Scottish Government & COSLA have published a joint consultation on new Prevention of Homelessness Duties. The background to the consultation includes:
- A recommendation to legislate from the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group in 2018, accepted by Scottish Ministers.
- Recommendations from the Prevention Review Group reporting 2021, convened by Crisis and chaired by Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick.
- The Prevention Commission, who influenced and scrutinised the Review Group’s work during 2020-21. Led by people with personal experience of homelessness and/or in frontline roles, the Commission was pivotal in cutting through to what matters. You can review the Commission’s deliberations here.
The new duties build from a simple framework to ‘Ask and Act’ – to ask about housing and to then act on what people tell you. The principles underpinning the new duties are that:
- Responsibility to prevent homelessness should be a shared public responsibility and not rely solely or primarily on council’s homelessness services.
- Intervention to prevent homelessness should start as early as possible. In many cases this will be before issues have escalated to a point where homelessness appears imminent.
- People facing homelessness should have choice in where they live and access to the same range of housing outcomes as other members of the general public, with appropriate protections to mitigate further risk of homelessness.
- Housing outcomes should be comparable across the new prevention and existing homelessness duties.
We are holding this online event to create the opportunity to fully explore the prevention duties together. Join us for:
- A full briefing on the scope and intention of the prevention duties.
- Discussion and debate on the key principles and proposals.
This is a free event for Homeless Network Scotland members. Not a member? Join up here