The No Wrong Door action learning partnership was launched in September and is testing out how to create cross-sector, integrated services in four places in Scotland, with local results informing a blueprint for joined-up service delivery nationwide.
The programme aims to make it easier for people to get support when they face severe and multiple disadvantage – when their lives are shaped by poverty, trauma, violence or abuse, or they face other barriers including homelessness, addiction and discrimination.
These disadvantages often overlap but the current model of services that are paid for and provided in different sectors doesn’t reflect their reality. It means people often have to share their stories repeatedly to access all the support they need, it’s costly and it deepens inequality. There needs to be No Wrong Door to getting help.
Homeless Network Scotland Head of Partnerships and Consulting Grant Campbell writes about the need to explore how we can join up services to ensure people facing such challenges get the support they need more easily.
All the way through my career I’ve had the privilege of working alongside some brilliant people. At Homework Network Scotland that also extends to those beyond our organisation and to the many partners and collaborators we work alongside. I’m fortunate enough to be connected in with people and organisations doing amazing things in what is currently an increasingly difficult context.
Many people acknowledge that most, if not all of our statutory services are on their knees, and gone are the days of shiny new ‘pilots’ with five years of secure funding to add a new service somewhere. Controversially, I’m glad!
Now I’m not saying that services don’t need money – they do. Our statutory services need significant funding as do our commissioned third sector partners. Yet if all we do is pursue more funding, there will never be enough money to build the system that we need.
How often have we listened to our political leaders talk about ‘record funding’ for their departments? It doesn’t matter – the hole is always bigger than the money we pour into it.
Increasingly in meetings, no matter the agenda, the conversation seems to always drift towards the siloed nature of the work we do in the care sectors. This is the itch that I feel we need to scratch.
Many of us know it, but we all just play along with how we’ve always done things. We fight our corner, compete for our budgets and argue for additional funding for X at the cost of Y.
I’ve yet to meet anyone who disagrees with this, but who’s prepared to take a different approach if you’re the only one? That’s why we need to go together.
As the old proverb goes, if you want to travel fast, go alone, if you want to travel far, go together. I’m encouraged by this, not least because this journey certainly doesn’t feel fast from my perspective.
Homeless Network Scotland has been steadily working with partners across Scotland towards this different approach… towards No Wrong Door.
Together we’re not only testing change, bending rules (might have broken some…sorry) but we’re determined to learn from failing fast, learn from our mistakes, fixing them and move forward.
The ambition is not only to see significant change in the few areas that we’re working in, but also to build a framework from our learning which shapes decision making across Scotland for the future. We imagine an established No Wrong Door Approach Framework which informs funders, commissioners, service delivery, law makers, and many more.
To this end, we’ve established a National Learning Set, which meets again in the new year. Using the Human Learning Systems approach we’re bravely curious about what works and what doesn’t. Learning wht it will take to break down barriers between siloes and creating paths through the maze for others to follow.
In our current context, this isn’t the time for defeatism. I’m not advocating a naïve ‘talking it up’ approach, pretending all is well. Rather, we need to resist the temptation to fold inwards and extend out to others. We not only need to recognise the connection between poverty, education, housing, mental health, community justice, addiction and health, we need to plan, fund and deliver services that address these issues together.
All in for Change is a team of people with personal and frontline experience of homelessness who work to influence change in the way we address and resolve homelessness in Scotland. The Team first met in December 2019 to help close the gap between policy and action on the ground – to act as a bridge between the Scottish Government and people who access and provide support.
Since forming – and despite hurdles like the Covid-19 pandemic and the housing emergency – the Change Team has stayed passionate about pushing for change and ensuring that lived experience expertise is integral to policy making and culture change.
The Team is represented on the Homelessness Prevention Strategy Group (HPSG) and other government working groups, and contributed to the Ending Homelessness Together Plan. All in for Change has influenced policy around rapid rehousing and temporary accommodation, given evidence to the Scottish Parliament and played a major role in developing the Ask and Act prevention duties in the Housing Bill now going through parliament.
Through national roadshows, the Team gathers evidence of what is working for people experiencing homelessness and the workers who support them – and what could be better. The Team has set out 4 New Directions to end homelessness in Scotland and measures progress towards these goals.
To celebrate 5 years of All in for Change, Homeless Network Scotland’s Michelle Major and Change Leads Shea Moran and David Pentland – who have been there from the start – reflect on the value of the Team’s work and how it has grown to meet the challenging conditions we face.
Michelle: Thinking back to the first Change Team retreat in December 2019, none of us could have known the challenges ahead of us. We were filled with optimism, motivated by a new plan to end homelessness in Scotland.
We were ready to contribute to decision-making by ensuring the voices and realities of homelessness across our communities were represented and heard by those with power to make change.
