The Scottish Government published an Action Plan in June 2023 to deliver improvements to the Scottish Welfare Fund. The actions committed to are being progressed in conjunction with stakeholders through our Practitioners’ Forum and Statutory Guidance Review Committee.

As well as stakeholders on these forums, officials have met with organisations including Engender to discuss the work that is being progressed on the back of the independent review recommendations and action plan and have discussed clarifying the Scottish Welfare Fund statutory guidance to support marginalised women.

In the Ending Destitution Together strategy, published in 2021, the strategy is clear that there are limits on the action that can be taken by the Scottish Government to support women with the condition of No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF). This is because immigration and nationality, including the NRPF policy, are reserved to the UK Parliament. There is an ask of the UK Government to remove the Scottish Welfare Fund from the list of restricted public funds set out under paragraph 6 of the immigration rules. If successful, this would enable Crisis and Community Care Grants to be provided from the Scottish Welfare Fund to people subject to NRPF, where they are eligible, on the same basis as anyone else.

We are proud that we have the Scottish Welfare Fund providing emergency support and a lifeline to people in need, through Crisis Grants to help meet immediate short-term needs arising from exceptional circumstances and Community Care Grants to help eligible people establish or maintain a home. We have protected investment in the fund of £41 million this year.

The Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund (SHNZHF) launched in August 2020 and provides capital funding to social landlords to retrofit their existing housing stock by installing clean heat and improving their energy efficiency. Projects are eligible for up to 60% of the capital costs of clean heating systems and 50% of energy efficiency measures.

This year the SHNZHF is investing approximately £16.8m in 19 projects. To date, the fund has awarded approximately £75.3 million to 80 projects across Scotland for the installation of net zero measures to existing social rented homes.

The date set for the next funding checkpoint of the SHNZHF has not yet been set. When set it will be communicated to stakeholders through the fund website and stakeholder channels.

Social Landlords interested in developing heat networks can also access Scotland’s Heat Network Fund which makes capital funding available for the construction of new heat networks in addition to the decarbonisation and expansion of existing heat networks.

Our Area Based Schemes target areas with high levels of fuel poverty and enable improvements projects to go ahead in mixed tenure blocks benefiting some social tenants. Since 2013 we have invested over £600 million in area based schemes. This has helped around 40,000 social tenants and their neighbours to benefit from net zero measures and warmer homes that are less expensive to heat.

Scotland’s National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET) is a ten-year strategy, and we stand by its vision to grow a sustainable and inclusive wellbeing economy. Two and a half years into that ten-year strategy, significant progress has already been made in driving us towards that vision of a fairer, greener wellbeing economy.

Through NSET we have established a Centre of Expertise in Equality and Human Rights, which is embedding equality and human rights in our economic policy development. We are committed to addressing the range of labour market barriers, including intersectional barriers, experienced by women that lead them to be paid less on average than men. In line with NSET’s ambition to tackle structural inequalities, we are supporting women furthest from the labour market through delivery of our person-centered employability support. Through our Fair Work approach, we are supporting the creation of good quality, well-paid and flexible jobs to support women to raise their income levels and progress in the workplace. Further, our work to tackle economic inactivity seeks to support more people to enter, remain and progress in employment. Women are more likely to be economically inactive than men and the main reason for inactivity for both women and men is long term sickness, therefore we have focussed our efforts on addressing this challenge.

Since publishing NSET we recognise that much has changed – fiscally, politically and internationally. Our focus is therefore now on accelerating delivery of NSET through our Programme for Government by prioritising actions that are affordable, deliverable and will have the greatest impact on the Government’s four priorities of eradicating child poverty, growing the economy, tackling the climate emergency, and delivering high quality and sustainable public services.

Scottish building regulations already set requirements for new buildings and new building work, including entertainment venues, that are intended to provide safe, unassisted and convenient access to and within buildings. However, building regulations are not applied retrospectively to existing buildings.

Attention should be drawn to the Scottish Government's response to S6W-28573 on 12 August 2024 noting that the Scottish Government expects building owners and managers to be familiar with their duties under equalities legislation and where necessary make reasonable adjustments following the relevant codes of practice published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government recognises the need to increase the supply of affordable homes, including larger properties suitable for households with children. The Scottish Government has allocated additional capital of £40 million in each of the next two financial years to support acquisitions and, where appropriate, to help bring long term empty social homes back into use. This builds on the success of last year’s National Acquisition Programme, which invested more than £83 million in 2023-24 and helped deliver almost 1,500 affordable homes. This additional £40 million takes our total investment in affordable housing to almost £600 million in 2024-25.

