Seòmar agus comataidhean

Do you mean as part of the bill?

We are still engaging on that. I will bring in Catriona MacKean, who has been directly involved in some of the discussions. Colleagues who work in criminal justice are trying to push that forward. We are very cognisant of that, because that work is important and we need to get it moving as we move forward with the bill.

I am sorry, but I—

There are a number of issues. First, in relation to how a financial memorandum is set up, one key thing is that the guidelines say that it should give the “best estimates” of costs and savings. We worked with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities in 2023 and we had a joint consultation with it in April 2022. We asked each local authority for its estimates at that time, and that helped us to put the financial memorandum together.

It is key that we keep the matter under live consideration. We will continue to work with local authorities on that. No budget has been set as such. To produce our financial memorandum, we followed the guidelines and engaged with COSLA and individual local authorities. That best estimate was based on consulting and working with local authorities. We will continue—

Again, it very much comes down to local circumstances, but I will be happy to come back to you on that point.

Yes, thank you, convener.

I thank the committee for the further opportunity to provide assurance on the Housing (Scotland) Bill. I understand that you have agreed with the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee that you will provide the committee with your stage 1 report shortly, and I am grateful for your time today.

In my evidence to this committee on 27 June, I highlighted key measures in part 5 of the bill on homelessness prevention duties. These are also an essential part of addressing the housing emergency, as preventing homelessness and supporting tenancies to be sustained both lead to less pressure on housing supply. I also emphasised the engagement with delivery partners that we continue to undertake to ensure that positive and sustained change is delivered.

With its renewed focus on prevention, the legislation as introduced builds on the strong housing rights that already exist for people who are homeless in Scotland. Those preventative measures have been shaped by significant stakeholder engagement since 2020, including the recommendations of the prevention review group, a public consultation and direct engagement with key organisations by both officials and ministers.

However, the introduction of the bill was never intended to signal the end of that journey. My officials and I continue to work collaboratively with stakeholders as we develop our approach to delivering those duties, in order to harness the opportunity to prevent and end homelessness, and to make a significant contribution to eradicating child poverty.

As I set out in my recent letter to the committee, the focus is now on plans for effective implementation of the new duties and driving forward cultural change towards shared public responsibility and earlier intervention. We hope that Parliament will support that approach.

Since we were last together, we have engaged with delivery partners on how the ask and act proposals in the bill could function in practice, and with social landlords on the domestic abuse measures. That engagement has made clear how much positive practice already exists, which we can build on, and that successful prevention is not always about doing more but about doing things differently. Getting early intervention right will avoid someone having to retell their story multiple times to service providers; it will mean that people get help faster; and it will make more effective use of public resources. It is vital investment.

In that way, shared public responsibility and early intervention also have the potential to deliver financial savings. Critically, that approach also benefits our future health, equality and prosperity. The new duties aim to strengthen consistency and transparency around prevention activity across Scotland through legislative change and to ensure that that happens at an earlier stage, while maintaining person-centred, flexible approaches to addressing the needs of individuals and families.

Clear messages are emerging from our recent engagement on our ambitious provisions to rebalance the whole-systems approach holistically around homelessness prevention, and I am keen that the next stage of engagement has a particular focus on how to foster partnerships and co-operation between relevant bodies, as outlined in the bill, in order to build on the strong rights that already exist in Scotland and to move us closer to our prevention aim. We will continue to work collaboratively with stakeholders on strong guidance that is tailored to different settings and builds on existing good practice; on clear expectations and a joint case for the benefits of cultural change to support prevention; on the resourcing, which I am clear is necessary to make the duties a success; and on the appropriate timescales for implementation.

As part of that next phase, I will be hosting an online event in October to bring together a wide range of stakeholders, including relevant bodies and local authorities. The aim of that event is to identify how we can support the co-operation required to implement each of the homelessness prevention duties and provisions in the bill. The committee is, of course, welcome to attend the event to hear the thoughts of stakeholders at first hand.

Overall, our homelessness prevention duties will help to avoid the trauma and disruption to people’s lives that homelessness causes. They are critical to our vision to end homelessness in the longer term.

I and my officials look forward to answering any questions that members might have on the bill.

I will ask Laura McMahon whether that is practical from a legislative or legal point of view. I appreciate the point that you are making, and I would be comfortable with that.

I have met Scottish Women’s Aid regularly, and that has been discussed. It is incredibly important. You gave a couple of examples. One involved the Scottish Prison Service, which is a key stakeholder. We have discussed the issue with it and will develop it further together. Again, we are trying to build on best practice. We heard a couple of examples in which some prisons are probably further ahead than others. A key thing that was talked about was consistency. That is an important point.

More broadly, when it comes to how we deal with domestic abuse, in my time as a councillor—which you were, too, Ms McNair—I saw how that was handled. It is partly about making sure that we are properly resourced—and a part of that is about training. Having dealt with it and seen it at first hand through people with lived experience, I can say that sometimes it depended on who they ended up with in the local authority. If somebody had the necessary training, they knew how to deal with the situation and had the necessary ability, which comes back to how to deal with somebody who is in trauma. Alternatively, if somebody had not been trained, that could actually make the situation worse.

One thing to talk about is how to make sure that victims are aware through the Scottish Prison Service, local authorities, the NHS or women’s aid organisations, for example. Again, it is about trying to strengthen what is already there. I have seen examples in which the council has dealt with the situation very well, and that helps the person quite quickly. However, if the situation is not dealt with, as you will have seen, it can result in more trauma.

Again, it is about having a more focused and more holistic approach. Why does it happen that nobody passes on the information from the SPS, the NHS, Scottish Women’s Aid or the local authority? If it is not handled well, it makes the situation worse.

Discussions with local authorities are on-going. The issue was also raised in the discussions that we had with the 140 practitioners that I mentioned. If you can attend our event in October, that point can be raised. However, it has been discussed within local authorities, within the Scottish Prison Service and with Scottish Women’s Aid.

Again, it is about building on what is already there. The legislation will give a duty to ensure that we pick up on that. We cannot have the inconsistency that we have at the moment.

Good. Thank you.

Do you mean in terms of—