Hansard

Let me make one observation. We had a debate in the chamber on 16 September, during which I announced that we were increasing the previous allocation of £14 million to £20 million, and that I would come back to the chamber to explain how that money would be spent. That is what I am doing now; I did not move one iota beyond that in saying to the press that that was what we were doing today.

There are a number of items in my statement— mindful of the guidance that we received last week—that will be news to the chamber. Of course, the Opposition has had pre-access to the statement and is therefore aware of its contents. I will now move on to my statement.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to bring to the Parliament my proposals for the next phase of the rough sleepers initiative. Since 1997, we have directed £16 million to projects that address the problems of those who live on the streets, under bridges and in disused buildings in the cities and villages of Scotland. We targeted the first tranche of money at those whom we knew, or thought we knew, were sleeping rough. It was important to get the first projects started because that would bring people in from the cold.

Many of the early projects were about outreach and street workers, but from the outset we knew that we needed to understand the issues better and to have work carried out at grass-roots level, so we set up a research project to evaluate what we were doing and to inform us on how the initiative might be taken forward. That was the inheritance that my ministerial colleagues and I in the communities team inherited in May: £16 million already allocated and new research just about to arrive.

It was on that basis that we chose to highlight in the programme for government that our pledge above all others was that by 2003 no one should have to sleep rough in Scotland. As everyone working in the field acknowledges, that is an ambitious goal and one with which we are proud to associate ourselves. Today, I am announcing the next phase in making that pledge a reality. I am inviting local authorities and their partners to bring forward proposals to spend a further £20 million in the next two years.

Crucially, the evaluation report that we are publishing today gives us the evidence to target the new investment at the heart of the problem. First and foremost, the evaluation tells us that many more people across Scotland than had previously been estimated have had the experience of sleeping rough. As many as 8,000 to 11,000 people in Scotland sleep rough during a year. They are not necessarily people who have no accommodation; they are people whose access to accommodation is so precarious that at times it is necessary for them to sleep in the open. In many cases, they will be the same people who

stay for brief periods in hostels, or in other forms of temporary accommodation provided by local authorities, voluntary organisations, friends and family.

Overwhelmingly, such people have been connected with the housing, social work or health services at some time. What the research tells us is that they slip through the net. Whatever solutions are available to them are not enough or are not sufficiently co-ordinated to give them the help they desperately need.

As is true of us all, rough sleepers have a complex cocktail of personal circumstances, although they are invariably more complex for rough sleepers than for most of us. That complex cocktail of personal circumstances goes well beyond housing. One in three rough sleepers surveyed had alcohol problems, one in three had a drug problem, one in four had a physical health problem and one in five had a mental health problem.

The message is that Scotland's rough sleepers need support to address their health needs, addiction issues and accommodation problems. Unless we can offer help on all those big issues— health, housing and addiction—the greatest risk is that people will quickly find themselves sleeping on the streets again.

The research shows how comprehensively we fail those for whom the state purports to care. One in four rough sleepers has been in local authority care, four in 10 have done time in prison, more than one in 10 have been in long-term care in hospitals and more than one in 10 have been in the armed forces. Quite simply, we have comprehensively failed those people as they have moved from our care into independent living.

The overriding message to us, Scotland's new legislators willing and anxious to solve the crisis of rough sleeping, is simple: provide the right support at the right time. That means support not just in a time of crisis, when the personal, social and financial costs are high, but Scottish support services available at the point where they are most needed, before the street becomes the only option. Above all, it means vital services in hostels and day centres not a bus ride across the city and not just during office hours. It means a package of support that addresses the whole person— sustained for as long as it is needed—because the cost of failing is a cost that we all bear.

Making that happen will depend on teamwork. I am delighted that the Minister for Health and Community Care and the Minister for Justice have agreed to involve formally the health and justice departments in the next phase of the rough sleepers initiative. We will examine the co-ordination of health and social work services with the provision of accommodation, the provision of advice and support for ex-offenders on their release from prison, the availability of alcohol and drugs detoxification and rehabilitation services for homeless and roofless people. We will consider how best to ensure that rough sleepers receive accessible health care.

