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Equal Opportunities Committee 26 November 2015

26 Nov 2015 · S4 · Equal Opportunities Committee

Item of business

“Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland” (Scottish Housing Regulator Report)

Christine MacLeod Watch on SPTV

Thank you, convener, for the invitation to give evidence to the committee about our thematic inquiry into Gypsy Travellers in Scotland. Our sole objective as the Scottish Housing Regulator is to safeguard and promote the interests of tenants and others who use social landlords’ housing services. This was the Scottish Housing Regulator’s first thematic inquiry into Gypsy Travellers in Scotland. We published our major report earlier this month and presented our findings and recommendations at a meeting of the Traveller Site Managers Association at the official Gypsy Traveller site at Bridgend in Stirling. Our report on Gypsy Travellers in Scotland looks at social landlords’ management and maintenance of their official sites and how they are applying the Scottish Government’s Scottish social housing charter. We assessed the performance of the 20 social landlords in Scotland, who provide 29 official sites for Gypsy Travellers. We spoke directly to Gypsy Travellers to hear about their experiences, as well as carrying out survey work with social landlords and analysing national performance information. We also considered evidence from other sources such as this committee’s inquiry into where Gypsy Travellers live. We recognise that Gypsy Travellers are hard to reach, so we were delighted that 49 Gypsy Travellers across five official sites participated in our thematic inquiry. That gave us important and valuable access to the individual experiences of Gypsy Travellers who use social landlords’ services. We found that social landlords do not always apply relevant charter standards to their Gypsy Traveller services and sites, and that Gypsy Travellers in Scotland are not always receiving the standard of service that they should receive from their social landlord. We also found that some landlords are listening to Gypsy Travellers and are considering their particular needs, and our report gives examples of positive practice that landlords told us about. We included recommendations for social landlords that are aimed at improving the quality and consistency of the services that are provided to Gypsy Traveller site residents throughout the country. Principally, we recommended that social landlords apply all relevant charter standards and outcomes to residents of official Gypsy Traveller sites. We recognise that the Scottish Government has recently published helpful guidance that sets out new minimum standards for official sites as well as core rights and responsibilities, and we think that those new site standards and responsibilities have the potential to make a real difference in improving services across Scotland. We called for all social landlords with official sites to act on our recommendations and to provide an equal standard of service to both Gypsy Travellers and social housing tenants. We will provide feedback about our findings and recommendations to the Gypsy Travellers who took part in our inquiry. We intend to publish a version of our findings and recommendations for Gypsy Travellers, and we expect landlords to promote that information at their sites. We will also ask Gypsy Travellers about how we can best promote it among their community. We will use the findings of our inquiry to determine whether there is a need for us to engage further with any individual social landlords specifically in relation to the charter standards and the services that are provided at their sites. We will also be keen to work with others and to contribute to their role in promoting implementation of the new standards. Having completed our thematic inquiry, we now have an evidence base against which to measure future performance. We will build on that next year, through assessing landlords’ annual returns on the charter, and we will be looking for evidence of improvement.

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Equal Opportunities Committee 26 November 2015

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