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Regulator launches inquiry into Glasgow Council’s homelessness service
The Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) has announced that it is launching an investigation into Glasgow City Council’s service for people who are homeless.
The inquiry will involve the regulator visiting the council directly to test its performance, with a particular focus on how the council discharges its duty to provide people with emergency and temporary accommodation.
In March 2018, the SHR published the report Housing People who are Homeless in Glasgow, which highlighted a range of weaknesses in the council’s performance, including a failure to house people quickly enough.
It found the council was not referring enough homeless people to housing associations and said the council’s target for the number of homes it needed to secure was too low, meaning many of the city’s homeless population had to wait a long time in temporary accommodation.
Since publishing the report, the SHR has been monitoring Glasgow’s process but said that the council continues to fail to meet its duties to provide temporary accommodation to a “significant number of people”. It also said homeless people in temporary accommodation are still waiting a “significant time” for settled accommodation.
The regulator said Glasgow did not provide it with an annual assurance statement, which is required under the SHR’s new regulatory framework, by the deadline.
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In October, all Scottish social landlords had to submit their first-ever annual assurance statements to the SHR, to assure the regulator their organisation is compliant with regulatory standards or disclose any areas where it needs to improve.
The SHR’s inquiry comes as Shelter Scotland prepares to take Glasgow City Council to court, for what it claims is the council’s “unlawful practice of denying homeless people temporary accommodation”.
Susanne Millar, interim chief officer of the Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership, said: “The significant problems Glasgow faces in dealing with homelessness are well documented and we have been working with the regulator on these since 2016.
“Glasgow is feeling the effects of welfare reform particularly acutely and the number of individuals affected by poor mental health or drug addiction is far greater than any other part of the country.
“We have plans in place to quickly rehouse people who are homeless and to help people to manage to stay in their homes, but there is still some way to go in meeting our statutory obligations and ultimately ending homelessness in the city.
“I welcome the SHR’s intervention. I am confident we can demonstrate that we are moving in the right direction, help them to understand the massive scale of the problems Glasgow is dealing with and work with them on future improvements to how we help people who are homeless.”
Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland, said: “Since we launched our legal action in August, thousands of people have joined our movement to stand up for justice for the homeless people Glasgow is failing.
“We welcome any move which is designed to guarantee that homeless people in Glasgow receive the homeless services and emergency accommodation to which they have a legal right.
“Our concerns about Glasgow City Council’s failures are wide-ranging – from cuts to drug treatment beds, cuts to supported accommodation and an over-reliance on insufficient winter shelters.
“At a time when 45 homeless people died last year, Glasgow needs better.”
