The Scottish Government

(1) The objectives of increasing homeless people's control and extending their choices, and achieving the effective participation of people affected by homelessness in the development of future policy, practice and service delivery should be widely promoted and given practical effect in all activities directed at tackling homelessness.

RAG status: Amber

Delivery contacts: SE Homelessness Team, Communities Scotland R&I

Progress to date:

• Involvement principles have been promoted in all relevant Executive guidance related to homelessness, particularly guidance on local authority homelessness strategies, Health and Homelessness Standards and the Supporting People programme. The importance of the practical application of these principles has been stressed in feedback on homelessness strategies to local authorities.
• Communities Scotland published a summary of its findings from 5 pathfinder inspections in a themed report on homelessness published in June 2005. This indicated that 3 authorities had developed exit surveys to capture feedback from service users and two of these were being actively implemented. One authority had funded a broader consultation process with homeless people but beyond this it was found that authorities did not collect an use feedback from homeless people to understand their views on the quality of services provided. Inspection reports for three councils have been published since then: one council made good use of feedback from homeless people to help it improve services; one council has still to fully develop effective ways to gather and use homeless people's views of its services; and one council has ways to gather views from homeless people, but is not yet making best use of the information it obtains.
• Communities Scotland Learning Connections team have funded a 2 year Pathfinder project 'Homing in on Literacy' in Perth & Kinross to help mainly young tenants sustain their tenancies by improving their literacy and numeracy skills. The project has succeeded in working with some hard to reach homeless young people and has raised awareness of meeting the needs of the client group via short films by the young people involved.
• HMG has agreed as part of its remit, 'to monitor the level and impact of involvement of people directly affected by homelessness at a local level and within the Monitoring Group'.
• HMG subgroup on Awareness Raising and Good Practice established & has overseen research by Chartered Institute of Housing on "Knowledge, Views and Understanding of Homeless People". Research due to be published Spring 2006.
• Revised Code of Guidance published May 2005.
• Communities Scotland currently consulting on their Regulation and Inspection Framework for Housing. Consultation seeks views on how the agency should enable the views of service users to influence its selection of organisations for inspection.
• Peer review pilots carried out by the Scottish Housing Best Value Network have included service users in the review teams.

Action required & by whom:

• Subgroup on Awareness Raising and Good Practice to consider further work required.
• Communities Scotland, through its inspections, will continue to report on the effectiveness of councils' approaches to involving homeless people in their services.

Key milestones:

• Revised Code of Guidance published May 2005.

• Communities Scotland published a themed report on findings on homelessness in Pathfinder inspections in June 2005.

(33) All service providers, statutory and voluntary, should ensure that they are promoting values, attitudes and behaviour which deliver responsive and personalised services. They should ensure that staff are supported and trained in serving people affected by homelessness. Training should cover, as appropriate, the definition of homelessness, risk assessment techniques to help 'first to know' agencies respond effectively, joint working with other agencies, support packages, consultation techniques and how to help and empower people experiencing homelessness to find appropriate solutions. Joint training approaches should be pursued. The training programmes run by Scottish Training on Alcohol and Drug Abuse ( STRADA) partnership should include coverage on serving homeless people.

RAG status: Amber

Delivery contacts: Homelessness Team, SE; STRADA

Progress to date:

• A series of events have been held in order to promote culture change. These have sought to raise awareness, understanding and engagement with the new homelessness agenda.
• HMG subgroup on Awareness Raising and Good Practice established.
• STRADA modules have been developed with the Task Force recommendations in mind, e.g. drugs, alcohol and housing. Between March 2002 and June 2005 STRADA have trained 677 housing staff on the Drugs, Alcohol and Housing module. In addition, STRADA have also provided bespoke courses designed for housing and homeless related issues to 143 staff during the same period. Discussions underway on provision of central funding for STRADA to cover costs of training for housing and homelessness staff.
• CIH commissioned to undertake research on "Knowledge, understanding and views of homeless people".
• National Strategy for the Development of the Social Service Workforce in Scotland: A Plan for Action 2005-2012 published by the Scottish Executive in 2005.
• The Foyer Federation have received Scottish Executive funding to develop the Outside In project in Scotland - this involves learning programmes for homeless people and the staff supporting them in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Action required & by whom:

• Subgroup on Awareness Raising and Best Practice to consider further work required following on from CIH's research into knowledge understanding and views of homeless people. An event to publicise and discuss the results of CIH's work will be held in Spring. General public awareness of homelessness will be measured through Scottish Social attitudes survey later this year and ARBP will shape development of this aspect of the survey.
• Scottish Executive Homelessness Team to explore funding for STRADA to cover costs of training for housing and homelessness related staff.

Key milestones

• Publication of CIH research - Spring 2006.