Within just a few months, the world as we knew it changed, with the Covid pandemic and lockdown. The way we responded to homelessness, and to rough sleeping particularly, was unrecognisable compared to the “business as usual” approach we were used to.
Facilitating the team throughout this time was a challenge and also an inspiration – the speed people were able to adapt, and how quickly we could understand how the ever-changing landscape was impacting people experiencing homelessness showcased the true value of All in for Change – a mechanism to tap into what really matters to people and what really works in services supporting people.
While that feels like a lifetime ago, I believe that experience was formative for all of us, All in for Change included. It set the tone and showed us all what we are capable of.
Since then, the grit and personality of the Change Team has grown and evolved, and membership has naturally changed with time too.
But we’ve never lost the magic of the team, the ability to speak truth to power, to be cooperative and challenging at the same time, to always tell it like it is.
Undoubtedly that’s down to the brilliant people who have chosen to join us, to dedicate their personal time or professional time to the team, to making things better and ultimately to playing a part in ending homelessness in Scotland.
I truly feel that facilitating the Change Team is a privilege – personally it’s the first time I had the opportunity to get involved in something in its development stage and watch it grow into a vibrant team.
Meeting the team each month at our Change Team retreats is always the best day of the month, where we are challenged to investigate the gaps in policy implementation, to learn, to prioritise and to influence at a national level.
And going into our fifth year, we are ready to level up – our national roadshow where we record progress towards the Ending Homelessness Together action plan in 2025 will be stronger than ever with a peer research programme supporting it.
We are ready to create solid evidence about what works and what matters to people experiencing homelessness across Scotland, and to work with our partners to make sure that evidence is able to influence the changes we all want to see – a fairer society where homelessness is not business as usual, and is responded to like the emergency it truly is.
Shea: Mad to believe that the Change Team is five! It’s amazing to see how far the Change Team has come, how much we’ve accomplished in that time, and how far our reach has grown since that first meeting.
I never imagined that a group of frontline workers and folks with lived experience would have so much influence and respect within the sector.
Although I probably should have expected it when you’ve got someone like me helping out
I’m still in the group because I think it serves as a great template for how engagement with lived experience and frontline workers should be done.
Everyone in the group is equal, people feel comfortable enough to express their opinions and know that those views will be respected or that they can receive constructive feedback or criticism!
David: I have been involved in All in for Change since December 2019. I had no real concept of the inner workings of our Scottish Government prior to joining the team. I have learned so much about policy and legislation as a result of my involvement.
Some of the high points in my involvement include being part of the Prevention Commission where we came up with the concept of ‘Ask and Act’ as well as other homelessness prevention duties.
The roadshows were also a real privilege to attend and facilitate. Meeting frontline workers and people experiencing homelessness from across the country was a real eye-opener and really embedded some of the overarching priorities that the team had to highlight.
And they highlighted the outstanding achievements of some local authorities where despite obvious challenges, they were doing their utmost to make individual experiences of homelessness the best they could be given the circumstances.
Lastly but most importantly, we couldn’t do what we do without the facilitation of Homeless Network Scotland and the large input we get from the Scottish Government.
Mhairi Snowden, Head of Policy and Programmes, Homeless Network Scotland
It is vital that we keep the housing rights we have, and that the Scottish Government and councils work together to make them a reality. This is the important message of a letter from Everyone Home, a collective of almost 40 3rd sector, lived experience and academic organisations, to the Cabinet Secretary this week. As a group of people who work every day to end homelessness for people across Scotland, this Collective is clear that we need to go forwards, not backwards, on the right to a home.
The Housing Emergency is not, and never can be, an excuse or cover to water down people’s rights. This is because the right to a safe home is not something just for times that are easy. It is exactly when times are tough, when councils need to decide between one priority or another, that rights come into their own.
Rights in law are a way of identifying – and even justifying – the tough choices that need to be made and setting priorities that focus on getting the fundamentals right. They are a way of ensuring that in the midst of many clamouring resource demands, people whose voices are less loud don’t just get forgotten or ignored.
Our right to a safe home is not just for some people, in some places, or with certain circumstances. Instead, these rights are for everyone. They are about all of us being treated with dignity and value.
And when something is your right – not just best practice or kindness or good luck or you happened to ask on a good day – it gives you dignity and a voice in the midst of navigating difficult life circumstances in a complex housing system.
Yet the reality is that over the last year, councils have openly admitted breaching their duties to realise these rights over 7,000 times. There is systemic failure, says the Scottish Housing Regulator. What’s more, the Scottish Human Rights Commission are clear that the failure to provide safe shelter is a breach of fundamental human rights obligations.
The Scottish Government’s reputation on human rights is hanging in the balance after their broken promise to introduce a Scottish Human Rights Bill earlier this year. They have a job of work to do to convince people that what they say about wanting to be rights-based is what they actually do.
