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Parliament passes Homelessness Bill
05/03/2003
The Scottish Parliament today passed the
Homelessness (Scotland) Bill, giving Scotland what has
been described by campaigners as 'the most comprehensive
piece of homelessness legislation in Europe'.
The landmark law delivers an ambitious new framework for
combating homelessness and gives new legal protection to
affected people.
Minister for Social Justice, Margaret Curran, said:
"Our work on housing will go down as amongst the most
significant achievements of this first Parliament. I
believe the hallmark of the Executive's approach to housing
has been to prioritise those most in need, reflecting our
profound commitment to social justice. The Homelessness
(Scotland) Bill is one very important example of that
commitment.
"Homelessness is a multi-faceted issue which will not be
resolved overnight. Building upon the principles of the
Housing (Scotland) Act of 2001, this Bill presents a
framework for action phased over ten years, which will
tackle the problem of homelessness and its causes in an
ambitious but, I believe, achievable way.
"The implementation of this Bill, alongside the wide
range of complementary measures being taken by the
Executive to help our most excluded people, will
dramatically change the response to homelessness in
Scotland. The Bill will put in place the mechanisms to
ensure that this change is managed and sustained for the
benefit of Scotland's most vulnerable people.
"The passage of the Homelessness (Scotland) Bill is a
great success for the Executive against one of our key
priorities at the heart of our social justice agenda. We
will work closely with local authorities and other partners
to ensure that homeless people feel the benefit of this
law."
The key changes that the Bill will introduce are:
- phasing out of the distinction between 'priority'
and 'non-priority' applications for local authority
assistance, with a view to ensuring that everyone
assessed as unintentionally homeless is entitled to
permanent accommodation by 2012
- providing 'probationary' tenancies to people who
have been judged to have made themselves homeless
intentionally. These tenancies will also provide
support services to the tenant, who in turn will have
to fulfil certain obligations if the tenancy is to
become permanent.
- enabling the suspension of the test of 'local
connection' which currently means applicants must
demonstrate a connection to the local area in which
they are applying for assistance
- making modest changes to the repossession process
to help prevent the causes of homelessness
The Executive also supported an amendment by Karen
Whitefield which will allow Ministers to regulate against
the inappropriate use of Bed and Breakfast accommodation
for families with children. This amendment overturned an
amendment introduced at Stage 2 which the Executive
considered too inflexible and in some circumstances would
have worked against the children's best interests.
Director of the Scottish Council for Single Homeless,
Robert Aldridge, added his support to the passage of the
Bill.
"I was proud to serve on the Homelessness Task Force and
am pleased to see our recommendations developed in the
Homelessness Bill. When combined with the reforms of the
2001 Housing Act, we will have some of most progressive
homelessness legislation in Europe.
"The Act sets the scene for a major culture change in
the way we treat homeless people in Scotland. It begins to
dismantle the bureaucratic aspects of earlier legislation.
The new Act aims to concentrate resources on assisting
homeless people to be housed successfully, rather than on
investigating how they might be rationed out of the
system."
The Homelessness Task Force was established by the
Executive in 1999 to examine the problem of homelessness
and make recommendations for addressing it.
The Task Force concluded its work in 2002, making 59
recommendations in the form of a ten-year action programme.
The Executive accepted all the recommendations, the
Homelessness (Scotland) Bill implements 5 of these
recommendations. A national Homelessness Monitoring Group
has been established to oversee the implementation and
impact of all 59 recommendations.
Part One of the
Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 delivered the early
recommendations of the Task Force, obliging local
authorities to develop homelessness strategies, which are
due to be submitted to the Executive at the end of March
2003. The Act also obliged local authorities to give
everyone assessed as homeless the right to at least
temporary accommodation and expanded the duties of local
authorities towards people threatened with
homelessness.
Currently, people assessed by local authorities as
having a priority need and being unintentionally homeless,
are entitled to permanent accommodation, while others are
limited in their entitlement to temporary accommodation,
advice and assistance.
The new legislation sets the framework for removing this
distinction and incorporates the Executive's target that
everybody assessed as being unintentionally homeless should
have the right to permanent accommodation by 2012.
Among the strategies in place to tackle homelessness,
the Executive is working with local stakeholders in Glasgow
to decommission outdated homeless hostels in the city, to
provide a wider range of suitable accommodation and social
and health support for homeless people.
The Executive also funds the Rough Sleepers Initiative
which aims to put a stop to the need to sleep rough and
works closely with other agencies such as the Prison
Service to prevent homelessness.