Jim Eadie

Answer · Michael Matheson · 16 Mar 2016

This is a matter for Police Scotland.

Answer · Michael Matheson · 16 Mar 2016

This is a matter for Police Scotland.

Answer · Michael Matheson · 18 Mar 2016

The Scottish Government recognises the serious impact housebreaking has on its victims.
The Scottish Government is committed to protecting and supporting frontline services and local community policing across the whole of Scotland - supported by this Government's continued commitment to 1,000 additional officers and our ambitious Building Safer Communities Programme which seeks to reduce the number of victims of crime in Scotland by 250,000 by 2017-18.
We are working closely with Police Scotland, councils and other national partners to make Scotland safer and stronger, the evidence of which can be seen in a continued reduction in recorded crime, down by more than a quarter since 2007.

Answer · Michael Matheson · 16 Mar 2016

This is an operational matter for Police Scotland. However, I understand that Police Scotland continues to treat housebreaking as a priority.

Answer · Margaret Burgess · 17 Mar 2016

The HL2 dataset gives the snapshot number of households in temporary accommodation at the end of each quarter.
Information on the number of households, broken down by local authority and type of temporary accommodation, on the last day of each quarter is available in table 4 of the following worksheet: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0049/00492173.xls.
Information on individual temporary accommodation placements is not currently held centrally. However, from 1 April 2016, local authorities will begin recording this information via the HL3 return.
Scottish Government homelessness statistics are available at:
www.gov.scot/homelessstats.

Answer · Margaret Burgess · 17 Mar 2016

The Minister for Housing and Welfare wrote to all local authorities in September 2015, about the issue of households containing children and pregnant women being placed in B&B accommodation.
The letter highlighted that the use of B&B accommodation for these households should only be in exceptional circumstances and for a very short period of time. Local authority responses were encouraging with all clear of the importance attached to minimising or eradicating use of B&B for these households.

Answer · Margaret Burgess · 11 Mar 2016

Scotland has strong housing rights for homeless households with all those assessed as being unintentionally homeless by local authorities entitled to settled accommodation.
The Scottish Government is increasing affordable housing supply to expand settled accommodation options for households. We are investing over £1.7 billion to deliver 30,000 affordable homes and we have now met and exceeded the current target, and within that the constituent parts – 20,000 social homes including 5,000 council homes. We have also increased the grant funding available for next year by over £90 million, as the first stage in our determination to boost housing supply still further.
We are committed to continual improvement and consistency in the delivery of the housing options approach with guidance published on 2 March 2016. A training toolkit is being developed to assist in delivering housing options and the Scottish Government recently announced continued funding of £150,000 to the five Housing Options Hubs for 2016-17.