Ministers now need to urgently reassure people who are homeless, and the sector, that regression on housing rights is not ever on the cards on their watch.
Instead, Scottish Government and local authorities need to get round the table to find innovative and effective ways to consistently meet their statutory duties. Scotland has some of the strongest rights for people facing homelessness in Europe – something we can be proud of and should cherish. Now we are asking our policy makers to prioritise making these rights a reality.
The Scottish Government today took important steps towards addressing the homelessness and housing crisis by promising to ramp up delivery of social and affordable homes with £768million of investment next year and £4million to fund homelessness prevention pilot schemes.
Homeless Network Scotland welcomes these commitments, which are crucial to set the foundation to improve things for people and communities now and in the long-term.
With more resources committed to homelessness and housing, we can continue to safeguard the strong legal rights to housing we all have – rights which are the pillars of those systems. Now is the time for councils to use the increased funds coming their way to prioritise resource to make these homelessness rights a reality again.
Money to boost homelessness prevention will help the government, local authorities, housing associations and the third sector to put meat on the bones of prevention proposals in the Housing Bill currently going through parliament.
This funding must be used to demonstrate how the Bill’s new Ask and Act duties, which will require a wider range of public bodies to share responsibility for preventing homelessness, will work in reality. The £4million should also be used to scale up successful prevention practice already taking place in parts of the country. Everyone benefits when homelessness is reduced.
Restoring investment in affordable housing is also welcome, particularly as the £768million announced includes a significant rise in capital spending on the homes we need.
We applaud the political leadership behind this action, at a time of fierce and justified competition for spending – this is the right move to benefit people and communities in the long term. Last year’s £200million cut was the wrong decision and only stored up problems for the future. There is no way to ending homelessness that doesn’t involve building sufficient social housing for people.
This time last year our sector and the people we support were dealt a severe blow in the Budget. Since then, the housing emergency has deepened and homelessness in all its forms including rough sleeping has continued to rise.
The promise of progress offered by the Scottish Government in this Budget is welcome but represents just the start of the much bigger investment in housing and homelessness that is needed to transform Scotland into a place where everyone has a home.
Members of the Scottish Parliament are voting on the Housing Bill as it comes to the end of Stage One, where the general principles of the legislation are debated and then voted on.Homeless Network Scotland is one of 23 organisations supporting this briefing produced by Crisis Scotland ahead of the debate to show why MSPs must back this legislation for the good of everyone in Scotland.
Context: Prevention measures
Part 5 of the Housing Bill contains homelessness prevention measures which will help end the housing emergency in Scotland.
The best way to end homelessness is to prevent it from happening in the first place. The measures in Part 5 of the Housing Bill will make a significant impact on the ability to prevent homelessness in Scotland, stemming the flow of people into the system and thereby reducing pressure on homelessness services. Most importantly it will preventthe trauma, indignity and stigma of homelessness for individuals affected.
Part 5 is the result of many years of work and consultation by independent expert groups and was strongly supported by respondents to the Government / COSLA consultation in 2021. It intersects with approaches to tackling poverty, reducing pressure on acute NHS services, and assistance for individuals with complex support needs.
We strongly urge all MSPs to show support for the prevention principles of the Housing (Scotland) Bill at the Stage 1 debate and show that there is cross party support for the homeless prevention measures contained within it. It is important to recognise positive work that has led us to this point.
We recognise that there are sections of Part 5 of the Bill that could be improved, and we will be working with MSPs across all parties, and with Scottish Government, at Stage 2 and beyond to do this, including gaining further clarity on the Government’s intentions for implementation.
Context: Expert development and consultation on preventing homelessness
Stable housing is one of the most fundamental of human needs. The Housing Bill contains vital measures to prevent homelessness and stabilise people’s housing situations (Part 5). These measures are the result of many years of work and consultation through a number of independent expert working groups, going back to the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group in 2017-2018, and the Homeless Prevention Review Group between 2019-2021. This group conducted detailed stakeholder engagement with over 100 organisations, and was supported by the Prevention Commission, a group of people with lived and frontline experience of homelessness, to develop the proposals for homelessness prevention duties.
Scottish Government and COSLA consulted on these proposals in 2021, and they received widespread support for the package of proposals, which were described as comprehensive, transformational and welcome. Supporters recognised the importance of early intervention and enabling a joined-up approach to prevention. Respondents believed the proposals would strengthen existing practice, improve consistency, positively impact those at greater risk of homelessness, and noted the potential long-term savings or benefits to services which could result from a focus on prevention.” (p3)
Respondents to the consultation were described as “individuals and stakeholders with detailed knowledge”, and on average 90% agreed with the questions posed in the consultation, including 87% supporting an extended homelessness prevention duty, and 93% supporting greater responsibilities on other public bodies to act to prevent homelessness.
