HC Deb 03 July 1991 vol 194 cc167-8W
Mr. McMaster

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much the Scottish Office currently spends to tackle homelessness in Scotland; how many applicants were permanently housed last year; and if he will make a statement.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton

The statutory responsibility for assisting homeless people lies with local authorities.

Housing capital allocation issued to local authorities for 1991–92 are £452.504 million for housing revenue account expenditure and £111.097 million for non-housing revenue account expenditure, and include £3.5 million for homelessness projects in eight local authorities. Apart from the £3.5 million, the resources are not specifically identified to deal with homelessness, but local authorities may use general allocations for homelessness where this is seen as a local priority.

Almost all of Scottish Homes planned capital programme for 1991–92 of £312 million will contribute in some way to tackling homelessness; and in particular, over the past two years Scottish Homes has funded more than 1,000 units which specifically cater for the homeless.

In addition, revenue exxpenditure of £1.425 million has been made available through housing support grant to fund the estimated deficits on the provison of hostels by local authority housing departments.

Other funding has been made available as follows: revenue grant assistance of £47,568 has been made available by my right hon. Friend to the Scottish Council for the Single Homeless; a grant of £50,000 has been made to the Centre for Housing Research at Glasgow University for on-going research into the prevention and management of homelessness; a total of £50,000 for each of the financial years 1991–92 to 1993–94 has been made available for the establishment of projects by voluntary organisations for single roofless young people; funding of some £305,000 capital and £625,000 revenue was provided under the urban programme for homelessness related projects in 1990–91.

In 1989–90, the last year for which figures are available, 7,525 applicants who were assessed as homeless were found permanent accommodation and 4,681 of those assessed as potentially homeless.