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I would be happy to write to the committee after the summer recess and reflect on the process. We have correspondence from stakeholders on that. Most of the consideration that will take place over the summer will be on the statutory guidance, but there will be a lot on implementation, too. Again, we will be guided by what stakeholders say to us about that.

Do you mean information about the progress that is being made by the legislation?

I will bring in Pamela McBride to talk about the discussions that have been held on a daily basis at the official level. At the ministerial level, that point has been discussed in the ministerial oversight group and I have had discussions about it with Crisis, the Cyrenians and other groups. I have also raised preparations for the prevention duties in discussions with local authorities and stakeholders. That is something that I ask about when I meet every local authority and the stakeholders. This summer, we have a designated programme of stakeholder engagement to talk about those issues now that the bill has now been introduced.

Convener, I note that Kevin Stewart mentioned the minutes of the ministerial group. I am happy to provide those to the committee if you would like to see them.

You are right. It is about a floor rather than a ceiling, and we should look to do the best that we can. The prevention review group informed the shape of the bill. That is important. Stakeholder engagement during the consultation process is also incredibly important. The Government is not coming in and saying, “This is what we should do.” Co-production is an important part of the bill. When we talked about the recommendations of the prevention review group with Crisis, Cyrenians and others, they said that co-production is important to them. It is also important to me. As we develop the guidance, training and the culture—which Kevin Stewart mentioned—it has to be about co-production.

I am happy to come back to the committee at any stage to talk about the bill as it proceeds, or to talk more generally as we develop it and it moves into legislation. However, co-production is important as we develop it. An example of that co-production is that the ending homelessness together group was part of the discussions. The prevention duties are also all about co-production. The feedback that the committee has received is also feeding back to us, so we will make sure that we pick that up as we move forward.

That is a good point. That has been mentioned in my discussions, as well. The question was specifically about women and girls, but I recognise that domestic abuse is not just about women and girls; men are involved, as well. I apologise if that did not come across, but I was answering a specific question. You are right, and I have had similar discussions to yours. You have made a really important point.

I come back to Mr Doris’s point about asylum. I had a meeting last week with Mears and Glasgow City Council about how we can make sure that the process is as effective as possible. I am taking a few points from that forward, and I am happy to discuss those with your colleagues, but it is very high on my agenda.

Health and social care services were one of the main points that other groups raised, and health boards and integration joint boards are part of that. Culture change is one of the most important things that need to be embedded. Sometimes there are blockages in how issues are picked up. That issue was raised in most of the discussions that I have had around the country. It needs discussion, and over the summer I will be discussing how health boards and IJBs make sure that they feed into that process. It could impact on, for example, mental health and substance abuse. There has to be flow-through.

I have seen that, in some parts of the country, the process is not as effective as it could be, which is why we are bringing in the ask and act duty as part of the bill. However, the process also needs culture change, and that is a key piece of work for me over the summer. We will be working with the health boards and IJBs on what the process looks like and how we make sure that we are getting that flow-through. The legislation is one part, but how we change the culture is incredibly important.

Having the health boards and IJBs involved is probably the best avenue to discuss that. How it flows down will depend—for example, Glasgow’s approach of involving the health and social care partnership is different from the approaches in Edinburgh and Dundee. It is about trying to include local experience and knowledge in how we embed that.

That is one of the bodies that were talked about before. Establishing a protocol was mentioned and that is one of the bodies that we would engage with on that. That is important, because there are different examples of where Social Security Scotland would be involved.

Another key point is that we talked about what duties there will be in the bill. If we are talking about statutory guidance and training, one of the key things is to talk about how we involve Social Security Scotland and other groups. We will be working and focusing on that with stakeholders. Part of the discussions over the summer will be about exactly what is required in the statutory guidance and training for some of those bodies. Again, we will be tightening that up as we go through the process over the summer and continue through the bill process.

I have engaged with Shelter on that particular point and there are a number of issues. This goes back to the first question in that this is not an either/or situation—for example with regard to how we look at the situation with temporary accommodation or how we increase housing supply. That is really important. I made a statement last week, and I will be meeting the organisations that made the co-ordinated statement—we have asked for a meeting with them—to pick up those particular issues.

That is one separate issue, but, for me, the prevention duty is as important. We need to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. We already have guidance that says that we will deal with people who are at risk of becoming homeless within two months. You will know, given your experience, that two months is not a long time in which to deal with such a case. Changing that duty to apply to those who are at risk of becoming homeless within six months is incredibly important, because that provides time to deal with cases.

We also talked about the co-ordinated role. Mr Doris talked about the complex cases and what we can do to tighten up that aspect of the system. Therefore, there is the ask and act duty.

My experience as a councillor was that what happened sometimes depended on who the housing officer was and how much that culture was embedded in the local authority. We cannot have that situation, which is why the statutory guidance and training will make sure that the matter is picked up by local authorities. We have worked on that very closely with the likes of COSLA. That must flow through all the organisations involved—the police, health boards and so on. We need to ensure that that flows all the way through so that we are giving people that support at as early an opportunity as possible and ensuring that everybody who is involved in that process is aware of what their duties are.

As I said, some of that will come back to legislation, but I keep coming back to the point that Mr Stewart made, which is that it also involves culture. It is important to ensure that statutory guidance and training are embedded in all organisations.

I would not agree that the homelessness system is broken. Could we be doing better? Of course we could, which is why we are bringing in legislation to prevent homelessness in the first place. We then have to tackle issues that have been mentioned about temporary accommodation, increasing housing supply and so on.

The issue of two months versus six months is one of the key things that the prevention review group talked about, based on its members’ experience, which was important. These cases are never just going to be about two months or six months, so there will of course always be a degree of flexibility. Some cases are more complex than others. The provision on six months is obviously trying to give guidance, but we know that cases do not just fall into two months or six months. There will always be an element of flexibility.