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EAST LOTHIAN COUNCIL HOMELESSNESS SERVICES RE- INSPECTION REPORT

East Lothian Council has been awarded a ‘fair’ rating for its homelessness services.

This follows a re-inspection in November and December 2007 by inspectors from Communities Scotland, now the Scottish Housing Regulator. It is the first Council re-inspection.

The purpose of re-inspection is to provide an independent external assessment of the effectiveness and progress of the Council’s improvement plan, following the award of a “poor” rating at a previous inspection, and to make recommendations to help further improvement.

East Lothian Council covers an area of approximately 679 sq km which extends from Musselburgh, eastwards to Dunbar and its boundary with the Scottish Borders. It has a population of 92,000 people and owns around 8,000 houses.

Michael Cameron, head of inspection at The Scottish Housing Regulator, said:

“East Lothian Council has a challenging operating context for the delivery of its homelessness services and we welcome the improvements achieved by the Council over the last 3 years. Our inspection team found that East Lothian Council has responded positively to our previous inspection in 2004 and has successfully tackled a number of the issues identified by our report.

It has focused its work on improving services for homeless people and demonstrates strengths in a number of areas, particularly allocating its properties to homeless people, the high levels of sustainability of these lets and its work to prevent homelessness.

The Council is aware that it needs to improve its approach to assessing homeless applicants and the provision of temporary accommodation, including its over reliance on bed and breakfast establishments”

Cabinet Member for Housing and Community Services, Councillor Stuart Currie, said: “This inspection report highlights the challenges that we face dealing with homelessness in our area, but it has identifed a number of positive practices, such as the work to support those at risk of homelessness and prevent it from occurring. It’s especially heartening to see the inspectors acknowledge all of the work that has been put into improving our services since 2004. Through our own processes we have already identified many of the issues that have been highlighted in this report, and have begun to work on the necessary improvements. The recommendations give us additional impetus for change and a useful framework to monitor our progress.”

NOTES TO NEWS EDITORS

1. Inspectors gave the following grade:

2. Full details of the East Lothian Council re-inspection report can be found on the Scottish Housing Regulator website at www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk

3. The Scottish Housing Regulator came into operation on 1 April 2008. It is the successor to Communities Scotland’s Regulation & Inspection Division. As a government agency the Scottish Housing Regulator will have complete operational independence, but will remain accountable to Scottish Ministers, and through them to the Scottish Parliament for the standard of its work. The agency sits within the Justice and Communities Directorate of the Scottish Government and will work within the government’s overall purpose and contribute to its strategic objectives.