Chamber and committees

From 1st April 2017 to 31st March 2018:-

The number of unique users for the website was 1,257,094.

The average spend per user was £2.16.

The percentage of users who had more than £15 in credits on their account on 22 October 2018 was 2.3%

Local Authorities have a legal duty to help people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. This includes young people, including LGBTI+ young people.

The Scottish Social Housing Charter, which came into effect in 2012, sets the standards and outcomes that all social landlords should aim to achieve when performing their housing activities. This includes:

• Social landlords working together to ensure that people looking for housing get information that helps them make informed choices and decisions about the range of housing options available to them.
• Providing information and advice and offering temporary or permanent accommodation if circumstances warrant it.
• Performing all aspects of their housing services so that every tenant and other customer has their individual needs recognised, is treated fairly and with respect and receives fair access to housing and housing services regardless of their age or sexual orientation.

The Scottish Housing Regulator monitors, assesses, and reports on how landlords are performing against the Charter’s outcomes and standards.

In addition, local authorities must take account of the statutory Code of Guidance on Homelessness when delivering services as well as using the guidance produced by the Scottish Government on delivering Housing Options.

The Code of Guidance consists of practical guidance on how the legislation and related policies should be implemented. The Code of Guidance specifically states that:

• Local authorities should consider appropriate ways of communicating and providing advice and information to young people, to ensure that they have access to it.

Further, the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group (HARSAG) recommended the Scottish Government should ‘Ensure plans are always agreed – or agreed as quickly as possible – to prevent homelessness for the groups who are predictably at highest risk of rough sleeping or homelessness’ and identified LGBT groups in particular. Scottish Government Ministers have accepted this recommendation in principle, along with the others made by the group, and we are now developing a high level action plan with partners to set out how we will deliver the full package of recommendations. This plan will be published later this year.

We are working with the Homelessness Prevention and Strategy Group (HPSG) and partners to oversee the development of a high level action plan to implement the recommendations made by the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group (HARSAG).

The HARSAG recommendations include the development and implementation of a national training programme for frontline services, to ensure the needs of specific groups are addressed in all parts of the homelessness system. This is in addition to the Housing Options Training Toolkit which has been developed by the local government Housing Options Hubs. Once operational, we expect the toolkit to cover the full range of equality and diversity issues people can face in housing and homelessness, helping to ensure appropriate and informed service is provided in every local authority in Scotland.

In addition, HARSAG recommended the Scottish Government should ‘Ensure plans are always agreed – or agreed as quickly as possible – to prevent homelessness for the groups who are predictably at highest risk of rough sleeping or homelessness’ and identified LGBT groups in particular. Scottish Government Ministers have accepted this recommendation in principle, along with the other recommendations made by HARSAG, and we are now developing a high level action plan with partners to set out how we will deliver the full package of recommendations. This plan will be published later this year.

The development of the implementation plan is being overseen and led by the HPSG. LGBT Youth Scotland are members of the HPSG, helping to ensure that policies are designed and implemented that take account of the full range of issues this group may face.

The Homelessness Prevention and Strategy Group (HPSG) will take forward the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group’s (HARSAG) recommendations and will give full consideration of actions and proposals which impact LGBTI+ and young people.

Scottish Government Ministers have accepted all 70 HARSAG recommendations in principle and we are now developing a high level action plan with partners to set out how we will deliver the full package of recommendations. This plan will be published later this year.

The development of the high level action plan is being overseen and led by the HPSG. Representatives from LGBT Youth Scotland and from youth group, Aff the Streets, are members of HPSG; these important voices have a place at the table and can contribute to development of policy in this area.

The Scottish Government’s position on recording, monitoring and reporting equality data is that sexual orientation and gender identity protected characteristics are particularly sensitive and if people are already in a vulnerable position it may not be appropriate to collect data at point of service provision. However, we and all our partners are committed to upholding both the letter and the spirit of the Public Sector Equality Duty in this area, to ensure that nobody loses out because of a protected characteristic in their engagement with housing and homelessness services.

Under the Equality Budget, the Scottish Government provides funding of £300,000 to LGBT Youth Scotland to provide a programme of work that aims to reduce the discrimination experienced by LGBTI young people and the wider community; to build the capacity of public bodies to meet their needs; to engage directly with communities and provide opportunities for LGBTI young people to engage in civic Scotland.

This work includes LGBT Youth Scotland’s on-line support service; which supports isolated young people who are often not able to or ready to attend direct services. This is particularly beneficial for young people in rural and remote areas where there can be limited LGBTI youth groups. For the period of July 2017- June 2018 youth workers engaged with 556 young people through online chat and 3 child protection interventions were initiated. More information regarding digital support can be found at: https://www.lgbtyouth.org.uk/groups-and-support/digital-support .

The organisation also works in partnership with local authorities such as Dumfries and Galloway Council to provide direct services for young people, engage with professionals and to promote LGBT History Month in Scotland.

I refer the member to my answer to S5W-18833 on 27 September 2018. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .