Monitoring HomelessnessPrevention
Duncan Gray & Dr. Andrew Waugh
14.03.2012
Purpose
•To discuss and get your reactions to:-
a) The need to gather statistical data on housingoptions at national level.
b) Options for doing this and our preferredapproach.
•Is the proposed approach:-
–Sensible?
–Feasible in a reasonable timescale?
•To get your advice on proposed nextsteps.
Outline: Our views on
•Why monitor homelessness prevention?
•What information should be collected?
•How would it be implemented?
•Questions and discussion.
–Feel free to interrupt as we go.
Why?
Why?: Information needs atdifferent levels/ stages
Within team
–Case management.
–Service management.
Within council
–Strategic planning: Housing Need and DemandAssessments.
–Senior management, members and public.
National and Parliament
–Scottish Housing Regulator.
–Statistical publication and reporting.
Why national level information?
•Key priority identified by most at stats usergroup.
•Standard set of basic statistical informationuseful for:-
–Regulator/ self assessment/ risk based assessment.
–Sharing information about what works and why?
•Discharges public accountability for operation ofpolicy:-
–Parliament/ public/ voluntary bodies.
•Social landlords work together to ensure that:
–people looking for housing get information that helps them makeinformed choices and decisions about the range of housingoptions available to them
–tenants and people on housing lists can review their housingoptions.
•Social landlords ensure that:
–people at risk of losing their homes get advice on preventinghomelessness.
What?
What? Hierarchy of needs
•Everything starts with case management.
–Basic detail needed to manage each case.
–Supplementary detail to give context.
•At more strategic levels within the counciland nationally.
–Standard, regular summaries to track andreport progress.
–The facility to drill down to explore/ explainchanges in trend and odd patterns.
Sorts of strategic questions
•What prevention/ option actions are mosteffective for which groups?
•How can we assess and respond to an externalshock. [e.g. HB changes]
•What is driving the reduction in homelessapplications? [response to gate keepingconcerns.]
•What are the main characteristics of affordablehousing need? [Impact on LHS/ HNDA].
What to collect: Our thoughts
•Basic Demographic Information
–Number of adults and children
–Age of Head of Household
–Ethnicity and other equalities groups?
•Circumstances surrounding the approach
•Local Authority Action or Actions
•Outcomes
–Homeless Application
–Tenancy/ Returned to previous accommodation, etc…
How?
How: Possibilities
•Options include.
–a) Summary information similar to English‘Homelessness prevention and relief statistics’?
–b) Electronic data capture at case level.
•i) Extend the HL1 to cover all housing optionscases.
•ii) Separate data capture for housing optionscases.
Summary information (HL2 style)
•For
–Not much cost to Scottish Government.
•Against
–Cost to councils in assembling the information fromyour systems.
–Consistency/ comparability of data.
–Can’t support further analysis, e.g. for Regulator..
–Won’t answer the basic question of who is benefitingand in what ways. [Unless we ask for lots of tables.]
Case based.
•For
–No costs to councils in assembling the data.
–Better able to maintain consistency/ comparability.
–Supports further analysis.
–Identifies who benefits from what interventions.
•Against
–Initial set up effort/ cost. Easiest for councils at theearliest stage of implementing case managementsystems. [What is current position?]
–Effort in correcting errors.
Extend the HL1?
–HL1 is about the operation of the homelessnesslegislation.
–Bringing all of housing options/ prevention in to thesame system would cloud the distinction.
Homelessness
Prevention Work
OtherOutcomes
Outline of our preferred approach
Simple case based data capture based onoutcomes.
–Quarterly (or continuously).
–1 record for each case where there is anoutcome in that quarter.
–No attempt to link cases over time. [Unlesssustainability of outcomes/ repeats is seen as an issue.]
–Capture basic information about household/circumstances/ housing options actions/outcome.
Things to be decided (1)
•Should we gather and publish nationallevel statistics on housing options?
•Summary or case based?
•If summary: How much detail in summarytable(s).
•If case based: What electronic datacapture method(s) to use?
Things to be decided (2)
•What constitutes an outcome?
–Only cases where a need has been resolved; orshould ‘advice only’ cases be included?
•How should we classify housing options actions?
•How should we classify existing circumstances/perceived housing need of those assisted?
•What demographic detail is needed?
–Age/ sex/ HH type/ Equalities categories.
Next steps?
•Depending on today’s discussion:-
–Update paper to housing statistics user/provider group in April.
–Get the Minister’s and CoSLA (ALACHO?)views.
–Possible paper to 2012 Steering Group.
The End
•www.scotland.gov.uk/homelessstats