Supported Housing Task and Finish Group Main Report

7. Recommendations

The overall goal is to provide high-quality supported housing as a settled housing option for the small number of people who don’t want or can’t sustain mainstream housing. And to break down ‘care group’ silos and stigma in how this is provided at a local level, underpinned by a consistent approach to assessing support needs and fair funding models that enable access to employment and opportunity.

The future role of supported housing as a response to homelessness in Scotland can be summarised as:

• A settled, not temporary housing option for a small number of people who don’t want or haven’t sustained a mainstream housing option.
• Maximising security of tenure, toward models that use Scottish Secure Tenancies or Private Residential Tenancies.
• Adequate capital and revenue funding models to mitigate the ‘benefit trap’ created by high rents that prevent people’s access to employment or learning opportunities.
• Jointly planned and commissioned by strategic housing authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships, with the local authority retaining overall responsibility for people who enter the homelessness system.
• Located in the community with routes to services from all parts of housing, health and social care – breaking the legacy of ‘homeless’ supported housing.
• Be self-contained homes with own bathrooms and cooking facilities, with an element of common and/or office space with easy access to support on-site or nearby.

This represents a new direction of travel that will need changes to the way that supported housing is commissioned, and a transformative programme that enables social landlords to remodel or reprovision existing models of supported housing.

This direction of travel will be challenged by the current over reliance on rent to contribute to the overall housing related costs of supported housing services. Complex DWP funding rules also create an acute ‘benefit trap,’ a major disincentive to employment or learning opportunities and a barrier to residential rehabilitation services.

But these challenges are not insurmountable.

The task and finish group recommends the following steps are taken to bring supported housing more confidently into the range of housing options for people affected by homelessness in Scotland:

7.1 For Scottish Government

• Adopt a policy that consolidates the role and aspirations for supported housing as defined in section 6 of this report.
• Review where the Affordable Housing Supply Programme can create opportunities for capital funding to be reinvested in the reprovisioning or refurbishment of existing supported housing and supplement this scope with a grant programme. Dedicated capital funding will be needed to make this work.
• Enable the sufficient funding levels to support new models of supported housing as a settled housing option for previously homeless households at a local level. This will need to include a discretionary fund to ensure that people who want to ‘earn or learn’ are not prevented by the funding mechanisms from doing so anymore.
• Launch and support a dynamic, joint leadership network for HSCP chief officers, local authority chief housing officers and chief executives and housing association chief executives. We need collective leadership for integrated planning and commissioning around core elements of housing, health and social care – including supported housing, prevention duties, Housing First, complex care and community living.
• Reclassify supported housing as a settled housing option into which a local authority can discharge their homeless duty in specific circumstances and providing it meets specific standards.
• The local strategic assessment of housing support needs introduced in the Housing (Scotland) Bill should be coproduced with people with direct experience of using health and social care services and with practitioners working in direct support and advice roles in housing associations and across the third and independent sectors.
• Develop a standardised approach to identifying support needs at the person-level which corresponds with the strategic tool at the local area level. This will greatly assist a strategic assessment of housing support needs to be undertaken routinely.
• The new guidance for local authorities and partners to undertake a strategic assessment of housing support needs in their area should include the 2-5% guide range for supported housing recommended in this report.
• Use the fuller framework of the proposals for a National Care Service to examine and to remove the limitations that current funding arrangements for supported housing place on people’s lives and aspirations.
• Engage with an influence the DWPs current review of Housing Benefit regulations and supported housing.

7.2 For Local Authorities and Health & Social Care Partnerships

• Adopt a standardised approach to identifying support needs at the person-level which corresponds with a strategic tool at the local area level. This should include the 2-5% guide range for supported housing described in this report.
• A joint strategic plan for supported housing between local authority housing and homelessness teams and HSCPs. This should bridge RRTP and HSCP strategic and delivery plans, be based on a local strategic assessment of supports needs and involve delivery partners in housing associations and third and independent sectors. Plans should embrace innovation in joint planning, commissioning and delivery.
• Adopt a progressive funding model of affordable rent to cover housing related costs alongside adequate funding through the general local authority fund, housing support and HSCP funding to cover care and support costs. The aim of this is to reduce the reliance on high rents to fund supported housing.
• Adopt ethical commissioning and procurement practices and longer-term contracts with delivery partners in housing associations and across the third and independent sectors. This should sustain a skilled and resilient workforce and enable a flexible approach which recognises that individual support needs may fluctuate over time.

7.3 For Housing and Support Providers

• Consider the extent to which what is currently provided meets the future role of supported housing described in section 6.2 of this report and what could be remodelled or reprovisioned to be structured around a human rights approach.
• Work with the local authority and HSCP on an integrated plan for supported housing in the area, contributing to a strategic assessment of housing support needs and assessment of supported housing provision.
• Safeguarding is a significant factor for all forms of shared or congregate housing; balancing safety with autonomy and choice is inherently challenging in communal settings, but aspiring to do this well must be a core component.

7.4 Common themes

This report is the final in a suite of four thematic reports commissioned by the Scottish Government and COSLA Homelessness Prevention and Strategy Group. It follows the temporary accommodation group in March 2023 [ref 1], the prevention group in August 2023 [ref 2] and the measuring impact group in December 2023 [ref 3].

As such, the supported housing task and finish group took the opportunity to highlight the common themes and priorities observed across the work of all four groups. We did so because the work to prevent and resolve homelessness is mutually reinforcing – when we are competent in one key part of the system, it has a positive impact elsewhere. For example, adequate housing supply will make it easier to discharge prevention duties, reduce the reliance on temporary housing and enable us to target supported housing more accurately.

The common factors that can help to prevent homelessness, reduce temporary accommodation, align supported housing and monitor impact on homelessness are:

• That more social and affordable housing is central to all efforts to prevent, resolve and monitor impact on homelessness adequately.
• That the transition to Rapid Rehousing is not yet off the starting blocks and there is a need to review and weight funding frameworks for local authority homelessness services.
• Greater collaboration between local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships is needed. Specifically, Housing Contribution Statements should detail what care and support provisions are the responsibility of HSCPs and what are the responsibility of local authority housing teams.
• We can better use evidence and data to inform funding decisions. And we need to improve data on support needs – individual and local strategic assessment.
• The role of the regulators are key to improvement in homelessness services, specifically the Scottish Housing Regulator and Care Inspectorate.
• UK Government welfare benefit policy impacts on homelessness in Scotland.