Ending homelessness together: annual report to the Scottish Parliament, December 2025

Progress against actions to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place

6. Ensure the recommendations of the task and finish group on homelessness prevention inform the drafting and delivery of the new homelessness prevention legislation

7. Increase focus on tenancy sustainment and establish mechanisms to avoid evictions into homelessness

8. Push the UK Government to reverse its welfare policies that put people at risk of homelessness

9. Consider more streamlined application processes for discretionary housing payments and use information sharing powers to target people who are most in need of discretionary housing payments

10. Improve affordability in the private rented sector

11. Implement and review prevention pathways for groups at particular risk, including for women experiencing domestic abuse

• Scottish Government amendments to the homelessness prevention provisions in the Housing (Scotland) Bill – now an Act of the Scottish Parliament – aimed to provide clarity on the bodies affected and the meaning of ‘ask and act’ and were strongly informed by the recommendations of the task and finish group on homelessness prevention.
• One of the task and finish group’s main messages was that cross-sector culture change and leadership is required so that homelessness prevention is seen as everyone’s business. The Scottish Government has invested £4 million in homelessness prevention pilots in 2025-26 to explore what ask and act means in practice. The pilots will allow us to test, promote and scale up innovative approaches to help people stay in their homes. Learning from the pilots will inform regulations and guidance for new duties. Fifteen pilot projects were awarded funding in November 2025 and run until December 2026.
• In May 2025, the Scottish Government launched a £1 million fund for social landlords, third sector organisations and other community partners to support tenancy sustainment. Seven projects have been awarded funding to help tenants remain in their homes. This funding is on top of £30.5 million made available to local authorities in 2025-26 for their work to prevent homelessness.
• The Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland held its annual housing awards ceremony in November 2025. The awards recognise the dedicated professionals who deliver vital housing services, including through innovative approaches to preventing homelessness. Winners included Riverside Scotland for its housing first for families service and Berwickshire Housing Association for the excellent service it provides to tenants.
• We continue to support councils to deliver housing options services, which can help prevent homelessness. The annual statistics on housing options services in Scotland were published on 25 November 2025.
• The Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 will deliver improved housing outcomes for tenants in the rented sector. Changes include a long-term system of rent control that will help stabilise rents and stronger penalties for unlawful eviction and wrongful termination. There will also be new duties on the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Housing and Property Chamber) and the courts to consider a delay to the enforcement of an eviction, except in limited circumstances, where an order or decree is granted. This aims to reduce the negative impact of the timing of an eviction.
• To mitigate the impact of UK government welfare policies, we are making over £100 million available to local authorities to spend on discretionary housing payments (DHPs). DHPs assist households affected by the bedroom tax and the benefit cap, including many children, and they help renters whose benefits are restricted because of local housing allowance (LHA) rates.
• The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in October 2025 to set out Scottish Government priorities for the UK government’s autumn budget, and urged the Chancellor to reverse the bedroom tax and benefit cap and address shortfalls in LHA rates.
• We reviewed local authorities’ DHP application processes during summer 2025. A number of recommendations were shared with members of the DHP practitioners’ forum to help streamline application processes, improve accessibility and boost take-up by struggling households.
• The expert group on housing affordability set up by the Scottish Government to develop a shared understanding of housing affordability has concluded its work and submitted its final report. Ministers are now considering the findings.
• Following the successful £500,000 fund to leave pilot in 2023-24, we are launching a new £1.5 million national fund to leave in the coming months. Part of the housing emergency action plan, this will help up to 1,800 women and children experiencing domestic abuse to leave an abusive relationship.
• We are making progress with implementing part 2 of the Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021. These provisions will help a woman experiencing domestic abuse to remain in her home as they enable social landlords to end the perpetrator’s interest in a joint tenancy. We are aiming to lay the secondary legislation required to bring part 2 of the Act into force in December 2025.
• The Housing (Scotland) Act will require social landlords to develop and implement a policy to support tenants at risk of homelessness due to domestic abuse.
• The Scottish Government has also committed as part of the new legislation to develop guidance for landlords in the private rented sector on supporting tenants experiencing domestic abuse and to strengthen existing guidance on pre-action protocols for rent arrears.
• We have recently established a subgroup of the Homelessness Prevention and Strategy Group to ensure momentum is maintained with implementation of the recommendations in the care leavers’ housing pathway.