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In our Ending Homelessness Together action plan we committed to developing a new legislative duty on local authorities and wider public bodies for the prevention of homelessness. We commissioned an expert group – the Prevention Review Group - in October 2019 to make recommendations.

On 18 February 2021, the Prevention Review Group published its recommendations, which were developed in consultation with relevant organisations from across the public sector and third sector, frontline workers and people with lived experience of homelessness.

The recommendations highlight the importance of a whole-system, person-centred approach to preventing homelessness, for example through the work of health, education and justice services. We are now working with COSLA and our partners across the public and third sectors to discuss how we can put these recommendations into action and create the significant legislative change required. A key early stage will be a comprehensive programme of engagement across the public sector, including a public consultation, to inform the way forward.

No one in Scotland should have to sleep rough and this is a commitment we reiterated in our updated Ending Homelessness Together action plan, published with COSLA in October 2020.

Since the outbreak of Covid-19, our priority has been to keep people safe and housing people without a settled home in emergency accommodation has been a public health imperative. In partnership with local authorities and the third sector, our quick and effective response dramatically reduced the number of people sleeping rough. We will continue to build on that success as restrictions lift.

In our Ending Homeless Together action plan we committed to modifying night shelter provision with a view to ending the use of night shelter and dormitory style provision in future. In winter 2020-21, we contributed to the cost of rapid rehousing welcome centres in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The centres offered hotel room accommodation and provided under-one-roof and multi-agency assessment for people at the sharpest end of homelessness. We will work with local authority and third sector partners to ensure there is no return to dormitory style night shelters in the future.

Local authorities are working hard to ensure people move as rapidly as possible through temporary accommodation and into settled accommodation, with the appropriate support. We are investing £37.5 million to support councils to prioritise settled accommodation through the implementation of rapid rehousing transition plans and the upscaling of Housing First for those facing the most challenges.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. The Scottish Public Finance Manual (SPFM) provides clear guidance to public bodies on Property acquisition, disposal and management. There is no reference within that guidance to the maximising of receipts from the sale of land but rather a duty for each body subject to the SPFM to consider the most appropriate method for disposal either by:

1. obtaining the best possible price on the open market, or;

2. disposal of the asset at less than Market Value to deliver wider public benefits consistent with the principles of Best Value, or;

3. transfer under the Guidelines for the Transfer of Property within the Scottish Public Sector.

The costs and benefits of disposal via one of these routes will have been determined on a case by case basis when considering the method of disposal by the public body in question and any audit of such a transaction would be undertaken by Audit Scotland as part of their audit work. The duty of Best Value applies to all public bodies in Scotland and is a formal duty on Accountable Officers.

The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 sets out the rights for community bodies to seek to acquire rights in any land and property held by a named public body. Guidance has been published both for relevant authorities and community bodies which explains the how any such application is to be handled. The legislation does not comment on whether disposals should be at market value or at a discount. As with all publicly-owned assets, where a disposal is being considered at less than market value, the public body decisions should be consistent with the principles of Best Value.

The recommendations we received from the Prevention Review Group are comprehensive and are likely to require significant updates to existing legislation as well as the development of new duties for the public sector. We are currently considering the most appropriate vehicles for implementing these changes which we will confirm in due course.

No decision on timings has yet been taken in relation to a new housing bill within this Parliament.

We commissioned this work in response to the recommendations the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group made for ending homelessness. We very much welcome the Prevention Review Group recommendations and we are grateful for the commitment Crisis and other partners have shown in delivering their report, in particular the vital role people with lived experience of homelessness had in shaping the recommendations.

We accepted the recommendations in principle earlier this year and will now consult with our partners across public services, people with experience of homelessness and the wider public as we fully consider the detail of the suite of recommendations, to ensure that their introduction leads to stronger housing rights for people in Scotland. Shifting the balance of services and response towards prevention is more important than ever as we work to recover from the public health crisis.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the vital role of Scottish Hospices. In June 2020, we provided £10.1m in emergency funding to hospices to meet in full their funding requests for loss of income during the first lockdown period.

On the 24 March 2021, we confirmed that an additional £16.9m will be provided to Scottish Hospices to fully meet their requests for support relating to loss of income during the most recent lockdown. As such, the total funding allocated to hospices to support their work during the pandemic in the financial year 2020-2021 is approximately £27m.

The breakdown of payments can be viewed in the following  table.

The Scottish Government include Fair Work criteria wherever it is relevant and proportionate to do so.

A Scottish Procurement Policy Note 03/2021, was published on 15 March 2021 on the implementation of the Fair Work First criteria within procurement processes commencing from 1 April 2021, where relevant and proportionate to do so.

The Scottish Government has updated its internal procedures and processes to include a stronger focus on the Fair Work First criteria and will implement this approach going forward.

The Scottish Government has a statutory duty under Section 30 of the Railways Act 1993 to ensure that rail services continue to operate. The cost associated with the contingency planning work for the Operator of Last Resort (OLR) for both franchises has cost, to date £4,212,914 from 2019-20 to 2020-2021.

These OLR costs incurred to date can be broken down as follows:

Arup - £3,333,955

Ernst and Young - £437,243

Bramble Hub - £95,608

MacRoberts - £346,108

Information about the size of businesses which are Scottish Business Pledge members was not recorded prior to May 2018 and the total number of Business Pledge members that are a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) is not available. Since May 2018, 175 SMEs have become a member of the Business Pledge and 42 SMEs have transitioned to the relaunched Scottish Business Pledge.

The deadline for members of the original Scottish Business Pledge to transition to the new criteria has been extended to 1 September 2021 due to the continuous economic impact the Coronavirus is having.