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The Scottish Government already provides funding of £113,000 per year (2017-2020) to the Scottish Traveller Education Programme (STEP) to support the delivery of education to children and young people from travelling cultures. In 2018-19 we awarded STEP additional funding of £275,000 to support and share best practice in delivering education to Gypsy/Traveller families for all ages and stages – from early years to adult learning – and to embed and systematise effective approaches across Scotland.

The Scottish Government is providing an additional £775,000 to strengthen the provision of education to Gypsy/Traveller families over the period 2018-2022. £275,000 of this was awarded to STEP in 2018-19 to support, share and systematise best practice in delivering education to children and young people from travelling cultures. This will pave the way for a further £0.5m from the Child Poverty Delivery Fund which will deliver flexible family education to Gypsy/Traveller families. This is in addition to the £113,000 per year (2017-2020) which we already provide to STEP.

When we published ‘Every Child, Every Chance: Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2018-2022’ we made a commitment to invest £0.5m in flexible family learning with Gypsy/Traveller families over the lifetime of the Plan (2018-2020). This will build on additional funding of £275,000 (2018-20) to STEP to strengthen the delivery of education to children and young people in the Gypsy/Traveller community. This work is underway and – alongside engagement with Gypsy/Traveller communities – will inform how the Child Poverty Delivery Fund money will be spent over the next three years .

The Scottish Government has provided funding for a new Gypsy/Traveller National Development Officer at STEP to help improve educational experiences and outcomes for Gypsy/Travellers. Working closely with the Traveller Education Network, the post holder will support local authorities to test out, learn from and share innovative models of education provision. The National Development Officer took up post on 27 May 2019.

The Scottish Government welcomes the valuable work that Red Cross and COOP are undertaking in tackling these issues. We note the recommendations within the report and will consider these further as we take forward the implementation of ‘A Connected Scotland’ our strategy to tackle social isolation and loneliness and build social connections.

In December 2017 we published the Race Equality Action Plan outlining more than 120 actions we will take over the course of this Parliament to secure better outcomes for ethnic minorities in Scotland. The plan seeks to address some of the factors that may lead to social isolation and loneliness for minority ethnic communities, including poverty, housing, and community cohesion.

Of the cases reported in the outcome category “Not known”, a large proportion are cases where contact has been lost prior to duty discharge. Of the cases reported in S5W-22646, 51% of “not known” outcomes of those with no local connection in 2015-16 had lost contact prior to duty discharge, in 2016-17 this accounted for 64% and in 2017-18 73%.

The Scottish Government is happy to further discuss the “Not known” category with Local Authorities at the next Homelessness Statistics User Group meeting, which is provisionally scheduled for September, to obtain an indication of the feasibility of taking further steps to record and better classify these outcomes where contact has not been lost.

The Scottish House Condition Survey Key Findings Report 2017 estimated that 50% of homes in Scotland have some disrepair to critical elements of the house, equivalent to around 1.2 million homes. The presence of disrepair to critical elements does not mean that a home is not actually wind and watertight, and includes fairly minor and non-urgent disrepairs. The Report estimates that around 58,000 homes suffer some water penetration due to a defect in the building fabric, and that around 7,000 homes are below the Tolerable Standard due to a fabric defect or a defective or missing damp proof course.

Local authorities are required to have a strategy for ensuring that homes which do not meet the Tolerable Standard are closed, demolished or brought up to standard in a reasonable period, and they have broad discretionary powers to assist home owners with work needed to meet the standard. Landlords of both private and social rented housing are required to carry out any work needed to ensure that homes they let are wind and watertight.

Official published statistics for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) show that for the three year period to 31st March 2019, there were a total of 30,749 homes recorded as affordable housing starts. The official statistics can be found using the following link: https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/HSfS/NewBuild/AHSPtables ;

It should be noted that whilst the majority of homes delivered through the AHSP will be new build, the programme also includes rehabilitation projects, off-the-shelf purchases and homes for low-cost home ownership from existing housing stock.

The next set of official statistics in respect of the AHSP are due to be published in September.

The Scottish Government does not collect further information regarding the “other (known)” outcome category.

We plan to consult with users via the Homelessness Statistics User Group, which has a provisional meeting date of September and will explore whether there are any outcomes which are commonly recorded under the “other (known)” category. If this is the case, such outcomes can be added as additional categories to this question. However, there will always be an “other (known)” category, as it is not feasible to include all possible outcomes within the local authority data collection and published statistics.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) completed a diagnostic exercise with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s ESTEEM service (in January 2019) and NHS Highland’s Argyle and Bute Mental Health team (in February 2019). The aim of the exercise was to collect data to inform HIS’s Short Life Working Group on Early Intervention Psychosis (EIP) of the current early intervention service provision in an urban and rural environment.

The diagnostic exercise collected data on the current implementation of available evidence and guidelines, the current levels of demand, referral sources, clinical pathways, workforce, staff competencies (actual and required), and potential future developments that could be supported by a national action plan.

The results have been used to inform our Vision paper, which lays the groundwork for a nationwide improvement in EI Psychosis services in urban, semi-urban and rural settings.