Post updated 1 October 2024
In March 2024, just over 16,000 households lived in temporary accommodation, including over 10,000 children. The number has increased and is at the highest since statistics began in 2002. This despite policies aimed at improving homelessness prevention and a move to ‘rapid rehousing’ for homeless people.
This increase is partly a driver for the Scottish Government and some local councils to declare a housing emergency.
This blog looks at:
- why the use of temporary accommodation has increased
- councils’ duties to provide temporary accommodation to homeless people
- what councils and the Scottish Government are doing to reduce its use
What is the scale of the use of temporary accommodation?
Scottish Government statistics provide snapshot figures of the number of households in temporary accommodation. At 31 March 2024, 16,330 households lived in temporary accommodation, an increase of 9% from the previous year and an increase of 49% since September 2019, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Increasing numbers of children are also living in temporary accommodation. At 31 March 2024, 10,110 children lived in temporary accommodation, an increase of 10% from the previous year and 49% since March 2019 (see chart below).
The time people spend living in temporary accommodation has also increased. For cases closed in 2023-24, the average stay was 226 days, similar to the previous year but just over a fifth longer than in 2019-20.
Larger households are more likely to have lived in temporary accommodation for more than a year.
While these are Scotland-wide average figures, the picture and pressures vary among councils. There are particular pressures in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
For example, in 2023-24 Glasgow had the highest net increase in homeless households entering temporary accommodation, accounting for almost one third of Scotland’s total.
Households stay the longest in temporary accommodation in Edinburgh with an average of 507 days, compared to Perth and Kinross with the lowest average stay of 74 days.
When do councils need to provide temporary accommodation?
Councils in Scotland have legal duties towards homeless people and those at risk of homelessness.
Councils should provide temporary accommodation to people when:
- someone is awaiting a decision on their homelessness assessment, if the council has reason to believe that they are homeless and they have nowhere else to stay
- someone is found to be ‘intentionally’ homeless, while they seek advice and assistance to help source and find other accommodation (councils don’t have to consider whether someone is intentionally homeless)
- the council has a duty to find the homeless person settled housing, but they need to wait until a suitable home is found.
The Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) has found that not all councils always met their statutory duties to provide temporary accommodation. Advice agencies sometimes find examples of ‘gatekeeping’ i.e. people who are homeless are told by councils to try other housing alternatives before applying as homeless. This is not consistent with statutory requirements.
Anyone in this position might find it helpful to contact an advice agency such as Shelter Scotland.
What type of temporary accommodation is used?
Each council decides their own approach to providing temporary accommodation in their areas.
Most commonly, councils use their own council stock, either furnished or unfurnished, as temporary accommodation. Councils also have arrangements with local housing associations to use some of their homes as temporary accommodation. Other types of accommodation could include refuges, hostels and Bed and Breakfast accommodation.
Legislation restricts the use of ‘unsuitable’ temporary accommodation for seven days unless in exceptional circumstances. The definition of unsuitable accommodation would include, for example, B&B type accommodation. There’s also advisory guidance on the standards that temporary accommodation should meet and the Scottish Government is considering whether, how and when temporary accommodation standards can be made legally enforceable
Why has the use of temporary accommodation increased?
Partly, the increased use of temporary accommodation may be related to the legacy of the restrictions imposed, especially lockdowns, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Councils faced challenges which limited their ability to move households into permanent accommodation – challenges included difficulties carrying out necessary repairs, conducting viewings and a lower level of lets.
In its thematic review on homelessness published in February 2023, the Scottish Housing Regulator said that demand for temporary and permanent accommodation comes from specific external factors including:
- availability and/or affordability of alternative housing options
- the performance of the broader economy / the labour market
- levels of immigration and refugee arrivals, particularly to Scotland’s biggest cities and most dynamic centres of economic activity, such as Glasgow and Edinburgh.
It’s also related, in some areas, to councils not having a sufficient supply of suitable permanent homes.
The SHR highlighted that some councils did not always comply with their statutory duties and there were increasing breaches of statutory duties around the provision of temporary accommodation. And for some councils there was an emerging risk of ‘systemic failure’.
In its update to the report, published in December 2023, the SHR concluded that increasing homelessness, in addition to a reduced turnover of social lets available, Registered Social Landlords reducing their new build programme, and potential significant additional demand for homelessness services resulting from the Home Office’s initiative on streamlining asylum processing had meant that:
…the demands on some councils now exceed their capacity to respond and in others it soon will; given this, we are of the view that there is systemic failure in the services provided to people who are homeless by some councils and that there is a heightened risk in other councils.
The SHR has stated that the City of Edinburgh Council and Glasgow City Council are impacted by systemic failure in the delivery of their services to homeless people, particularly in providing temporary accommodation. The SHR has updated its engagement plan for these councils.
What are councils and the Scottish Government doing to reduce the use of temporary accommodation?
It set up a “Temporary Accommodation Task and Finish Group”, chaired by Shelter Scotland and the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers, to develop an action plan to reduce the numbers of people in temporary accommodation and the length of time that they spent there.
The Task Group’s report, published on 31 March 2023, made fifteen recommendations grouped under three priorities:
- Priority 1: New supply of social homes means people experiencing homelessness will be able to move rapidly into a permanent home
- Priority 2: Maximal use of existing housing stock increases the options for people to move to a permanent home
- Priority 3: Providing the support people need to move on.
The Scottish Government’s response to the Task Force’s recommendations was published on 19 July 2023. It stated that it “will prioritise action in response to the recommendations that will have the greatest impact to reduce the number of households in temporary accommodation by 2026”.
Plans were set out to continue to invest in affordable homes, including resources to allow social landlords to acquire properties. £60 million was specifically made available for this purpose in 2023-24 with a further £40 million in 2024-25 and 2025-26.
There’s also a commitment to work with social landlords to deliver a new programme of stock management. The Scottish Government will support local authorities and Registered Social Landlords with a range of approaches to local housing stock management, including large scale flipping of tenancies, effective void management and greater allocations of social homes to homeless households.
Funding of £2 million was made available to those councils with the greatest and sustained pressures on temporary accommodation to make use of existing housing stock.
The Scottish Government has also continued to press the UK Government for funding to local authorities to ensure that newly recognised refugees are supported during the asylum move-on period, without creating unmanageable pressures on housing and homelessness services over a short space of time.
In the context of the current national housing emergency, and locally declared housing emergencies in twelve council areas, stakeholder groups have been critical of the Scottish Government’s response, arguing, for example, for greater investment in affordable housing supply and more collaborative working.
Longer term, there is continuing focus on the prevention of homelessness. The Housing (Scotland) Bill, currently at the first stage of its parliamentary process, proposes new homelessness prevention duties based on the work carried out by the Scotland Homelessness Prevention Review Group.
Kate Berry
Senior Researcher (Housing)