The Scottish Government’s ambition is to prevent homelessness, where possible, to avoid the need for temporary accommodation. We understand, however, that there is a need for more suitable temporary accommodation, which would include accommodation suitable for the needs of women with children.

The Scottish Government has taken action to increase the supply of suitable accommodation, in particular, larger properties suitable for households with children. Scottish Government investment of more than £83 million in our National Acquisition Programme in 2023-24 delivered almost 1,500 affordable homes. This assisted local authorities’ efforts to ensure households with children who have been living in temporary accommodation for longer periods are supported into suitable settled housing.

The Scottish Government has allocated additional capital of £40 million to the Affordable Housing Supply Programme in each of the next two financial years. As women make up the majority (74%) of single parent households assessed as homeless, this will benefit them most.

In our engagement with local authorities to date, we have been clear that increasing the supply of social housing suitable for families is needed to reduce the number of children in temporary accommodation, a key Scottish Government objective in tackling child poverty.

This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government fully recognises the role of Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) in prevention and the importance of tenancy sustainment and housing support. That is why we are supporting this work in a variety of ways.

The Scottish Government continues to provide funding to help RSLs deliver adaptations for older and disabled people. The Adaptations Programme budget for 2024-25 is £8.245 million. Individual funding awards have now been issued to RSLs to support the delivery of housing adaptations for disabled tenants. My officials are in contact with RSLs directly to support them through this process.

Through our Investing in Communities Fund, we are providing £3,671,900 between 2023-26 to 16 RSLs to support the delivery of projects that include activities such as family support, food insecurity support, training and skills development and financial capability support.

Welfare and Debt advice services are critical for supporting communities across Scotland. That is why in 2024-25 the Scottish Government has allocated £12 million to support welfare, debt and income maximisation advice services. This investment includes support for the Advice in Accessible Settings Fund, which delivers advice within or alongside a range of other services. This year the fund is supporting a wide range of organisations, including 20 RSLs, to provide advice to their tenants and clients.

Housing support enables tenants to live as independently as possible in their communities and is a key part of the work delivered by RSLs. These services are commissioned locally through Health and Social Care Partnerships and Local Authorities, as they are best placed to assess and respond to local needs.

We are also widening responsibility for homelessness prevention through the Housing (Scotland) Bill. Services such as tenancy sustainment, welfare rights and housing support are already key features of the work RSLs do with their tenants. We want to build on this so there is a consistent, robust and sector wide approach across Scotland.

Our code of guidance on homelessness is designed to give the best possible support to frontline practitioners in their work to prevent homelessness. It sets out the importance of staff training for homelessness officers, particularly in the requirements of the homelessness legislation, the code of guidance, anti-discrimination legislation and the relevant local authority's housing and homelessness policies.

More recently we have supported the development of a housing options training toolkit. The toolkit is a learning and development resource platform for housing officers and frontline staff to aid them in providing housing options advice, including to people experiencing domestic abuse.

Additionally, as part of the homelessness prevention duties within the Housing (Scotland) Bill, we will work with stakeholders and delivery partners to identify the training and guidance required to support relevant bodies to meet their new obligations.

The previous UK Government’s No Recourse to Public Funds policy prevents local and national government in Scotland from being able to provide appropriate, safe housing and accommodation solutions for women who have restricted immigration status. It is not acceptable that people, including women are fleeing domestic abuse, face destitution or are forced to remain in unsafe conditions because of their immigration status. Scottish Ministers raised this issue repeatedly with the previous UK Government and will continue to engage with the new UK Government to urge change to these policy conditions.

The Scottish Government and COSLA continue to work together to deliver the vision and principles of Ending Destitution Together, to improve access to support and services for people who are subject to UK Government immigration policies, as far as is possible within devolved powers. During 2024-25, the Scottish Government provided £440,000 to Fair Way Scotland to enable the increased capacity of case workers across Scotland, supporting those who are risk of, or experiencing homelessness and destitution. This investment will help people exercise their rights to eligible public funds and access emergency cash support.