More families staying longer in temporary accommodation in Scotland

Scotland’s Annual Homelessness Statistics publication has been released and, unfortunately, it doesn’t make particularly hopeful reading. From April 2023 to March 2024, the number of applications for homelessness assistance went up by 4% to 40,685. The number of households assessed as homeless rose by 3% to 33,619.  And the number of households living in temporary accommodation increased by 9% to 16,330, including over 15,400 children. An already creaking homelessness system in Scotland is under yet more strain and, as always, we should remember that those who bear the brunt of this are people experiencing the crisis and upheaval of homelessness.

National figures in Scotland mask the great variation among local authorities. About half of local authorities saw their application figures rise, in some cases very sharply like Glasgow with 983 more applications in 2023-24 than in the previous year, a 15% increase. And yet, about half had fewer people making applications. East Ayrshire had around 200 fewer applications in 2023-24, a 19% drop from the previous year. 

Similarly, while temporary accommodation usage has increased nationally by 9%, locally, the figures and trends vary. At the end of March, there were over 3,700 households in TA in Glasgow - an increase of over 500 (16%) from a year earlier. In East Renfrewshire, the number of households in TA has increased by 80% since March 2023 to 176. Other LAs like Aberdeenshire and East Ayrshire have seen a decrease in the number of households in TA by 45% and 31%, respectively. 

The average time spent in temporary accommodation remained fairly stable this year at 226 days, but this has increased from an average of 188 days only four years ago, in 2019-20. Again, this masks huge regional differences - in Edinburgh, households stay in TA for 507 days on average; in Perth & Kinross, it’s 74 days.

Over the past couple of years, the Centre has been working with local authorities across the UK to support them to understand whether their spending on temporary accommodation represents value for money. This work aims to help local authorities achieve better value for money and better outcomes for people. We know that using emergency accommodation like hotels and B&B is poor value for money and, in general, poor quality accommodation. In Scotland, this type of accommodation is considered unsuitable and can’t be used for longer than six days for any households. Unfortunately, because of the increased pressure that local authorities are facing, many across Scotland are needing to rely on hotels and B&Bs more and for longer periods of time. By the end of March, there were 2,675 households staying in temporary B&B accommodation, an increase of over 50% since the year before. Usage of B&B in Glasgow more than doubled in one year to 1,390 households. The length of time spent in B&B is also increasing. The Unsuitable Accommodation Order (UAO), was breached 7,400 times in Scotland in 2023-24, an increase of 41% nationally on the previous year. Indeed, 25 out of 32 local authorities breached the Unsuitable Accommodation Order in 2023-24.

Local authorities have a duty to offer temporary accommodation to all households who make a homelessness application. When this is not done, it’s recorded as a breach of this duty. In 2022-23 the duty to offer temporary accommodation was breached 450 times across Scotland (420 times in Edinburgh alone). In 2023-24, this duty was breached 7,915 times (6,260 times in Glasgow and 1,515 times in Edinburgh).

These numbers are astonishing and upsetting - I keep going back to check that I’ve got them right and I’m sure the statisticians at the Scottish Government did similarly. The Scottish Government and 12 local authorities in Scotland have declared a housing emergency - and looking at these figures, particularly the breaches of statutory duty, I can understand why. 

What matters, though, is how we respond to this emergency. We must turn towards the data and the evidence of what works and develop a response tailored to the issues and to people’s needs. At the Centre for Homelessness Impact, we are working with local authorities and national governments to develop an Ending Homelessness Framework to help focus on what matters most - preventing homelessness whenever possible, and otherwise ensuring that it is rare, brief and non-recurring. Focusing on data and trends in real time means that local areas can develop more targeted and evidence based responses. We also need to continue to build on our evidence base of what works to end homelessness - and we are doing this through the Test and Learn and Systems Wide Evaluation in England. 

In Scotland, the focus is and should be on preventing homelessness. The Centre is supportive of a new Ask and Act duty to prevent homelessness as part of the Housing (Scotland) Bill currently in Stage 1. What we must ensure is that this new duty has the impact it needs to have. There is no use in introducing new duties for local authorities unless they are supported to implement these effectively. If we work together, to develop, plan, evaluate and monitor this new duty, we have the best chance of success.

* Heather McCluskey is Implementation Lead at the Centre for Homelessness Impact

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