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SECTION 1 - PURPOSE OF CONSULTATION

What is this consultation about?

This consultation seeks views on proposed new Regulations made under section 32A of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 and guidance required to support these. Issues upon which we invite comments are set out throughout the paper and consultation response form is at Section 4.

Section 32A of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 enables Scottish Ministers to define circumstances in which accommodation which is not permanent may be provided for unintentionally homeless households in priority need. The purpose of the proposed changes is to:

• Clarify the purpose of the circumstances currently in statute; and
• Introduce a further set of circumstances which would enable local authorities to discharge their duty to unintentionally homeless persons in priority need through provision of a Short Assured Tenancy ( SAT).

Who should respond?

This consultation paper will be of interest to those with responsibility for strategic planning, delivery of and input to homelessness services in each local authority, and local partners working with them. Organisations with an interest in prevention of and tackling homelessness and providing support to homeless households will also have an interest.

Organisations concerned with the private rented housing sector will have an interest in the proposals discussed at paragraph 16 onwards which relate to making greater use of the private rented sector to provide accommodation for homeless households.

Participating in this consultation

We are inviting responses to this consultation by 19 September 2008. Please send your response to:

homelessness@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or

We would be grateful if you would use the form at Section 4 or clearly indicate in your response which questions or parts of the consultation paper you are responding to as this will aid our analysis of the responses received. If you are replying electronically it would be helpful if the email header could read 'Regulations under section 32 - consultation response' and also include your name or that of your organisation if you are replying on behalf of an organisation.

This consultation paper has been distributed to a wide range of stakeholders; a list of those invited to respond is available on request. In addition, we will be organising meetings with landlord organisations, local authorities, groups representing tenants and other interested parties to discuss the proposals in this document. If you wish to receive information about these meetings please contact Carole Barker-Munro at the address above or by email: carole.barker-munro@scotland.gsi.gov.uk.

This consultation, and all other Scottish Government consultation exercises, can be viewed online on the consultation web pages of the Scottish Government website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations. You can telephone Freephone 0800 77 1234 to find out where your nearest public internet access point is.

The Scottish Government now has an email alert system for consultations (SEconsult: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations/seconsult.aspx). This system allows stakeholder individuals and organisations to register and receive a weekly email containing details of all new consultations (including web links). SE consult complements, but in no way replaces, Scottish Government distribution lists, and is designed to allow stakeholders to keep up to date with all Scottish Government consultation activity, and therefore to be alerted at the earliest opportunity to those of most interest. We would encourage you to register.

Handling your response

We need to know how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to be made public. Please complete and return the Respondent Information Form at Annex D of this paper as this will ensure that we treat your response appropriately. If you ask for your response not to be published we will regard it as confidential and treat it accordingly.

All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Government is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and would therefore have to consider any request made to it under the Act for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.

Next steps in the process

Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public (see the attached Respondent Information Form), these will be made available to the public in the Scottish Government Library by 17 October and on the Scottish Government web pages by 24 October. We will check all responses where agreement to publish has been given for any potentially defamatory material before logging them in the library and placing them on the website. You can make arrangements to view responses by contacting the Scottish Government Library on 0131 244 4552. Responses can be copied and sent to you, but a charge may be made for this service.

What happens next?

Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and considered along with any other available evidence to inform the new Regulations. We aim to issue a report on this consultation process and lay the Regulations in the autumn.

Comments and complaints

If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to:

Anna Donald

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