In the guidelines I will issue today, local authorities are being invited to develop proposals that will make those connections on the ground. I have increased the budget by 40 per cent—to £20 million—to help them do that. A sum of £2 million will go to fund projects that address the full range of rough sleepers' needs and provide integrated, supported accommodation with some support services on site.

I am targeting authorities that have not yet developed strategies for addressing the problems of rooflessness in their area. I am making available £2 million to ensure that rough sleeping is tackled throughout Scotland.

We need to intervene earlier to ensure that people move out of hostels into homes, rather than from hostels to the street. A sum of £2 million is therefore being made available for effective preventive measures, such as rent deposit schemes, which will reduce the number of people who reach the point of having to sleep rough. The remaining £14 million will be directed towards projects that further develop existing strategies for tackling rough sleeping, some of which will involve continuation funding for projects that were developed in the earlier stages of the initiative.

Both the national evaluation that I have discussed today and the recently published Glasgow evaluation suggest that there is a particular problem with the provision of services for rough sleepers and homeless people in Glasgow. Glasgow has one in eight of the households in Scotland, but one in three homelessness applications come from that city. The Glasgow evaluation study found that 60 per cent of rough sleepers were regular hostel dwellers, that almost half of them had some sort of accommodation ban from hostels in the city, that 65 per cent had held a tenancy that had failed and that 70 per cent had at one time been evicted from their hostel or other accommodation.

Those statistics paint a stark picture of how the present system is failing. It fails to accommodate people and it fails to support and protect people if they are provided with accommodation. I know that many rough sleepers find living on the streets less frightening than staying in some of the hostel accommodation that is available. Too often, the mix of people in hostels exacerbates the problem. The hostels are too large. Some of them house more than 200 people in the most unsuitable accommodation, and little more than a caretaker is

available. Hostels mix young with old, and the vulnerable with those who are most likely to prey on them, and little is offered by way of co-ordinated help and support. That system belongs to the past and we mean to change it.

No one could argue with the conclusion that the problem of rough sleeping is at its most acute in Glasgow. Jackie Baillie, as chair of the homelessness task force, and I have therefore decided that we must make special arrangements to ensure that the scale and nature of the problem in Glasgow are fully addressed.

Today, I am announcing that a high-level team is being set up to review the current efforts to tackle the problems of street homelessness in Glasgow. It will determine what more needs to be done to improve the provision of accommodation— particularly hostel accommodation—and of social and other support for people with complex needs, and it will make recommendations for action. I expect the review to be thorough and fundamental. The team must therefore take the necessary action. That will take time. It will have to form an early view on proposals for rough sleepers initiative funding that are due to be submitted from Glasgow in early January.

One of the issues that I expect the team to consider is the present state of hostels in Glasgow and what should be done to improve them. I am under no illusions. I know that some will need to be replaced, others upgraded and others simply improved. I want the team to advise on how that can best be achieved, considering all the options, including the use of private finance.

The team will report through Jackie Baillie's homelessness task force. It will be chaired by the Scottish Executive, and I am pleased to say that the following experienced people have agreed to take part: Margaret Vass of Glasgow City Council housing department; Rab Murray of Glasgow City Council social work department; Catriona Renfrew of Greater Glasgow Health Board; Ian Robertson of the Hamish Allan Centre; Margaret Taylor of the Glasgow Council for Single Homeless; Liz Nicholson of Shelter Scotland; Mel Young of The Big Issue; Suzanne Fitzpatrick of the University of Glasgow centre for urban studies; and Louise Carlin, the co-ordinator for the rough sleepers initiative in Glasgow.

The Executive is serious about its commitment to end by 2003 the need for anyone to have to sleep rough in Scotland. To make it happen, we are prepared to make the necessary commitment in terms of funding and the additional effort that will be needed and to ensure that the different strands of government are connected. I am confident that through the rough sleepers initiative, through the homelessness task force, through the efforts of the new Glasgow strategy group and through the commitment of colleagues in other departments, long-term solutions can and will be developed. This is about the Parliament working in partnership with people at the sharp end across Scotland to make a difference. We can succeed.