Homeless Project Scotland

– in the Scottish Parliament at on 1 December 2022.

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Photo of Jackie Baillie Jackie Baillie Labour

2. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what work it has undertaken to help Homeless Project Scotland find premises in Glasgow. (S6O-01629)

Photo of Shona Robison Shona Robison Scottish National Party

Scottish Government officials maintain regular contact with Homeless Project Scotland and Glasgow City Council. We have encouraged the charity to continue to engage with the council and to explore accommodation options. The council is best placed to support the charity with identifying suitable premises. I understand that it offered properties to Homeless Project Scotland and they were declined, so the council continues to explore potential sites. However, I am aware that, to date, there is a limited number of available properties that meet the charity’s specific requirements. I would encourage both to keep discussing.

Photo of Jackie Baillie Jackie Baillie Labour

The cabinet secretary will remember that, in April this year, the First Minister said:

“I am happy to engage with the Homeless Project to see whether there is more that we, as a Government, can do to help it find a building.”—[

Official Report

, 21 April 2022; c 19.]

Seven months on, winter is well and truly here, and, with the numbers of homeless people and the use of the soup kitchen increasing due to the cost of living crisis, nothing has really changed.

I welcome the engagement—of course, I do—but can the cabinet secretary tell me why there has been little progress to date and what she can do to help to secure premises for this very worthwhile project?

Photo of Shona Robison Shona Robison Scottish National Party

First, I say to Jackie Baillie that we, too, are concerned about people queuing up in the street for food, particularly in the winter. We all want the outcome of appropriate premises being found.

Jackie Baillie will also understand that it is not for the Scottish Government to find and procure a building; that is for Glasgow City Council. What we can do, though, is encourage both parties to continue to discuss. Jackie Baillie will be aware of some of the issues around the properties that were offered; however, we need to see some solutions here. Glasgow City Council is best placed to find the properties that could meet Homeless Project Scotland’s needs, but there will need to be

discussion, dialogue and perhaps compromise from both parties.

Photo of Miles Briggs Miles Briggs Conservative

In its “Scottish Housing Emergency Action Plan”, Shelter Scotland calls on the Scottish Government to

“Conduct an audit of all homelessness funding—national and local—to identify the true levels of investment and to identify shortfalls”, which often lead to the situations such as the one that Jackie Baillie has outlined. Will the Scottish Government undertake to do that?

Photo of Shona Robison Shona Robison Scottish National Party

We will always keep funding under review. We are in the middle of our budget process, as Miles Briggs will be aware. If he wants to bring forward some proposals around funding, of course, we will consider those.

In addition to the resourcing that local government gets through its funding, we provide funding through the £100 million ending homelessness together fund. Some of that is focused on programmes such as housing first, which has had a lot of success in ensuring that people are supported not just with a tenancy but with the wraparound support that they require.

We will keep these things under review. I do not think that anyone can question the commitment that we have made through some of our world-leading homelessness legislation, and we have backed that up with real investment as well.