the following items also emerged as significant topics in themselves. As such it seems worthwhile to highlight them as matters deserving specific consideration.

Throughcare And Aftercare.

Many local councils continue to refer young care leavers through the homelessness route as a means of moving them into independent tenancies. This is a process of formally declaring these young people homeless in order to get them the priority they need to access housing. In some cases this is on the advice of housing services who have advised their colleagues in social work that homelessness will achieve quicker results than the normal applications procedures, where young people would wait for years before being allocated a house. A number of councils have developed or are in the process of developing protocols between their homeless service and the Throughcare & Aftercare teams to improve joint working in this area and reach agreement over each services mutual responsibilities in meeting the needs of the young people involved. Most of these protocols are about making the route through homelessness work more smoothly while a few are about circumventing homelessness service altogether. The majority of homelessness teams are of the opinion that separate arrangements should be made to re-house young people leaving care that avoid making them homeless first.

The use of homelessness as a means of resettling young people from care runs counter to the Homelessness Task Force recommendation which states homelessness in these situations should be prevented.

Throughcare and Aftercare services are obliged by law to plan and prepare young people for moving on and a dedicated Pathways Planning procedure is in place to assist them do this. Referring previously looked after children to a homeless team can be compared to parents who "turn out" their children when they reach a certain age with the expectation that the council will provide - it is a failure of the corporate parenting role and poor practice. More care leavers will spend time in temporary accommodation while their applications are considered or while they wait for housing to become available.

Homelessness teams have noted that very few are properly prepared for independent living and most have quite unrealistic views about what their housing options are. All 16/17 year olds are likely to be vulnerable on grounds of their age, lack of experience and maturity but young people with a history of care are particularly disadvantaged taking into consideration the reasons they were taken into care in the first place.

The feeling amongst homelessness teams is that this is a group for whom planning mechanisms are in place and provision could be arranged well in advance of them leaving care. The use of homelessness facilities is inappropriate and unnecessary and takes up resources which would be better directed at "genuine" homeless cases. It is also artificially inflating the number of homeless people. Councils, as corporate parents should be developing accommodation and support in more appropriate settings than that which homelessness provides and which would better meet the needs of this particularly vulnerable group of young people. Social work services and housing services should be working together from an early stage in planning for the time when a young person leaves care, both in terms of identifying suitable accommodation and in ensuring that the young person has the life skills to deal with independent living.

The role of councils as "corporate parents" is one which was highlighted last year with the publication of 'Looked After Children & Young People: We Can and Must Do Better" (Scottish Executive, January 2007), and Extraordinary Lives ( SWIA 2006). Both emphasised the need for councils to strengthen their corporate parenting functions and to behave more like good parents in addressing the needs of the young people in their care. Work which is ongoing to further develop and challenge the corporate parenting role is underpinned by a need for services to work better together to address the needs of young people in care both as individuals and as a group. This provides an opportunity to review the widespread use of homelessness services for housing looked after children and consider more appropriate options.

Performance Monitoring And Management.

This is an area to which the majority of councils are coming very late and, for many whose homelessness services have been inspected, too late. In response to the legislation and the establishment of the 2012 target all councils have set up a range of new services to meet the varied needs of homeless people. Due to the nature and causes of homelessness this has involved partnership initiatives and projects across different services and sectors with homelessness teams taking the lead role.

Progress in tackling homelessness is often measured in terms of the number of new services set-up, outputs, rather than in assessments of how effective these services have been - outcomes. As already mentioned it can be difficult, particularly in relation to prevention, to demonstrate the effectiveness of some services and more sophisticated methods have to be devised to enable this. This takes time, resources and specialist/specific expertise, including systems for gathering information and databases, interpreting information and reporting formats. The best systems do not only provide evidence that services are achieving their aims - or not as the case might be - but also build valuable profiles of the homeless population and the local dynamics of homelessness. This information better informs the direction the homelessness strategy needs to take to resolve homelessness in the longer term.

Demonstrating effectiveness and proving that investment in homelessness services brings value-added benefits for the council is crucial if the service is to hold its own or even increase its share of resources.

There are further implications as well, particularly in changing the tendering and commissioning of new services. Agencies contracting for services will be required to buy into the council's monitoring framework or provide their own versions to the same standard. Contracts will be more rigorously monitored to ensure targets etc are being met. There is a need therefore for more councils to develop much more robust systems to monitor the effectiveness of services in meeting their strategic objectives through the sharing of information and drawing on exiting best/developing practice.

Indications from the project visits suggested that where councils did have a reasonable performance monitoring framework in place there was a better sense of what progress was being made; staff could see the value of what they were doing; and there was a greater awareness of strategic direction.

Addressing Long-term & Sustainable Solutions To Homelessness.

The first homelessness strategies concentrated on the years 2002 to 2006/7. The focus was on assessing the nature and extent of homelessness within councils, leading to the building of partnerships and extending corporate working in order to develop the range of services required to get homeless people out of acute circumstances and into some form of appropriate and settled accommodation. Improving the standards and quality of existing services was also an important element in order to meet the requirements of the legislation as it was rolled out over time. This could be seen as putting in place the systems and infrastructure to effectively manage the homelessness function by creating an effective response to households in crisis.

While the majority of councils are still concentrating on front-line responses the focus in others is shifting towards an increasing awareness or appreciation of prevention as well as the need to think beyond responding to crisis to develop a better understanding of what needs to be done to resolve homelessness in the longer term.

A number of councils have already produced "second stage" strategies to cover the period 2006 to 2012 or are in the stages of consulting with stakeholders on these.

The key issues around resolving homelessness are concerned with:

• Longer - term resettlement and what types of support will be required for this.
• Building or re-establishing supportive social networks to stabilise people's lives.
• Education, training and employability to increase confidence, self-esteem and independence.
• Effectively addressing the issues around those with multiple and complex needs.
• Developing enhanced housing management services to better sustain the tenancies of those most at risk of becoming homeless.
• Addressing the physical and mental health factors which contribute to homelessness.

Some councils are looking for comprehensive guidance on taking their strategies forward in this way and are keen to know how others are approaching this. Those taking their strategies forward in this way tend to be the councils which feel reasonably confident about the progress they have made in implementing their initial strategies and are beginning to think beyond 2012 and what should be done to consolidate the gains they have made. For others the emphasis was still in dealing with the numbers of households presenting and meeting those more immediate needs. This explains to a certain extent the relative lack of engagement with forums such as Scottish Homelessness Employability Network ( SHEN) and Scottish Social Networks ( SSN). These issues also call for specialist knowledge and expertise and the development of specific services which require additional management and resources. In the absence of more formal guidance, councils would welcome an opportunity to come together to consider these longer term issues and how they can be tackled.

Key Issues

Many of the issues which were identified as constituting significant barriers to achieving the 2012 target were raised by the majority of the councils visited. There were no great surprises as most were concerns which were generally already well known. What was valuable however, was the range of different perspectives on the same matters across different councils. The implications for individual councils of issues generally shared by others could be very different and required a variety of approaches and likely solutions. This was particularly true for smaller councils and those in rural or island settings.

It was often felt therefore that much of the guidance, including parts of the Code of Guidance, was too general and did not always reflect local circumstances and practice. Alternatively in other areas it was seen as too prescriptive, not flexible enough to tolerate local approaches.

The main issues and related suggested actions are set out in Chapters 2-6 and the suggested actions are brought together for ease of reference in the Annex. The suggested actions reflect the views expressed during the visits over the last year. With the passage of time, some of the actions which would otherwise have been suggested are already in train. Such 'actions' are listed as "actions currently underway".