Currently the legal homelessness framework focuses on acting when a homelessness crisis takes place. The SPICE briefing on the Bill highlights the imbalance between the statutory homelessness support and the non-statutory homelessness prevention approaches, which sometimes disincentivises an early intervention approach. Other research demonstrates how statutory homelessness services often “carry the can” for failures to intervene by other services, particularly for people experiencing severe and multiple disadvantages.
Work over the past seven years demonstrates that stronger duties on local authorities and other public bodies to prevent homelessness are needed to clarify the law, incentivise an earlier intervention approach and ensure bodies co-operate so that people don’t reach crisis point in their housing.
Moreover, the measures in the Bill echo successful legal provisions in Wales (2014) and England (2018) to prevent homelessness and develop them further by widening the scope beyond homelessness services to advance us towards a world-leading approach to joining up public services to improve people’s housing stability. Action is now being taken in Wales to go further on prevention and legislate for similar duties as outlined in Part 5 of the Housing (Scotland) Bill.
If implemented effectively, we believe these provisions will reduce the number of households who become homeless, as well as the associated costs of trauma and indignity to individuals affected. The measures will also help tackle poverty, reduce housing-related health problems, demand for acute NHS support, and reoffending rates, and they will allow for more effective holistic support for people with multiple needs and victim-survivors of domestic abuse.
Committee scrutiny of the measures in Part 5 of the Bill
The Social Justice and Social Security Committee scrutinised this part of the legislation and expressed its support for the fundamental aims of Part 5 of the Bill. The Committee highlight “broad support for the Bill’s homelessness prevention provisions amongst the witnesses the Committee took evidence from”, while also noting concerns about how these will be operationalised.
The Committee wrote “if the Bill is implemented, and it works as envisaged, this should help to alleviate some of the pressure currently being experienced in the homelessness system, including the high number of children living in temporary accommodation… the legislation could help embed… best practice” (p9)
We urge MSPs to support the Bill at this stage so that these important provisions can move forward for further scrutiny at Stage 2 of the parliamentary process.
Next steps
Should the Bill pass Stage 1, we will be working with MSPs and the Scottish Government at Stage 2 to ensure that the provisions in the Bill are as ambitious and effective as possible.
Areas we believe may need further attention at Stage 2 include:
A clearer definition of ‘threatened with homelessness’ relating to the ending of tenancies and leaving institutions (while not restricting the overall definition)
Ensure prevention support is available to people at risk of homelessness, no matter the reason (intentionality)
Ensure the Local Authority Housing Options offer is suitable for the household’s needs so that it effectively minimises future risk of homelessness
Clarify what the duty of ‘reasonable steps’ that Local Authorities must take to prevent homelessness entails, including when this duty ends – so people do not get trapped in an endless cycle of ‘help’ that isn’t working
More detail on the needs assessment process and resulting support plan produced – who is responsible for conducting this and how will the information be made available -whether a Personal Support Plan should be included in legislation.
Clarify what the Act duty on different relevant bodies entails, including co-ordination of support
Ensure there is a right to review the various stages of support, to ensure accountability and access to meaningful help.
Extend the definition of relevant bodies to include other bodies such as Social Security Scotland and explore what can be done with reserved bodies. Provide clarity and commitments on commencement timescales and implementation plans, including associated costs and expected savings.
Many of the above are in line with the areas identified by the Social Justice and Social Security Committee in their report on Part 5 of the Bill.
Alongside the passage of the Bill, we are working with Scottish Government, local authorities and other partners to begin to develop thinking on what implementation plans should consist of, especially in relation to what a ‘phase approach’ to delivery could mean. There is much good practice already happening around Scotland, as demonstrated in the 75 ways to prevent homelessness publication. We recommend existing best practice is scaled up, alongside the introduction of a Test-and-Learn Initiative to explore aspects of the proposed legislation that are unknown. Some of the findings could be embedded into regulation at a future date, including details of what Act would mean for different public bodies.
We are calling for a funding commitment in the upcoming Budget, to facilitate the scaling up of prevention best practice across Scotland, and to fund a Test and Learn Initiative for answering unknown aspects of the proposed legislation. Both programmes will help pave the way for the introduction of the legislation, but they will also make a positive impact to the national housing emergency by stemming the flow of people into the existing system.
Furthermore, we recommend the establishment of a Prevention Delivery Unit, tasked with co-ordinating work across government to successfully deliver the prevention legislation, and more broadly transition the existing homeless system to one that is designed around prevention and early action.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.AcceptRejectPrivacy policy
You can revoke your consent any time using the revoke consent button.Revoke cookies
