WIDER POLICIES
Scottish Advice and Support Policy

Key Policies

• National Standards for Housing Information, Advice and Services
• Homelessness Task Force Action Plan
• Careers Scotland

Policy on advice and support services is fully devolved to the Scottish Executive.

Local authorities have a duty to provide advice and information to all homeless people who require it, within defined national quality standards.

Local authority advice and information

From 2003, local authority advice has been expected to meet certain quality standards, as set out in the HomePoint National Standards for Housing Information, Advice and Services.^[1]

The Homelessness Task Force final report Homelessness: an action plan for prevention and effective response has highlighted the role of good advice and support in preventing and resolving homelessness.  It recommends that local homelessness strategies review the advice and support offered.  The strategies also have to review the provision of other types of support services, such as debt, counselling, advocacy, etc. 

As a result of the Homelessness Task Force recommendations, there is a particular focus on providing housing advice services for those most at risk of homelessness, or very vulnerable groups.  The groups identified in the report, and which are now prioritised by local authorities, are prison leavers, care leavers, and ex-armed forces personnel.

Prison leavers

All prisons in Scotland now have housing advice services in place.  Most of these are being delivered through ‘Link Centres' which are designed to provide a range of services including housing services to prepare the prisoner for discharge.  The housing advice services were evaluated in September 2004, and discussions are now taking place as to how to ensure that these services become permanent.

Care leavers

Local authorities are required to provide ‘throughcare' to all children, with a view to preparing them for when they are no longer in care, and to provide ‘aftercare' for those looked after once they ceased to be of school age up to the age of 19 or 21.  The housing advice for people leaving care has now been extended.  The key way in which this has been done include:

• Publications of regulations and Guidance on Supporting Young People ceasing to be looked after, stating that the young people's assessment and plans must set out what accommodation is best suited for the care leaver, and how it will be achieved
• Collection of statistics on the destination and accommodation arrangements of those leaving care over school age, including the number of moves and period of homelessness.
• A statutory performance indicator requiring local authorities to track and keep in touch with those leaving care over school age up to the age of 19.

Leaving home and housing education

Education about housing and leaving home is increasingly becoming part of the school curriculum.  In June 2005, a national online database was launched, which combined information for young people leaving home, as well as resources for teachers delivering leaving home or housing education.  In March 2005, the Scottish Executive announced the joint funding of a schools co-ordinator to promote housing education in schools.

Advice for young people

Careers Scotland provides support primarily targeted at getting people aged 16 to 19 into education, training or employment.  Each person has a key worker, who will address any barriers to getting into education, training or employment, which might include homelessness.

Both the age and the remit have recently been tightened in light of the new targets in Closing the opportunity gap, which aims to reduce the proportion of 16- 19-year-olds not in education training or work by 2008.  For example, when the model used by Careers Scotland was piloted through the Beattie Inclusiveness Projects, the age range was 16-24 and covered a wide range of situations (for example, some of the pilots were specifically aimed at homeless people).  Since it has been mainstreamed in Careers Scotland, it has been restricted to 16-19.

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End notes

[1] HomePoint is part of Communities Scotland. Back to text

Page last modified on 07/06/2006 at 13:17