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There are a number of things in that. I will come on to the bill in a second. The policy that the legislation is wrapped around is important. We met COSLA last week and talked about funding for additional acquisitions. At that stage, for the ability to look at acquisitions and voids, it was agreed to focus on the local authorities that are under more pressure than others at the moment.

The housing to 2040 strategy group also met a couple of weeks ago, and key things that we said were, first, that we should try to make more properties available and, secondly, that there should be a real focus on how we get children, specifically, out of temporary accommodation as soon as possible. That is the supply side of how we deal with the issue.

Last week, I met Glasgow City Council. It probably has the biggest issue at the moment, so we talked about how to bring more supply. Again, there are voids, acquisitions, allocation policies and so on.

A key thing in the legislation is the holistic approach. It comes back to being aware between the two-month period and the six-month period. Having been a councillor, you will know that two months is not enough for someone who presents as potentially homeless. We need that longer period. That part of the legislation on its own—just trying to identify what the risk could be—is really important.

As we know, the Crisis homelessness monitor talked about the local housing allowance as one of the two biggest drivers of the rise in homelessness, particularly in families with children. I will pick that up with my United Kingdom Government equivalent, as I tried to do previously. It is also about the level of universal credit and dealing with poverty. Many people who arrive in that situation are in poverty, so that six-monthly approach is incredibly important. If there is necessary financial help that they can get, that is really important.

Again, we need a holistic approach from local authorities and from, for example, the NHS or link workers. One of the key things at the NHS level is the experience of link workers. I met link workers in Edinburgh six or seven months ago. One of the biggest drivers for people getting into that situation in Edinburgh is poverty, so it is about trying to identify the link workers and their role in the broader NHS to pass people on to get financial advice and so on that picks up on the key issues.

The six-monthly approach is incredibly important. It is about engaging with the NHS on its approach to identifying problems at an early stage. A fifth to a quarter of women who end up in homelessness do so because of domestic abuse, so it is also about engaging with the likes of Women’s Aid. If people are in hospital, it is about identifying that. If somebody has suffered domestic abuse, they might end up in hospital. How do we pick up on that? There are a number of occasions when we can.

The real issue comes back to that holistic approach and dealing with it at a much earlier stage. That is the incredibly important part of the issue. It also comes back to Roz McCall’s point about making sure that we are dealing with homelessness not just in urban settings but in rural settings. Early engagement and the holistic approach that the bill is pushing is incredibly important.

There are a number of answers to that. One is that we cannot compel the likes of the DWP and Home Office, but that does not stop us from engaging with them. Anybody who has had the experience of working in the sector and dealing with homelessness knows that the policies of those bodies have an impact on the issue. So, although we cannot compel them, we will continue to work closely with them.

Part of the stakeholder engagement that will take place over the summer will involve discussions about experiences with the DWP and Home Office, for example, and how we can ensure that the relationship between the sector and those bodies is as close as possible. Although we cannot compel the DWP or Home Office to be part of that, we will work closely with them.

That relates to the point that Kevin Stewart made about culture. We need to ensure that those bodies are brought into that culture. Even though we cannot compel them, they are important stakeholders, so we will continue to engage with them regularly as the legislation is developed and then embedded.

There are two ways of looking at this. Again, coming back to my own personal experience of working with a number of cases over a number of years, I think that you can sometimes be too specific. That is something that can be picked up through guidance and training, but it is one of the key points: you can be too specific about how you deal with a specific case, because, as we know, every case is different.

A key thing for me is to make sure that there is co-ordination at local and council level. How do we deal with these cases? How do we deal with, say, health boards? How do we deal with the police? In some circumstances, you can be too specific; indeed, it would be difficult to have something specific on the face of the bill.

Again, we will be guided by what the homelessness prevention and strategy group looks at. There is also a group that measures the effectiveness of that and we will be guided by that, too. Sometimes, we can be too specific. The guidance and culture will be the main aspects, and we are going to be guided by the outcome of the groups that I have mentioned.

Pamela, do you want to add anything on that particular point?

I have a couple of thoughts on that. An outcome group and a task-and-finish group were set up to look at measurements and how we monitor these things, and the issue has also been discussed by the homelessness prevention and strategy group that we referred to at the start of the meeting.

