Improving Homelessness Services and Service User Involvement

The Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 placed a new duty on councils to assess homelessness in their areas and to provide services to support homeless people. Research was undertaken during 2002, which included consultation with staff delivering services to homeless people and with a range of service users. The consultation was conducted in the form of a series of Focus Group discussions.

To help us develop service standards the Council appointed a consultant to conduct a sample survey amongst a cross section of people, including those who were:

• awaiting the outcome of an application made under homelessness legislation and are residing in the community;

• currently residing within our temporary accommodation units or dispersed flats;

• recently housed following a period of homelessness.

Information gathered from this process will be used to develop appropriate service standards and to inform the development of service user involvement, including the establishment of a Service User Forum.

The Council is committed to providing good quality homelessness services; appropriate agreed standards, which can be published, and a measurable and transparent monitoring and review framework. The aims of the project are to:

• provide the Council with a current assessment of service user views;

• inform the continuous development and improvement of its Homelessness Strategy and service standards;

• encourage and facilitate the involvement of service users in the development of service standards.

The full report is available to download by clicking on the relevant link in the "Download" box on the right-hand side of the screen.