Homelessness in Scotland: 2024-25

A note on interpreting the figures

It is not possible to make direct links within a reporting year for the different stages of the homelessness process as different households will be at a different stage at different times.

That is, not all applications made in 2024-25 will have an assessment or temporary accommodation placement that year. Similarly, some assessments made in 2024-25 will relate to applications received prior to this; and some temporary placements in 2024-25 will relate to household applications and assessments prior to this also. Furthermore, there will be households who entered and exited temporary accommodation within the same reporting year, and therefore will not appear in the end of year snapshot of households in temporary accommodation.

To also note:

• it is possible for households to make an application and/or be assessed more than once in the same year.
• not all households assessed as homeless enter temporary accommodation.

The term ‘homeless households’ is used throughout the publication to denote households who have been assessed as (unintentionally or intentionally) homeless or threatened with homelessness.

East Dunbartonshire

East Dunbartonshire have recently updated management information systems which has led to errors with their homelessness data submissions for 2024-25. There are between 30 and 95 cases missing for applications, assessments and closed cases within East Dunbartonshire. Nationally, it is estimated this has resulted in undercounts between 0.1 and 0.3 percentage points. There has been a subsequent increase in the number of open cases, estimated at 0.2% nationally.

Headline temporary accommodation figures relating to number of households and children in temporary accommodation have been confirmed as correct.

East Dunbartonshire have been excluded from local authority level commentary where figures are known to be affected.

Work is on-going with East Dunbartonshire to resolve these issues as quickly as possible. It is anticipared that revised estimates for 2024-25 will be published with the next release of homelessness statistics, due in February 2026.

Impact of Ukrainian displaced people

There has been limited impact on the national increase in homelessness applications from Ukrainian displaced households. Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, there were 335 applications from Ukrainian displaced households – 0.8% of the national total. One-third of these were in Edinburgh, accounting for 115 households, which was a notable increase from 30 in 2023-24. Conversely, Glasgow experienced a decrease from 115 to 40 over the same period. Data relating to Ukrainian displaced households has been made available in a separate workbook available on our supporting documents page.

Impact of changes to local connection legislation

Of the 34,067 households that were assesed as homeless in 2024-25, 30,905 (91%) had a local connection to the local authority where they applied, 1,225 (4%) had a local connection to another (Scottish) local authority only and 1,935 (6%) had no known connection to any local authority in Scotland.  

The propotion with only a connection to another (Scottish) local authority is slightly higher than the last few years (between 2% and 3%), although still a relatively small proportion overall.

Temporary accommodation data sources

Local authorities provide two sets of temporary accommodation data:

1. aggregate snapshot information as at the end of the quarter, available since 2002
2. placement level information, provided since 2016.

The snapshot data is used to report headline temporary accommodation figures (i.e. households, households with children and number of children as at 31 March). The placement level information is used to provide greater detail and context around the use of temporary accommodation (e.g. number of placements, length of time).

The plan is to discontinue the snapshot collection given the richer placement level data. However, this has been difficult due to:

• figures between the two sources not matching (placement level returns are higher by 6%); and
• the placement level information not containing information on children within the placements.

New questions were introduced into the placement level collection in 2019 and this data has been provided by all 32 local authorities. This is subject to on-going quality assurance. New data relating to the individual placement return has been made available in a separate workbook on our supporting documents page.

Stock transfer authorities.

For six local authorities – Argyll & Bute, Dumfries & Galloway, Eilean Siar, Glasgow, Inverclyde, and Scottish Borders – stock was transferred from local authority control to housing associations between 2003 and 2007. This should be borne in mind when interpreting figures at local authority level, particularly for outcomes by accommodation type.