You are right in saying that one of the key things about sharing data is co-ordination and that we also need to be cognisant of data protection. However, when it came to identifying key issues, there were specific task-and-finish groups, and I think that the matter has already been talked about by the homelessness prevention and strategy group.

As a previous member of the committee, I know that we have talked about sharing information on, for example, social security. Data protection is there for proper reasons, but it does make it difficult to share information. I suppose that it will come down to having broader co-ordination right through the process. After all, a person tends not to arrive at homelessness for one specific reason—the situation tends to be more complex than that. Recommendations have come out of the groups that I have mentioned, but we are reviewing what any approach might look like and how much information and data can be shared. With specific cases—I come back to Mr Doris’s question about the co-ordination of complex cases—one of the most difficult issues is how we ensure that the data is shared without breaking any data protection rules. We are trying to ensure that the process is as co-ordinated as possible.

It is a really relevant point. Sometimes it can be difficult to share data if it is not within the data protection legislation, but this is something that has been and will continue to be looked at. I do not know whether Pamela McBride wants to say any more about that.

Crisis has been one of the most important stakeholders all the way through the process. I have regularly engaged with and talked to the organisation and I will continue to do so. We have the bill, but there are also things that we can do now to prepare for implementation of the provisions, so we have been speaking to Crisis about that.

I point out that the Scottish Government and COSLA have the ending homelessness together action plan, which sets out the actions that we will take behind all of this, and the other key thing that I should mention is the prevention review group. Crisis is a main part of that—it has been included in the process from the start—and we will continue to work with it. Plans are already in place. Crisis will inform us as we go through the process, and we will continue discussions with it.

A key point is that we will have the national plan. When it comes down to it, there are 32 different local authorities and almost 32 different solutions. How we deal with the issue in Glasgow will be different from how we deal with it in the Highlands, for example. There is always an individual local government element, which is really important.

We will continue to work closely with Crisis as we move ahead, as we have done throughout the process. It has been an integral part of the prevention review group, and it will be integral in the months and years ahead as we implement the legislation.

Again, that comes back to local authorities and other groups demonstrating what reasonable steps they have undertaken. As we know, every case will be slightly different but, with regard to guidance, training and resourcing, the issue concerns the reasonable steps that are taken.

On the role of family mediation, some months ago, I was at an event at which people from the Cyrenians were talking about the work that they undertake with families. They do incredible work, and it is clear that their mediation made a real difference—I heard about situations in which, for example, kids aged 15 or 16 were going to leave home until the mediation service came in. That role is important, and it is part of the reasonable steps that groups are taking.

That is part of the discussions that will be had during the summer, but we need to look at resourcing as well. We will probably touch on resourcing later, but we have undertaken work with local authorities, during which we asked what resourcing they need, what they need it for and what the impact will be. It relates to a much broader discussion. If we are talking about the resourcing that is required for prevention duties, we need to consider what it is that we are preventing from happening. We need to consider not only the material difference that the bill will make to someone who becomes homeless but what the financial cost would be if we did not get things right. That is an important consideration in the development of the resourcing part of the bill.

We touched on the work that is being undertaken on that, but we are getting into the bill process and resourcing that is required. Other committees have asked about that specific point as well, which is great. Again, we are having discussions about what the reasonable steps are and how we resource and fund those.

I would be happy to write to the committee after the summer recess and reflect on the process. We have correspondence from stakeholders on that. Most of the consideration that will take place over the summer will be on the statutory guidance, but there will be a lot on implementation, too. Again, we will be guided by what stakeholders say to us about that.

Do you mean information about the progress that is being made by the legislation?

I will bring in Pamela McBride to talk about the discussions that have been held on a daily basis at the official level. At the ministerial level, that point has been discussed in the ministerial oversight group and I have had discussions about it with Crisis, the Cyrenians and other groups. I have also raised preparations for the prevention duties in discussions with local authorities and stakeholders. That is something that I ask about when I meet every local authority and the stakeholders. This summer, we have a designated programme of stakeholder engagement to talk about those issues now that the bill has now been introduced.

Convener, I note that Kevin Stewart mentioned the minutes of the ministerial group. I am happy to provide those to the committee if you would like to see them.