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GLASGOW CITY COUNCIL HOMELESSNESS INSPECTION REPORT

The Scottish Housing Regulator today published its inspection report on Glasgow City Council’s homelessness service. It awarded the council a “fair” rating for services to homeless people.

The purpose of inspection is to provide an independent external assessment of the effectiveness of housing service delivery, and make recommendations to help improvement.

Glasgow City Council receives more homelessness applications than any other local authority in Scotland. Also, Glasgow’s homelessness is disproportionate to the size of its population: 17% of all Scottish homelessness applications are made in Glasgow which has 11% of the population.

Michael Cameron, Head of Inspection at the Scottish Housing Regulator, said:

“Our inspectors found that Glasgow City Council has a number of strengths in the delivery of its service. It provides 24 hour direct access to its homelessness service, has recognised the importance of prevention in meeting its strategic objectives and reports a significant reduction in the level of repeat homelessness. It works well with partners to offer a wide range of accommodation and services tailored to specific needs and it successfully completed its hostel closure programme.

The Council is aware that it is failing to meet its statutory duties by not always providing emergency or temporary accommodation when people need it, it is poor at assessing homelessness applications and it has weaknesses in the way it lets and manages its temporary accommodation”.

Councillor Archie Graham, Executive Member for Social Care Services, said:

“We welcome the publication of the Scottish Housing Regulator’s report on our homelessness service. I am particularly pleased our success in closing three large scale male hostels and the opening of new services has been acknowledged. There are a number of challenges still ahead but I am confident we can continue to improve our homelessness services. I would like to thank the inspectors for their work in assessing our service. Our own staff also deserve mention for their continued commitment to providing support to some of Glasgow’s most vulnerable citizens”.

David Crawford, Executive Director for Social Work Services, said:

“This is a fair assessment of our service which compares favourably with others in Scotland. The report acknowledges the challenges faced by our service while handling almost one fifth of all homelessness applications in Scotland. We are pleased the housing regulator has confidence in our ability to make the improvements identified in the report. An improvement plan will be finalised shortly and we will continue to work with our partners to deliver the changes that will bring further progress to Glasgow’s homelessness service”.

NOTES TO NEWS EDITORS

1. Inspectors gave the following grade:

Glasgow City Council has achieved a C grade for services to homeless people. This is a fair performance.

2. Full details of the Glasgow City Council inspection report can be found on the Scottish Housing Regulator website at www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk

3. The Scottish Housing Regulator came into operation on 1 April 2008. It operates the powers and duties of the regulation of social housing which are set out in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001. The Scottish Housing Regulator is an arm’s length executive agency of the Scottish Government. It has operational independence, while being accountable to Scottish Ministers and through them to the Scottish Parliament for the standard of its work.